CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 Gift of 
 Samuel B. Bird '21 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 5006.065 1888 
 
 The ordeal of Richard Feverel.A history 
 
 3 1924 013 523 976 
 

The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013523976 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 OF 
 
 RICHARD FEVBREL 
 
GEORGE MEREDITH'S WORKS. 
 
 Each Nood mill be complete in One Volume, 2>rloe Cs. 
 
 DIANA OF THE CROSSWATS. 
 
 EVAN HARRINGTON. 
 
 THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND. 
 
 SANDRA BELLONI, orisinally Emilia in England. 
 
 VITTORIA. 
 
 RHODA FLEMING. 
 
 BE AUCH AMP'S CAREER. 
 
 THE EGOIST. 
 
 THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT, an Arabian Ilntor- 
 tainment ; and FARINA. 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 OF 
 
 KICHARD FEVEREL 
 
 a i^istotj) of a jFatfier anti Son. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE MEREDITH 
 
 HEW EDITION. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 3, SOMERSET STEEET 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 1888 
 
/?n//^ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. THE INMATES OP EATNHAM ABBEY ... 1 
 
 n. SHOWING HOW THE FATES SELECTED THE FOURTEENTH 
 
 BIRTHDAY TO TEY THE STRENGTH OF THE SYSTEM 8 
 
 III. THE MAGIAN CONFLICT 16 
 
 IV. ARSON 20 
 
 V. ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK 30 
 
 VI. JUVENILE STRATAGEMS 34 
 
 yil. daphne's BOWER 41 
 
 VIII. THE BITTER CUP 46 
 
 IX. A FINE DISTINCTION 54 
 
 X. RICHARD PASSES THROUGH HIS PRELIMINARY ORDEAL, 
 
 AND IS THE OCCASION OF AN APHORISM . . .59 
 
 XI. IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL COMEDY 
 
 IS CLOSED IN A LETTER 66 
 
 XII. THE BLOSSOMING SEASON 72 
 
 XIII. THE MAGNETIC AGE 83 
 
 XIV. AN ATTRACTION 9] 
 
 XV. FERDINAND AND MIRANDA 98 
 
 XVI. UNMASKING OF MASTER RIPTON THOMPSON . . 106 
 
 XVII. GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOr .... 115 
 
 XVIII. THE SYSTEM ENCOUNTERS THE WILD OATS' SPECIAL 
 
 PLEA 120 
 
 XIX. A SHADOWY VIEW OF COELBBS PATER GOING ABOUT 
 
 WITH A GLASS-SLIPPEB 124 
 
 XX. A DIVERSION PLAYED ON A PENNY WHISTLE . . 132 
 
 XXI. CELEBRATES THE TIME-HONOURED TREATMENT OF A 
 
 DRAGON BY THE HERO . . . 136 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CPAP. 
 
 XXII. EICHAED IS SUMMONED TO TOWN TO HEAR A SERMON 
 
 XXIII, INDICATES THE APPEOACHES OF PBVEE 
 
 XXIV. CEISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE 
 
 XXV. OE THE SPRING PEIMEOSE AND THE AUTUMNAL 
 XXVI. IN WHICH THE HEEO TAKES A STEP 
 XXVII. EBCOEDS THE EAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HEEO 
 XXVII. CONTAINS AN INTEECESSION FOE THE HEEOINE 
 XXIX. EELATES HOW PEEPAEATIONS FOE ACTION WEEE CON- 
 DUCTED UNDEE THE APEIL OF LOVERS . 
 XXX. IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF A COMEDY TAKES THE 
 PLACE OF THE FIEST 
 XXXI. CELEBEATES THE BREAKFAST . 
 XXXII. THE PHILOSOPEE APPEAES IN PEESON 
 
 XXXIII. PEOCESSION OF THE CAKE 
 
 XXXIV. NURSING THE DEVIL 
 XXXV. CONQUEST OF AN EPICUEB 
 
 XXXVI. glare's MARRIAGE 
 XXXVII. A DINNER PARTY AT RICHMOND 
 XXXVIII. MRS. BEEEY ON MATEIMOMY . 
 XXXIX. AN ENCHANTRESS . 
 
 XL. THE LITTLE BIRD AND THE FALCON 
 EESCUE . 
 
 xLi. claee's diary . . . 
 
 XLII. AUSTIN RETURNS . . , 
 
 XLIII. NATURE SPEAKS . 
 
 XLIV. AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT 
 
 XLV. THE LAST SCENE 
 
 XLVI. LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWORTH 
 
 FAQ'S 
 
 165 
 163 
 176 
 190 
 195 
 214 
 228 
 
 231 
 
 . 
 
 
 247 
 
 ■ « 
 
 
 260 
 
 ON 
 
 
 270 
 
 , , 
 
 
 280 
 
 • • 
 
 
 296 
 
 • • • 
 
 
 307 
 
 • • 
 
 
 327 
 
 • • 
 
 
 341 
 
 • 
 
 
 357 
 368 
 
 : A BEEEY T 
 
 THE 
 
 391 
 
 • ■ 
 
 
 408 
 
 • • 
 
 
 424 
 
 • • 
 
 
 435 
 
 • • 
 
 
 445 
 
 OETH . 
 
 
 451 
 468 
 
THE 
 
 OEDEAL OF EICHARD FEVEEEL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE IKMATBS OF EAYNHAM ABBEY. 
 
 Some years ago a book was published under the title 
 of " The Pilgrim's Scrip." It consisted of a selection of 
 original aphorisms by an anonymous gentleman, who in 
 this bashful manner gave a bruised heart to the world. 
 
 He made no pretension to novelty. " Our new thoughts 
 have thrilled dead bosoms," he wrote ; by which avowal it 
 may be seen that youth had manifestly gone from him, since 
 he had ceased to be jealous of the ancients. There was a 
 half-sigh floating through his pages for those days of intel- 
 lectual coxcombry, when ideas come to us affecting the 
 embraces of virgins, and swear to us they are ours alone, and 
 no one else have they ever visited : and we believe them. 
 
 For an example of his ideas of the sex he said : 
 
 " I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by 
 Man." 
 
 Some excitement was produced in the bosoms of ladies by 
 so monstrous a scorn of them. 
 
 One adventurous person betook herself to the Heralds' 
 College, and there ascertained that a Griffin between two 
 Wheatsheaves, which stood on the title-page of the book, 
 formed the crest of Sir Austin Absworthy Beame Feverel, 
 Baronet, of Raynham Abbey, in a certain Western county 
 folding Thames : a man of wealth and honour, and a some- 
 what lamentable history. 
 
 The outline of the baronet's story was by no meau^i new. 
 
 B 
 
2 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 He had a wife, and he had a friend. His marriage was for 
 love ; his wife was a beauty ; his friend was a sort of poet. 
 His wife had his whole heart, and his friend all his con- 
 fidence. When he selected Denzil Somers from among his 
 college chums, it was not on account of any similarity of 
 disposition between them, but from his intense worship of 
 genius, which made him overlook the absence of principle 
 in his associate for the sake of such brilliant promise. 
 Denzil had a small patrimony to lead ofE with, but that he 
 dissipated before he left college, and thenceforth he was 
 dependent upon his admirer, with whom he lived, filling a 
 nominal post of bailiif to the estates, and launching forth 
 verse of some satiric and sentimental quality; for being 
 inclined to vice, and occasionally, and in a quiet way, prac- 
 tising it, he was of course a sentimentalist and a satirist, 
 entitled to lash the Age and complain of human nature. 
 His earlier poems, published under the pseudonym of Diaper 
 Sandoe, were so pure and bloodless in their love passages, 
 and at the same time so biting in their moral tone, that his 
 reputation was great among the virtuous, who form the 
 larger portion of the English book-buying public. Election- 
 seasons called him to ballad-poetry on behalf of the Tory 
 party. Diaper possessed undoubted fluency, but did little, 
 though Sir Austin was ever expecting much of him. 
 
 A languishing, inexperienced woman, whose husband in 
 mental and in moral stature is more than the ordinary height 
 above her, and who, now that her first romantic admiration 
 of his lofty bearing has worn off, and her little fretful refine- 
 ments of taste and sentiment are not instinctively responded 
 to, is thrown into no wholesome household collision with a 
 fluent man, fluent in prose and rhyme. Lady Feverel, when 
 she flrst entered on her duties at Raynham, was jealous of 
 her husband's friend. By degrees she tolerated him. In 
 time he touched his guitar in her chamber, and they played 
 Rizzio and Mary together. 
 
 " For I am not the first who found 
 The name of Mary fatal ! " 
 
 says a subsequent sentimental alliterative love-poem of 
 Diaper's. 
 
 Such was the outline of the story. But the baronet could 
 fill it up. He had opened his soul to these two. He had 
 
THE railATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY. 3 
 
 been noble Love to the one, and to the other perfect Friend- 
 ship. He had bid them be brother and sister whom he 
 loved, and live a Golden Age with him at Raynham. In fact, 
 he had been prodigal of the excellences of his nature, which 
 it is not good to be, and, like Timon, he became bankrupt, 
 and fell upon bitterness. 
 
 The faithless lady was of no particular family; an orphan 
 daughter of an admiral who educated her on his half-pay, 
 and her conduct struck but at the man whose name she bore. 
 
 After five years of marriage, and twelve of friendship. Sir 
 Austin was left to his loneliness with nothing to ease his 
 heart of love upon save a little baby boy in a cradle. He 
 forgave the man : he put him aside as poor for his wrath. 
 The woman he could not forgive ; she had sinned every way. 
 Simple ingratitude to a benefactor was a pardonable trans- 
 gression, for he was not one to recount and crush the culprit 
 ■under the heap of his good deeds. But her he had raised to 
 be his equal, and he judged her as his equal. She had 
 blackened the world's fair aspect for him. 
 
 In the presence of that world, so different to him now, he 
 preserved his wonted demeanour, and made his features a 
 flexible mask. Mrs. Doria Forey, his widowed sister, said 
 that Austin might have retired from his Parliamentary 
 career for a time, and given up gaieties and that kind of 
 thing ; her opinion, founded on observation of him in public 
 and private, was, that the light thing that had taken flight 
 was but a feather on her brother's Feverel-heart, and his 
 ordinary course of life would be resumed. There are times 
 when common men cannot bear the weight of just so much. 
 Hippias Feverel, one of his brothers, thought him immensely 
 improved by his misfortune, if the loss of such a person could 
 be so designated ; and seeing that Hippias received in con- 
 sequence free quarters at Raynham, and possession of the 
 wing of the Abbey she had inhabited, it is profitable to 
 know his thoughts. If the baronet had given two or three 
 blaziag dinners in the great hall he would have deceived 
 people generally, as he did his relatives and intimates. He 
 was too sick for that : fit only for passive acting. 
 
 The nursemaid waking in the night beheld a solitary figure 
 darkening a lamp above her little sleeping charge, and 
 became so used to the sight as never to wake with a start. 
 One night she was strangely aroused by a sound of sobbing. 
 
 b2 
 
4 THE ORDEAL OF KICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 The baronet stood beside the cot in his long black cloak and 
 travelling cap. His fingers shaded a lamp, and reddened 
 against the fitful darkness that ever and anon went leaping 
 np the wall. She could hardly believe her senses to see the 
 austere gentleman, dead silent, dropping tear upon tear before 
 her eyes. She lay stone-still in a trance of terror and monm- 
 fulness, mechanically counting the tears as they fell, one 
 by one. The hidden face, the fall and flash of those heavy 
 drops in the light of the lamp he held, the upright, awful 
 figure, agitated at regular intervals like a piece of clockwork 
 by the low murderous catch of his breath : it was so piteous 
 to her poor human nature that her heart began wildly palpi- 
 tating. Involuntarily the poor girl cried out to him, " Oh, 
 sir ! " and fell a-weeping. Sir Austin turned the lamp on her 
 pillow, and harshly bade her go to sleep, striding from the 
 room forthwith. He dismissed her with a purse the next 
 day. 
 
 Once, when he was seven years old, the little fellow woke 
 up at night to see a lady bending over him. He talked of 
 this the next day, but it was treated as a dream; until in the 
 course of the day his uncle Algernon was driven home from 
 Loboume cricket-ground with a broken leg. Then it was 
 recollected that there was a family ghost ; and, though no 
 member of the family believed in the ghost, none would have 
 given up a circumstance that testified to its existence ; for to 
 possess a ghost is a distinction above titles. 
 
 Algernon Feverel lost his leg, and ceased to be a gentleman 
 in the Guards. Of the other uncles of young Richard, 
 Cuthbert, the sailor, perished in a spirited boat expedition 
 against a slaving negro chief up the Mger. Some of the 
 gallant lieutenant's trophies of war decorated the little boy's 
 play-shed at Raynham, and he bequeathed his sword to 
 Richard, whose hero he was. The diplomatist and beau, 
 Vivian, ended his flutterings from flower to flower by making 
 an improper marriage, as is the fate of many a beau, and was 
 struck out of the list of visitors. Algernon generally occupied 
 the baronet's disused town-house, a wretched being, dividing 
 his time between horse and card exercise : possessed, it was 
 said, of the absurd notion that a man who has lost his balance 
 by losing his leg may regain it by sticking to the bottle. 
 At least, whenever he and his brother Hippias got together, 
 they never failed to try whether one leg, or two, stood the 
 
TnE INMATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY. 6 
 
 bottle best. Much of a puritan as Sir Austin was in Ms 
 habits, he was too good a host, and too thorough a gentleman, 
 to impose them upon his guests. The brothers, and other 
 relatives, might do as they would while they did not disgrace 
 the name, and then it was final : they must depart to behold 
 his countenance no more. 
 
 Algernon Feverel was a simple man, who felt, subsequent 
 to his misfortune, as he had perhaps dimly fancied it before, 
 that his career lay in his legs, and was now irrevocably cut 
 short. He taught the boy boxing, and shooting, and the arts 
 of fence, and superintended the direction of his animal vigour 
 with a melancholy vivacity. The remaining energies of 
 Algernon's mind were devoted to animadversions on swift 
 bowling. He preached it over the county, struggling through 
 laborious literary compositions, addressed to sporting news- 
 papers, on the Decline of Cricket. It was Algernon who 
 witnessed and chronicled young Richard's first fight, which 
 was with young Tom Blaize of Belthorpe Farm, three years 
 the boy's senior. 
 
 Hippias Feverel was once thought to be the genius of the 
 family. It was his ill luck to have strong appetites and a 
 w eak stomach ; and, as one is not altogether fit for the battle 
 of life who is engaged in a perpetual contention with his 
 dinner, Hippias forsook his prospects at the Bar, and, in the 
 embraces of dyspepsia, compiled his ponderous work on the 
 Fairy Mythology of Europe. He had little to do with the 
 Hope of Haynham beyond what he endured from his juvenile 
 tricks. 
 
 A venerable lady, known as Great- Aunt Grantley, who had 
 money to bequeath to the heir, occupied with Hippias the 
 background of the house and shared her caudles with him. 
 These two were seldom seen till the dinner-hour, for which 
 they were all day preparing, and probably all night remem- 
 bering, for the eighteenth century was an admirable trench- 
 erman, and cast age aside while there was a dish on the 
 table. 
 
 Mrs. Doria Forey was the eldest of the three sisters of the 
 baronet, a florid affable woman, with fine teeth, exceedingly 
 fine light wavy hair, a Norman nose, and a reputation for 
 understanding men, which, with these practical creatures, 
 always means the art of managing them. She had married 
 an expectant younger son of a good family, who deceased 
 
6 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 before the fulfilment of his prospects ; and, casting about in 
 lier mind tbe future chances of her little daughter and sole 
 child, Clare, she marked down a probability ; and the far 
 sight, the deep determination, the resolute perseverance of 
 her sex, where a daughter is to be provided for and a man 
 to be overthrown, instigated her to invite herself to Raynham, 
 where, with that daughter, she fixed herself. 
 
 The other two Feverel ladies were the wife of Colonel 
 Wentworth and the widow of Mr. J ustice Harley : and the 
 only thing remarkable about them was that they were mothers 
 of sons of some distinction. 
 
 Austin Wentworth's story was of that wretched character 
 which to be comprehended, that justice should be dealt him, 
 must be told out and openly ; which no one dares now do. 
 
 For a fault in early youth, redeemed by him nobly, accord- 
 ing to his light, he was condemned to undergo the world's 
 harsh judgment: not for the fault — for its atonement. 
 
 " — Married his mother's housemaid," whispered Mrs. 
 Doria, with a ghastly look, and a shudder at young men of 
 republican sentiments, which he was reputed to entertain. 
 
 " The compensation for Injustice," says the " Pilgrim's 
 Scrip," " is, that in that dark Ordeal we gather the worthiest 
 around us." 
 
 And the baronet's fair friend. Lady Blandish, and some 
 few true men and women, held Austin Wentworth high. 
 
 He did not live with his wife ; and Sir Austin, whose mind 
 was bent on the future of our species, reproached him with 
 being barren to posterity, while knaves were propagating. 
 
 The principal characteristic of the second nephew, Adrian 
 Harley, was his sagacity. He was essentially the wise youth, 
 both in counsel and in action. 
 
 " In action," the ' Pilgrim's Scrip ' observes, " Wisdom 
 goes by majorities." 
 
 Adrian had an instinct for the majorities, and, as the world 
 invariably found him enlisted in its ranks, his appellation of 
 wise youth was acquiesced in without irony. 
 
 The wise youth, then, had the world with him, but no 
 friends. Nor did he wish for those troublesome appendages 
 of success. He caused himself to be required by people who 
 could serve him; feared by such as could injure. Not that he 
 went out of the way to secure his end, or risked the expense 
 of a plot. He did the work as easily as he ate his daily bread. 
 
THE INMATJSS OF RATNHAM ABBEY. 7 
 
 Adrian was an epicurean ; one -whom Epicurus would have 
 scourged out of his garden, certainly : an epicurean of our 
 modern notions. To satisfy his appetites without rashly 
 staking his character, was the wise youth's problem for life. 
 He had no intimates except Gibbon and Horace, and the 
 society of these fine aristocrats of literature helped him to 
 accept humanity as it had been, and was ; a supreme ironic 
 procession, with laughter of Gods in the background. Why 
 not laughter of mortals also ? Adrian had his laugh in his 
 comfortable corner. He possessed peculiar attributes of a 
 heathen God. He was a disposer of men : he was polished, 
 luxurious, and happy — at their cost. He lived in eminent 
 self-content, as one lying on soft cloud, laptin sunshine. Nov 
 Jove, nor Apollo, cast eye upon the maids of earth with 
 cooler fire of selection, or pursued them in the covert with 
 more sacred impunity. And he enjoyed his reputation for 
 virtue as something additional. Stolen fruits are said to be 
 sweet ; undeserved rewards are exquisite. 
 
 The best of it was, that Adrian made no pretences. He did 
 not solicit the favourable judgement of the world. Nature and 
 he attempted no other concealment than the ordinary mask 
 men wear. And yet the world would proclaim him moral, 
 as well as wise, and the pleasing converse every way of his 
 disgraced cousin Austin. 
 
 In a word, Adrian Harley had mastered his philosophy at 
 the early age of one-and-twenty. Many would be glad to say 
 the same at that age twice-told : they carry in their breasts 
 a burden with which Adrian's was not loaded. Mrs. Doria 
 was nearly right about his heart. A singular mishap (at 
 his birth, possibly, or before it) had unseated that organ, 
 and shaken it down to his stomach, where it was a much 
 lighter, nay, an inspiring weight, and encouraged him merrily 
 onward. Throned there it looked on little that did not arrive 
 to gratify it. Already that region was a trifie prominent in 
 the person of the wise youth, and carried, as it were, the flag 
 of his philosophical tenets in front of him. He was charm- 
 ing after dinner, with men or with women : delightfully sar- 
 castic : perhaps a little too unscrupulous in his moral tone, 
 but that his moral reputation belied him, and it must be set 
 down to generosity of disposition. 
 
 Such was Adrian Harley, another of Sir Austin's intellec- 
 tual favourites, chosen from mankind to superintend the 
 
8 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 education of Ms son at Raynham. Adrian had been destined 
 for the Cinircli. He did not enter into orders. He and the 
 baronet had a conference together one day, and from that 
 time Adrian became a fixture in the Abbey. His father died 
 in his promising son's college term, bequeathing him nothing 
 but his legal complexion, and Adrian became stipendiary 
 officer in his uncle's household. 
 
 A playfellow of Richard's occasionally, and the only 
 comrade of his age that he ever saw, was Master Ripton 
 Thompson, the son of Sir Austin's solicitor, a boy without a 
 character. 
 
 A comrade of some description was necessary, for Richard 
 was neither to go to school nor to college. Sir Austin con- 
 sidered that the schools were corrupt, and maintained that 
 young lads might by parental Tigilance be kept pretty secure 
 from the Serpent until Eve sided with him : a period that 
 might be deferred, he said. He had a system of education 
 for his son. How it worked we shall see. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SHOWING HOW THE FATES SELECTED THE FOUETEENTH BIETHDAT 
 TO TET THE STEENGTH OP THE SYSTEM. 
 
 OcTOBEB shone royally on Richard's fourteenth birthday. 
 The brown beechwoods and golden birches glowed to a 
 brilliant sun. Banks of moveless cloud hung about the 
 horizon, mounded to the west, where slept the wind. Pro- 
 mise of a great day for Raynham, as it proved to be, though 
 not in the manner marked out. 
 
 Already archery-booths and cricketing-tents were rising 
 on the lower grounds towards the river, whither the lads of 
 Bursley and Lobourne, in boats and in carts, shouting for a 
 day of ale and honour, jogged merrily to match themselves 
 anew, and pluck at the living laurel from each other's brows, 
 like manly Britons. The whole park was beginning to be 
 astir and resound with holiday cries. Sir Austin Peverel, 
 a thorough good Tory, was no game-preserver, and could be 
 popular whenever he chose, which Sir Miles Papworth, on 
 
THE FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY. 9 
 
 the other side of the river, a fast-handed Whig and terror to 
 poachers, never coiild be. Half the village of Lobourne was 
 seen trooping through the avenues of the park. Fiddlers 
 and gipsies clamoured at the gates for admission: white 
 smocks, and slate, surmounted by hats of serious brim, and 
 now and then a scarlet cloak, smacking of the old country, 
 dotted the grassy sweeps to the levels. 
 
 And all the time the star of these festivities was receding 
 further and further, and eclipsing himself with his reluctant 
 serf Ripton, who kept asking what they were to do and 
 where they were going, and how late it was in the day, and 
 suggesting that the lads of Lobourne would be calling out for 
 them, and Sir Austin requiring their presence, without get- 
 ting any attention paid to his misery or remonstrances. For 
 Richard had been requested by his father to submit to 
 medical examination like a boor enlisting for a soldier, and 
 he was in great wrath. 
 
 He was flying as though he would have flown from the 
 shameful thought of what had been asked of him. By-and- 
 by he communicated his sentiments to Ripton, who said they 
 were those of a girl : an offensive remark, remembering 
 which, Richard, after they had borrowed a couple of guns at 
 the bailiff's farm, and Ripton had fired badly, called his friend 
 a fool. 
 
 Feeling that circumstances were making him look wonder- 
 fully like one, Ripton lifted his head and retorted defiantly, 
 " I'm not ! " 
 
 This angry contradiction, so very uncalled for, annoyed 
 Richard, who was still smarting at the loss of his birds, 
 owing to Ripton's bad shot, and was really the injured party. 
 He therefore bestowed the abusive epithet on Ripton anew, 
 and with increase of emphasis. 
 
 " Tou shan't call me so, then, whether I am or not," says 
 Ripton, and sucks his lips. 
 
 This was becoming personal. Richard sent up his brows, 
 and stared at his defier an instant. He then informed him 
 that he certainly should call him so, and would not object to 
 call him so twenty times. 
 
 ■' Do it, and see ! " returns Ripton, rooking on his feet, and 
 breathing quick. 
 
 With a gravity of which only boys and other barbarians 
 are capable, Richard went through the entire number, stress- 
 
10 THE OEDBAL OF KIOHAED FEVEKBL. 
 
 ing tlie epithet to increase the defiance and avoid monotony, 
 as lie progressed, while Ripton bobbed his head every time 
 in assent, as it were, to his comrade's accuracy, and as a 
 record for his profonnd humiliation. The dog they had with 
 them gazed at the extraordinary performance with interro- 
 gating wags of the tail. 
 
 Twenty times, duly and deliberately, Richard repeated the 
 obnoxious word. 
 
 At the twentieth solemn iteration of Ripton's capital 
 shortcoming, Ripton delivered a smart back-hander on 
 Richard's mouth, and squared precipitately; perhaps sorry 
 when the deed was done, for he was a kind-hearted lad, and 
 as Richard simply bowed in acknowledgment of the blow he 
 thought he had gone too far. He did not know the young 
 gentleman he was dealing with. Richard was extremely 
 cool 
 
 " Shall we fight here ? " he said. 
 
 " Anywhere you like," replied Ripton. 
 
 " A little more into the wood, I think. We may be inter- 
 rupted." And Richard led the way with a courteous reserve 
 that somewhat chilled Ripton's ardour for the contest. On 
 the skirts of the wood, Richard threw off his jacket and 
 waistcoat, and, quite collected, waited for Ripton to do the 
 same. The latter boy was flushed and restless ; older and 
 broader, but not so tight-limbed and well-set. The Gods, 
 sole witnesses of their battle, betted dead against him. 
 Richard had mounted the white cockade of the Peverels, and 
 there was a look in him that asked for tough work to extin- 
 guish. His brows, slightly lined upward at the temples, 
 converging to a knot about the well-set straight nose ; his 
 full grey eyes, open nostrils, and planted feet, and a gentle- 
 manly air of calm and alertness, formed a spirited picture 
 of a young combatant. As for Ripton, he was all abroad, 
 and fought in school-boy style — that is, he rushed at the foe 
 head foremost, and struck like a windmill. He was a lumpy 
 boy. When he did hit, he made himself felt ; but he was at 
 the mercy of science. To see him come dashing in, blinking 
 and puffing and whirling his arms abroad while the felling 
 blow went straight between them, you perceived that he 
 was fighting a fight of desperation, and knew it. For the 
 dreaded alternative glared him in the face that, if he yielded, 
 he must look like what he had been twenty times calum- 
 
THE FOURTEENTH BIETHDAT. 11 
 
 niously called ; and lie would die rather than yield, and 
 swing his windmill till he dropped. Poor hoy ! he dropped 
 frequently. The gallant fellow fought for appearances, and 
 down he went. The Gods favour one of two parties. Prince 
 Tumus was a noble youth ; but he had not Pallas at his 
 elbow. Ripton was a capital boy, but he had no science. 
 He could not prove he was not a fool ! When one comes to 
 think of it, Ripton did choose the only possible way, and we 
 should all of us have considerable difficulty in proving the 
 negative by any other. Ripton came on the unerring fist 
 again and again ; and if it was true, as he said in short col- 
 loquial gasps, that he required as much beating as an egg to 
 be beaten thoroughly, a fortunate interruption alone saved 
 our friend from resembling that substance. The boys heard 
 summoning voices, and beheld Mr. Morton of Poer Hall and 
 Austin Wentworth stepping towards them. 
 
 A truce was sounded, jackets were caught up, guns shoul- 
 dered, and ofE they trotted in concert through the depths of 
 the wood, not stopping till that and half-a-dozen fields and a 
 larch plantation were well behind them. 
 
 When they halted to take breath, there was a mutual 
 study of faces. Ripton's was much discoloured, and looked 
 fiercer with its natural war-paint than the boy felt. N"ever- 
 theless, he squared up dauntlessly on the new ground, and 
 Richard, whose wrath was appeased, could not refrain from 
 asking him whether he had not really had enough. 
 
 " Never ! " shouts the noble enemy. 
 
 "Well, look here," said Richard, appealing to common 
 sense, " I'm tired of knocking you down. I'll say you're not 
 a fool, if you'll give me your hand." 
 
 Ripton demurred an instant to consult with honour, who 
 bade him catch at his chance. 
 
 He held out his hand. " There ! " and the boys grasped 
 hands and were fast friends. Ripton had gained his point, 
 and Richard decidedly had the best of it. So they were on 
 equal ground. Both could claim a victory, which was all 
 the better for their friendship. 
 
 Ripton washed his face and comforted his nose at a brook, 
 and was now ready to follow his friend wherever he chose to 
 lead. They continued to beat about for birds. The birds 
 on the Raynham estates were found singularly cunning, and 
 repeatedly eluded the aim of these prime shots, so they pushed 
 
1 2 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVERKL. 
 
 their expedition into the lands of their neighbours, in search, 
 of a stupider race, happily oblivious of the laws and con- 
 ditions of trespass ; unconscious, too, that they were poach- 
 ing on the demesne of the notorious Farmer Blaize, the 
 free-trade farmer under the shield of the Papworths, no 
 worshipper of the Griffin between two Wheatsheaves ; 
 destined to be much allied with Richard's fortunes from 
 beginning to end. Farmer Blaize hated poachers, and espe- 
 cially young chaps poaching, who did it mostly from im- 
 pudence. He heard the audacious shots popping right and 
 left, and going forth to have a glimpse at the intruders, and 
 observing their size, swore he would teach my gentlemen a 
 thipg, lords or no lords. 
 
 Richard had brought down a beautiful cock-pheasant, and 
 was exulting over it, when the farmer's portentous figure 
 burst upon them, cracking an avenging horsewhip. His 
 salute was ironical. 
 
 " Havin' good sport, gentlemen, are ye ?" 
 
 " Just bagged a splendid bird ! " radiant Richard informed 
 him. 
 
 "Oh!" Farmer Blaize gave an admonitory flick of the 
 whip. 
 
 " Just let me clap eye on't then." 
 
 " Say, please," interposed Ripton, who, not being the 
 possessor of the bird, was not blind to doubtful aspects. 
 
 Farmer Blaize threw up his chin, and grinned grimly. 
 _ " Please to you, sir ? Why, my chap, you looks as if ye 
 didn't much mind what come t' yer nose, I reckon. Tou 
 looks an old poacher, you do. Tall ye what 'tis ! " He 
 changed his banter to business, " That bird's mine! Now 
 you jest hand him over, and sheer off, you dam young 
 hcoundrels ! I know ye ! " And he became exceedingly 
 opjirobrious, and uttered contempt at the name of Feverel. 
 
 Richard opened his eyes. 
 ^ " If you wants to be horsewhipped, you'll stay where 
 y'are ! " continued the farmer. " Giles Blaize never stands 
 noiisruse ! " 
 
 " Then we'll stay," quoth Richard. 
 
 " Good I so be't ! If you will have't, have't, my men ! " 
 
 As a preparatory measure. Farmer Blaize seized awing of 
 the l)ird, on which both boys flung themselves desperately, 
 ami secured it minus the pinion. 
 
THE rOURTEENTH BIRTHPAT. 13- 
 
 " That's your game," cried the farmer. " Here's a taste of 
 horsewhip for ye. I never stands nonsense !" and sweetch 
 went the mighty whip, well swayed. The hoys tried to close 
 with him. He kept his distance and lashed without mercy. 
 Black blood was made by Farmer Blaize that day ! The boys 
 wriggled, in spite of themselves. It was like a relentless 
 serpent coiling, and biting, and stinging their young veins to 
 madness. Probably they felt the disgrace of the contortions- 
 they were made to go through more than the pain, but the 
 pain was fierce, for the farmer laid about from a practised 
 arm, and did not consider that he had done enough till he- 
 was well breathed and his ruddy jowl inflamed. He paused, 
 to receive the remainder of the cock-pheasant in his face. 
 
 " Take your beastly bird," cried Richard. 
 
 " Money, my lads, and interest," roared the farmer, lashing 
 out again. 
 
 Shameful as it was to retreat, there was but that course 
 open to them. They decided to surrender the field. 
 
 " Look ! you big brute," Richard shook his g^n, hoarse 
 with passion, " I'd have shot you, if I'd been loaded. Mind ! 
 if I come across you when I'm loaded, you coward, I'll fire ! " 
 
 The un-English nature of this threat exasperated Farmer 
 Blaize, and he pressed the pursuit in time to bestow a few 
 farewell stripes as they were escaping tight-breeched into 
 neutral territory. At the hedge they parleyed a minute, the 
 farmer to inquire if they had had a mortal good tanning and 
 were satisfied, for when they wanted a further instalment of 
 the same they were to come for it to Belthorpe Farm, and 
 there it was in pickle : the boys meantime exploding in 
 menaces and threats of vengeance, on which the farmer con- 
 temptuously turned his back. Ripton had already stocked 
 an armful of flints for the enjoyment of a little skirmishing. 
 Richard, however, knocked them all out, saying, " No 1 
 Gentlemen don't fling stones; leave that to the blackguards." 
 
 " Just one shy at him ! " pleaded Ripton, with his eye on 
 Farmer Blaize's broad mark, and his whole mind drunken 
 with a sudden revelation of the advantages of light troops in 
 opposition to heavies. 
 
 "No," said Richard, imperatively, "no stones," and 
 marched briskly away. Ripton followed with a sigh. His 
 leader's magnanimity was wholly beyond him. A good 
 spanking mark at the farmer would have relieved Master 
 
14 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 Eipton; it would have done nothing to console Richard 
 Feverel for the ignominy he had been compelled to submit 
 to. Ripton was familiar with the rod, a monster much de- 
 spoiled of his terrors by intimacy. Birch-fever was past 
 with this boy. The horrible sense of shame, self-loathing, 
 Tirdversal hatred, impotent vengeance, as if the spirit were 
 steeped in abysmal blackness, which comes upon a courageous 
 and sensitive youth condemned for the first time to taste this 
 piece of fleshly bitterness, and suffer what he feels is a defile- 
 m.ent, Ripton had weathered and forgotten. He was seasoned 
 wood, and took the world pretty wisely ; not reckless of 
 castigation, as some boys become, nor over- sensitive as to 
 dishonour, as his friend and comrade beside him was. 
 
 Richard's blood was poisoned. He had the fever on him 
 severely. He would not allow stone-flinging, because it was 
 a habit of his to discountenance it. Mere gentlemanly con- 
 siderations had scarce shielded Farmer Blaize, and certain 
 very ungentlemanly schemes were comiug to ghastly heads 
 in the tumult of his brain ; rejected solely from their glaring 
 impracticability even to his young intelligence. A sweeping 
 and consummate vengeance for the indignity alone should 
 satisfy him. Something tremendous must be done, and done 
 without delay. At one moment he thought of killing all the 
 farmer's cattle; next of killing him; challenging him to 
 single combat with the arms, and according to the fashion 
 of gentlemen. But the farmer was a coward; he would 
 refuse. Then he, Richard Feverel, would stand by the 
 farmer's bedside, and rouse him; rouse him to fight with 
 powder and ball in his own chamber, in the cowardly mid- 
 night, where he might tremble, but dare not refuse. 
 
 " Lord ! " cried simple Ripton, while these hopeful plots 
 were raging in his comrade's brain, now sparkling for imme- 
 diate execution, and anon lapsing disdainfully dark in their 
 chances ,jf fulfilment, " how I wish you'd ha^e let me notch 
 him, Ricky ! I'm a safe shot. I never miss. I should feel 
 quite jolly if I'd spanked him once. We should have had 
 the best of him at that game. I say ! " and a sharp thought 
 drew Rip'con's [ideas nearer home, " I wonder whether my 
 nose is as bad as he says ! Where can I see myself ? Gra- 
 cious ! what shall I do when we get to Raynham, if it is ? 
 What'll the ladies think of me ? O Lord, Ricky ! suppose 
 it turns blue ?" 
 
THE FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY. 15 
 
 Ripton moved a meditative forefinger down the bridge of 
 his nose as this horrible suspicion clouded him. Farmer 
 Blaize passed from his mind. The wretched boy called aloud 
 in agony that his nose was turning blue. " Oh, if I had a 
 bit of raw meat to lay across it ! " he cried. " What a fool I 
 was to fight! — Won't I learn boxing! — What shall I look 
 like ? " To these doleful exclamations Richard was deaf, 
 and trudged steadily forward, facing but one object. 
 
 After tearing through innumerable hedges, leaping fences, 
 jumping dykes, penetrating brambly copses, and getting 
 dirty, ragged, and tired, Ripton awoke from his dream of 
 Parmer Blaize and a blue nose to the vivid consciousness of 
 hunger ; and this grew with the rapidity of light upon him, 
 till in the course of another minute he was enduring the 
 extremes of famine, and ventured to question his leader 
 whither he was being conducted. Raynham was out of 
 sight. They were a long way down the valley, miles from 
 Loboume, in a country of sour pools, yellow brooks, rank 
 pasturage, desolate heath. Solitary cows were seen ; the 
 smoke of a mud cottage ; a cart piled with peat ; a donkey 
 grazing at leisure, oblivious of an unkind world ; geese by a 
 horse-pond, gabbling as in the first loneliness of creation; 
 uncooked things that a famishing boy cannot possibly care 
 for, and must despise. Ripton was in despair. 
 
 "Where are you going to ?" he inquired with a voice of 
 the last time of asking, and halted resolutely. 
 
 Richard now broke his silence to reply, "Anywhere." 
 
 ''Anywhere!" Ripton took up the moody word. "But 
 ain't you awfully hungry ? " he gasped vehemently in a way 
 that showed the total emptiness of his stomach. 
 
 " No," was Richard's brief response. 
 
 " Not hungry ! " Ripton's amazement lent him increased 
 vehemence. " Why, you haven't had anything to eat since 
 breakfast ! Not hungry ? I declare I'm starving. I feel 
 such a gnawing I could eat dry bread and cheese ! " 
 
 Richard sneered : not for reasons that would have actuated 
 a similar demonstration of the philosopher. 
 
 " Come," cried Ripton, " at all events, tell us where you're 
 going to stop ? " 
 
 Richard faced about to make a querulous retort. The 
 injured and hapless visage that met his eye disarmed him. 
 The lad's unhappy nose, though not exactly of the dreaded 
 
16 THE OEDEAL OF KICHARD FETEREL. 
 
 hue, was really becoming discoloured. To upbraid him 
 would be cruel. Richard lifted his head, surveyed the posi- 
 tion, and exclaiming " Here ! " dropped down on a withered 
 bank, leaving Ripton to contemplate him as a puzzle whose 
 every new move was a worse perplexity. 
 
 CHAPTER ni. 
 
 THE MAGIAJI CONFLICT 
 
 Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous codes, 
 not written or formally taught, but intuitively understood 
 by all, and invariably acted upon by the loyal and the true. 
 The race is not nearly civilized, we must remember. Thus, 
 not to follow your leader whithersoever he may think proper 
 to lead ; to back out of an expedition because the end of it 
 frowns dubious, and the present fruit of it is discomfort ; to 
 quit a comrade on the road, and return home without him : 
 these are tricks which no boy of spirit would be guilty of, 
 let him come to any description of mortal grief in conse- 
 quence. Better so than have his own conscience denounc- 
 ing him sneak. Some boys who behave boldly enough are 
 not troubled by this conscience, and the eyes and the lips 
 of their fellows have to supply the deficiency. They do it 
 with just as haunting, and even more horrible pertinacity, 
 than the inner voice, and the result, if the probation be not 
 very severe and searching, is the same. The leader can 
 rely on the faithfulness of his host : the comrade is sworn 
 to serve. Master Ripton Thompson was naturally loyal. 
 The idea of turning off and forsaking his friend never once 
 crossed his mind, though his condition was desperate, and 
 his friend's behaviour that of a Bedlamite. He announced 
 several times impatiently that they would be too late for 
 dinner. His friend did not budge. Dinner seemed nothing 
 to him. There he lay plucking grass, and patting the old 
 dog's nose, as if incapable of conceiving what a thing hunger 
 was. Ripton took half-a-dozen turns up and down, and at 
 last flung himself down beside the taciturn boy, accepting 
 his fate. 
 
THE MAGIAN CONFLICT. 17 
 
 Now, the chance that works for certain purposes sent a 
 smart shower from the sinking sun, and the wet sent two 
 strangers for shelter in the lane behind the hedge where the 
 boys reclined. One was a travelling tinker, who lit a pipe 
 and spread a tawny umbrella. The other was a burly young 
 countryman, pipeless and tentless. They saluted with a 
 nod, and began recounting for each other's benefit the day- 
 long doings of the weather, as it had affected their individual 
 experience, and followed their prophecies. Both had anti- 
 cipated and foretold a bit of rain before night, and therefore 
 both welcomed the wet with satisfaction. A monotonous 
 betweenwhiles kind of talk they kept droning, in harmony 
 with the still hum of the air. Prom the weather theme 
 they fell upon the blessings of tobacco ; how it was the poor 
 man's friend, his company, his consolation, his comfort, his 
 refuge at night, his first thought in the morning. 
 
 " Better than a wife ! " chuckled the tinker. " No cur- 
 tain-lecturin' with a pipe. Your pipe an't a shrew." 
 
 " That be it ! " the other chimed in. " Tour pipe doan't 
 mak' ye out wi' all the cash Saturday evenin'." 
 
 "Take one," said the tinker, in the enthusiasm of the 
 moment, handing a grimy short clay. Speed-the-Plough 
 filled from the tinker's pouch, and continued his praises. 
 
 " Penny a day, and there y'are, primed ! Better than a 
 wife ? Ha, ha ! " 
 
 " And you can get rid of it, if ye wants for to, and when 
 ye wants," added tinker. 
 
 " So ye can ! " Speed-the-Plough took him up, " So ye 
 can ! And ye doan't want for to. Leastways, t'other case. 
 I means pipe." 
 
 " And," continued tinker, comprehending him perfectly, 
 " it don't bring repentance after it." 
 
 " Not nohow, master, it doan't ! And " — Speed-the- 
 Plough cocked his eye — " it doan't eat up half the victuals, 
 your pipe doan't." 
 
 Here the honest yeoman gesticulated his keen sense of a 
 clincher, which the tinker acknowledged ; and having, so to 
 speak, sealed up the subject by saying the best thing that 
 could be said, the two smoked for some time in silence to 
 the drip and patter of the shower. 
 
 Ripton solaced his wretchedness by watching them through 
 the briar hedge. He saw the tinker stroking a white cat, 
 
 C 
 
18 THE OEDEAL OF RICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 and appealing to her, every now and then, as his missus, 
 for an opinion or a confirmation ; and he thought that a 
 curious sight. Speed- the-Plough was stretched at full 
 length, with his boots in the rain, and his head amidst the 
 tinker's pots, smoking profoundly contemplative. The 
 minutes seemed to be taken up alternately by the grey puffs 
 from their mouths. 
 
 It was the tinker who renewed the colloquy. Said he, 
 " Times is bad ! " 
 
 His companion assented, " Sure-ly ! " 
 
 " But it somehow comes round right," resumed the tinker. 
 " Why, look here. Where's the good o' moping ? I sees it 
 all come rouild right and tight. Now I travels about. I've 
 got my beat. 'Casion calls me t'other day to Newcastle ! — 
 Eh?" 
 
 " Coals ! " ejaculated Speed-the- Plough sonorously. 
 
 " Coals ! " echoed the tinker. " You ask what I goes there 
 for, mayhap ? Never you mind. One sees a mort o' life in 
 my trade. Not for coals it isn't. And I don't carry 'em 
 there, neither. Anyhow, I comes back. London's my mark. 
 Says I, I'll see a bit o' the sea, and steps aboard a collier. 
 We were as nigh wrecked as the prophet Paul." 
 
 " A — who's him ? " the other wished to know. 
 
 " Read your Bible," said the tinker. " We pitched and 
 tossed — 'tain't that game at sea 'tis on land, I can tell ye ! 
 I thinks, down we're agoing — Say your prayers. Bob Tiles ! 
 That was a night, to be sure ! But God's above the devil, 
 and here I am, ye see." 
 
 Speed- the-Plough lurched round on his elbow and regarded 
 him indifferently. " D'ye call that doctrin' ? He bean't 
 al'ays, or I shoo'n't be scrapin' my heels wi' nothin' to do, 
 and, what's warse, nothin' to eat. Why, look heer. Luck's 
 luck, and bad luck's the con-trary. Varmer Bollop, t'other 
 day, has's rick burnt down. Next night his gran'ry's burnt. 
 What do he tak' and go and do ? He takes and goes and 
 hangs unsel', and turns us out of his employ. God warn't 
 above the devil then, I thinks, or I can't make out the 
 reckonin'." 
 
 The tinker cleared his throat, and said it was a bad case. 
 
 " And a darn'd bad case. I'll tak' my oath on't ! " cried 
 Speed- the-Plough. " Well, look heer ! Heer's another 
 darn'd bad case. I threshed for Varmer Blaize — Blaize o' 
 
THE MAQIAN CONFLICT. 19 
 
 Beltharpe — afore I goes to Varmer BoUop. Varmer Blaize 
 misses pilkins. He swears our chaps steals pilkins. 'Twarn't 
 me steals 'em. What do lie tak' and go and do ? He takes 
 and tarns us off, me and another, neck and crop, to soaffle 
 ahout and starve, for all he keers. God warn't above the 
 devil then, I thinks. Not nohow, as I can see ! " 
 
 The tinker shook his head, and said that was a bad case 
 also. 
 
 " And you can't mend it," added Speed-the-Plough. " It's 
 bad, and there it be. But I'll tell ye what, master. Bad 
 wants payin' for." He nodded and winked mysteriously. 
 "Bad has its wages as well's honest work, I'm thinkra'. 
 Varmer Bollop I don't owe no grudge to : Varmer Blaize I 
 do. And I shud like to stick a Lucifer in his rick some dry 
 windy night." Speed-the-Plough screwed up an eye villain- 
 ously. ' " He wants hittin' in the wind, — jest where the 
 pocket is, master, do Varmer Blaize, and he'll cry out 
 ' Lor' ! ' Varmer Blaize will. You won't get the better 
 o' Varmer Blaize by no means, as I makes out, if ye doan't 
 hit into him jest there." 
 
 The tinker sent a rapid succession of white clouds from 
 his mouth, and said that would be taking the devil's side of 
 a bad case. Speed-the-Plough observed energetically that, if 
 Farmer Blaize was on the other, he should be on that side. 
 
 There was a young gentleman close by, who thought with 
 him. The hope of Raynham had lent a careless half-com- 
 pelled attention to the foregoing dialogue, wherein a common 
 labourer and a travelling tinker had propounded and dis- 
 cussed one of the most ancient theories of transmundane 
 dominion and influence on mundane affairs. He now started 
 to his feet, and came tearing through the briar hedge, calling 
 out for one of them to direct them the nearest road to Bursley. 
 The tinker was kindling preparations for his tea, under the 
 tawny -(pi^brella. A loaf was set forth, on which Ripton's 
 eyes, stuck in the edge, fastened ravenously. Speed-the- 
 Plough volunteered information that Bursley was a good 
 three mile from where they stood, and a good eight mile from 
 Lobourne. 
 
 " H'l give you half-a-crown for that loaf, my good fellow," 
 said Richard to the tinker. 
 
 " It's a bargain," quoth the tinker, " eh, missus ? " 
 His cat replied by humping her back at the dog. 
 c2 
 
20 THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 The half-crown was tossed, down, and Ripton, who had 
 just succeeded in freeing his limbs from the briar, prickly as 
 a hedgehog, collared the loaf. 
 
 " Those young squires be sharp-set, and no mistake," said 
 the tinker to his companion. " Come ! we'll to Bursley after 
 'em, and talk it out over a pot o' beer." Speed-the- Plough 
 was nothing loth, and in a short time they were following the 
 two lads on the road to Bursley, while a horizontal blaze 
 shot across the autumn land from the western edge of the 
 rain-cloud. 
 
 CHAPTEB, IV. 
 
 AESO N. 
 
 Seaech for the missing boys had been made everywhere over 
 Raynham, and Sir Austin was in grievous discontent. None 
 had seen them save Austin Wentworth and Mr. Morton. 
 The baronet sat construing their account of the flight of the 
 lads when they were hailed, and resolved it into an act of 
 rebellion on the part of his son. At dinner he drank the 
 young heir's health in ominous silence. Adrian Harley stood 
 up in his place to propose the health. His speech was a iine 
 piece of rhetoric. He warmed in it till, after the Ciceronic 
 model, inanimate objects were personified, and Richard's 
 table-napkin and vacant chair were invoked to follow the 
 steps of a peerless father, and uphold with his dignity the 
 honour of the Peverels. Austin Wentworth, whom a soldier's 
 death compelled to take his father's place in support of the 
 tpast, was tame after such magniloquence. But the reply, 
 the thanks which young Richard should have delivered in 
 person were not forthcoming. Adrian's oratory had given 
 but a momentary life to napkin and chair. The company of 
 honoured friends, and aunts, and uncles, and remotest cousins, 
 were glad to disperse and seek amusement in music and tea. 
 Sii- Austin did his utmost to be hospitably cheerful, and 
 requested them to dance. If he had desired them to laugh 
 he would have been obeyed, and in as hearty a manner. 
 
ARSON. 21 
 
 " How triste ! " said Mrs. Doria Forey to Lobourne's 
 curate, as that most enamoured automaton went through his 
 paces beside her with professional stiffness. 
 
 " One who does not suffer can hardly assent," the curate 
 answered, basking in her beams. 
 
 " Ah, you are good ! " exclaimed the lady. " Look at my 
 Clare. She will not dance on her cousin's birthday with any 
 one but him. What are we to do to enliven these people ? " 
 
 " Alas, madam ! you cannot do for all what you do for 
 one," the curate sighed, and wherever she wandered in 
 discourse, drew her back with silken strings to gaze on his 
 enamoured soul. 
 
 He was the only gratified stranger present. The others 
 had designs on the young heir. Lady Attenbury of Longford 
 House had brought her highly-polished specimen of market- 
 ware, the Lady Juliana Jaye, for a first introduction to him, 
 thinking he had arrived at an age to estimate and pine for 
 her black eyes and pretty pert mouth. The Lady Juliana 
 had to pair off with a dapper Papworth, and her mamma 
 was subjected to the gallantries of Sir Miles, who talked land 
 and steam-engines to her till she was sick, and had to be 
 impertinent in self-defence. Lady Blandish, the delightful 
 widow, sat apart with Adrian, and enjoyed his saicasms on 
 the company. By ten at night the poor show ended, and the 
 rooms were dark, dark as the prognostics multitudinously 
 hinted by the disappointed and chilled guests concerning 
 the probable future of the hope of Raynham. Little Clare 
 kissed her mamma, curtsied to the lingering curate, and went 
 to bed like a very good girl. Immediately the maid had 
 departed, little Clare deliberately exchanged night attire for 
 that of day. She was noted as an obedient child. Her 
 light was always allowed to burn in her room for half an 
 hour, to counteract her fears of the dark. She took the light, 
 and stole on tiptoe to Richard's room. No Richard was 
 there. She peeped in further and further. A trifling agita- 
 tion of the curtains shot her back through the door and along 
 the passage to her own bedchamber with extreme expedition. 
 She was not much alarmed, but feeling guilty she was on 
 her guard. In a short time she was prowling about the 
 passages again. Richard had slighted and offended the little 
 lady, and was to be asked whether he did not repent such 
 conduct toward his cousin ; not to be asked whether he had 
 
22 THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 forgotten to receive his birthday kiss from her ; for, if he did 
 not choose to remember that, Miss Glare woiild never remind 
 him of it, and to-night should be his last chance of a 
 reconciliation. Thus she meditated, sitting on a stair, and 
 presently heard Richard's voice below in the hall, shouting 
 for supper. 
 
 "Master Richard has returned," old Benson the butler 
 tolled out intelligence to Sir Austin. 
 
 " Well ? " said the baronet. 
 
 " He complains of being hungry," the butler hesitated, 
 with a look of solemn disgust. 
 
 " Let him eat." 
 
 Heavy Benson hesitated still more as he announced that 
 the boy had called for wine. It was an unprecedented 
 thing. Sir Austin's brows were portending an arch, but 
 Adrian suggested that he wanted possibly to drink his birth- 
 day, and claret was conceded. 
 
 The boys were in the vortex of a partridge-pie when Adrian 
 strolled in to them. They had now changed characters. 
 Richard was uproarious. He drank a health with every 
 glass ; his cheeks were flushed and his eyes brilliant. Ripton 
 looked very much like a rogue on the tremble of detection, 
 but his honest hunger and the partridge-pie shielded him 
 awhile from Adrian's scrutinizing glance. Adrian saw there 
 was matter for study, if it were only on Master Ripton's 
 betraying nose, and sat down to hear and mark. 
 
 " Good sport, gentlemen, I trust to hear?" he began his 
 quiet banter, and provoked a loud peal of laughter from 
 Richard. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! I say. Rip : ' Havin' good sport, gentlemen, 
 are ye ? ' Tou remember the farmer ! Tour health, parson ! 
 We haven't had our sport yet. We're going to have some 
 first-rate sport. Oh, well ! we haven't much show of birds. 
 We shot for pleasure, and returned them to the proprietors. 
 You're fond of game, parson ! Ripton is a dead shot in what 
 cousin Austin calls the Kingdom of ' would-have-done ' and 
 ' might-have-been.' Up went the birds, and cries Rip, ' I've 
 forgotten to load ! ' Oh, ho ! — Rip ! some more claret. — Do 
 just leave that nose of yours alone. — ^Tour health, Ripton 
 Thompson ! The birds hadn't the decency to wait for him, 
 and so, parson, it's their fault, and not Rip's, you haven't a 
 
AESON. 23 
 
 dozen brace at your feet. What have you been doing at 
 home, Cousin Rady ? " 
 
 " Playing Hamlet, in the absence of the Prince of Den- 
 mark. The day without you, my dear boy, must be dull, 
 you know." 
 
 " ' He speaks: can I trust what he says is sincere ? 
 
 There's an edge to his smile which cuts much like a sneer.' 
 
 Sandoe's poems ! You know the couplet, Mr. Rady. "Why 
 shouldn't I quote Sandoe ? Tou know you like him, Rady. 
 But, if you've missed me, I'm sorry. Rip and I have had a 
 beautiful day. We've made new acquaintances. We've seen 
 the world. I'm the monkey that has seen the world, and I'm 
 going to tell you all about it. First, there's a gentleman 
 who takes a rifle for a fowling-piece. Next, there's a farmer 
 who warns everybody, gentleman and beggar, o& his pre- 
 mises. Next, there's a tinker and a ploughman, who think 
 that God is always fighting with the devil which shall com- 
 mand the kingdoms of the earth. The tinker's for God, and 
 the ploughman " 
 
 " I'll drink your health, Ricky," said Adrian, interrupting. 
 
 " Oh, I forgot, parson ; — I mean no harm, Adrian. I'm 
 only telling what I've heard." 
 
 " No harm, my dear boy," returned Adrian. " I'm per- 
 fectly aware that Zoroaster is not dead. Tou have been 
 listening to a common creed. Drink the Fire- worshippers, 
 if you will." 
 
 " Here's to Zoroaster, then ! " cried Richard. " I say, 
 Rippy ! we'll drink the Fire- worshippers to-night, won't 
 we F " 
 
 A fearful conspiratorial frown, that would not have dis- 
 graced Guide Fawkes, was darted back from the plastic 
 features of Master Ripton. 
 
 Richard gave his lungs loud play. 
 
 " Why, what did you say about Blaizes, Rippy ? Didn't 
 you say it was fun ? " 
 
 Another hideous and silencing frown was Ripton's answer. 
 Adrian watched the innocent youths, and knew that there 
 was talking under the table. " See," thought he, " this boy 
 has tasted his first scraggy morsel of life to-day, and already 
 he talks like an old stager, and has, if I mistake not, been 
 acting too. My respected chief," he apostrophised Sir 
 
24 THE ORDEAL OF RICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 Austin, " combustibles are only tlie more dangerous for com- 
 pression. This boy will be ravenous for Eartb when he is let 
 loose, and very soon make his share of it look as foolish as 
 yonder game-pie ! " — a prophecy Adrian kept to himself. 
 
 Uncle Algernon shambled in to see his nephew before the 
 supper was finished, and his more genial presence brought 
 out a little of the plot. 
 
 " Look here, uncle ! " said Richard. " Would you let a 
 churlish old brute of a farmer strike you without making 
 him suffer for it ? " 
 
 " I fancy I should return the compliment, my lad," replied 
 his uncle. 
 
 " Of course you would ! So would I. And he shall suffer 
 for it." The boy looked savage, and his uncle patted him 
 down. 
 
 " I've boxed his son ; I'll box him," said Richard, shouting 
 for more wine. 
 
 " What, boy ! Is it old Blaize has been putting you up ?" 
 
 " Never mind, uncle ! " the boy nodded mysteriously. 
 
 Look there ! Adrian read on Ripton's face, he says ' never 
 mind,' and lets it out ! 
 
 " Did we beat to-day, uncle ? " 
 
 " Tes, boy ; and we'd beat them any day they bowl fair. 
 I'd beat them on one leg. There's only Natkins and Feather- 
 dene among them worth a farthing." 
 
 " We beat ! " cries Richard. " Then we'll have some more 
 wine, and drink their healths." 
 
 The bell was rung; wine ordered. Presently comes in 
 heavy Benson, to say supplies are cut ''oif. One bottle, and 
 no more. ' The Captain whistled : Adrian shrugged. 
 
 The bottle, however, was procured by Adrian subsequently. 
 He liked studying intoxicated urchins. 
 
 One subject was at Richard's heart, about which he was 
 reserved in the midst of his riot. Too proud to inquire how 
 his father had taken his absence, he burned to hear whether 
 he was in disgrace. He led to it repeatedly, and it was 
 constantly evaded by Algernon and Adrian. At last, when 
 the boy declared a desire to wish his father good-night, 
 Adrian had to tell him that he was to go straight to bed from 
 the supper-table. Young Richard's face fell at that, and his 
 gaiety forsook him. He marched to his room without another 
 word. 
 
ARSON. 25 
 
 _ Adrian gave Sir Austin an able version of his son's beha- 
 viour and adventures ; dwelling upon this sudden taciturnity 
 when he heard of his father's resolution not to see him. The 
 wise youth saw that his chief was mollified behind his move- 
 less mask, and went to bed, and Horace, leaving Sir Austin 
 in his study. Long hours the baronet sat alone. The house 
 had not its usual influx of Feverels that day. Austin Went- 
 worth was staying at Poer Hall, and had only come over for 
 an hour. At midnight the house breathed sleep. Sir Austin 
 put on his cloak and cap, and took the lamp to make his 
 rounds. He apprehended nothing special, but with a mind 
 never at rest ho constituted himself the sentinel of Rayn- 
 ham. He passed the chamber where the Great- Aunt Grantley 
 lay, who was to swell Richard's fortune, and so perform her 
 chief business on earth. By her door he murmured, " Good 
 creature ! you sleep with a sense of duty done," and paced 
 on, reflecting, " She has not made money a demon of discord," 
 and blessed her. He had his thoughts at Hippias's somno- 
 lent door, and to them the world might have subscribed. 
 
 A monomaniac at large, watching over sane people in 
 slumber ! thinks Adrian Harley, as he hears Sir Austin's 
 footfall, and truly that was a strange object to see. — Where 
 is the fortress that has not one weak gate ? where the man 
 who is sound at each particular angle ? Ay, meditates the 
 recumbent cynic, more or less mad is not every mother's 
 son ? Favourable circumstances — good air, good company, 
 two or three good rules rigidly adhered to — keep the world 
 out of Bedlam. But, let the world fly into a passion, and is 
 not Bedlam the safest abode for it ? 
 
 Sir Austin ascended the stairs, and bent his steps leisurely 
 towards the chamber where his son was lying in the left 
 wing of the Abbey. At the end of the gallery which led to 
 it he discovered a dim light. Doubting it an illusion. Sir 
 Austin accelerated his pace. This wing had aforetime a bad 
 character. Notwithstanding what years had done to polish 
 it into fair repute, the Raynham kitchen stuck to tradition 
 still, and preserved certain stories of ghosts seen there, and 
 thought to have been seen, that effectually blackened it in 
 the susceptible minds of new housemaids and under-cooks, 
 whose fears would not allow the sinner to wash his sins. 
 Sir Austin had heard of the tales circulated by his domestics 
 underground. He cherished his own belief, but discouraged 
 
26 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 theirs, and it was treason at Raynhani to be caught traduc- 
 ing the left wing. As the baronet advanced, the fact of a 
 light burning was clear to him. A slight descent brought 
 him into the passage, and he beheld a poor human candle 
 standing outside his son's chamber. At the same moment a 
 door closed hastily. He entered Richard's room. The boy 
 was absent. The bed was unpressed : no clothes about : 
 nothing to show that he had been there that night. Sir 
 Austin felt vaguely apprehensive. Has he gone to my room 
 to await me ? thought the father's heart. Something like a 
 tear quivered in his arid eyes as he meditated and hoped 
 this might be so. His own sleeping-room faced that of his 
 son. He strode to it with a quick heart. It was empty. 
 My son ! my son ! what is this ? he murmured. Alarm dis- 
 lodged anger from his jealous heart, and dread of evil put a 
 thousand questions to him that were answered in air. After 
 pacing up and down his room he determined to go and ask 
 the boy Thompson, as he called Ripton, what was known to 
 him. 
 
 The chamber assigned to Master Ripton Thompson was 
 at the northern extremity of the passage, and overlooked 
 Lobourne and the valley to the west. The bed stood between 
 the window and the door. Sir Austin found the door ajar, 
 and the interior dark. To his surprise, the boy Thompson's 
 couch, as revealed by the rays of his lamp, was likewise 
 vacant. He was turning back when he fancied he heard 
 the sibilation of a whispering in the room. Sir Austin 
 cloaked the lamp and trod silently towards the window. 
 The heads of his son Richard and the boy Thompson were 
 seen crouched against the glass, holding excited converse 
 together. Sir Austin listened, but he listened to a language 
 of which he possessed not the key. Their talk was of fire, 
 and of delay : of expected agrarian astonishment : of a 
 farmer's huge wrath : of violence exercised towards gentle- 
 men, and of vengeance : talk that the boys jerked out by fits, 
 and that came as broken links of a chain impossible to con- 
 nect. But they awoke curiosity. The baronet condescended 
 to play the spy upon his son. 
 
 Over Lobourne and the valley lay black night and innu- 
 merable stars. 
 
 "How jolly I feel !" exclaimed Ripton, inspired by claret; 
 
AESON, . 27 
 
 and then, after a luxurious pause — " I think that fellow has 
 pocketed his guinea, and cut his lucky." 
 
 Richard allowed a long minute to pass, during which the 
 baronet waited anxiously for his voice, hardly recognising it 
 when he heard its altered tones. 
 
 " If he has, I'll go; and I'll do it myself." 
 
 " You would ? " returned Master Ripton. " Well, I'm 
 hanged ! — I say, if you went to school, wouldn't you get into 
 rows ! Perhaps he hasn't found the place where the box 
 was stuck in. I think he funks it. I almost wish you 
 hadn't done it, upon my honour — eh ? Look there ! what 
 was that ? That looked like something. — I say ! do you 
 think we shall ever be found out ? " 
 
 Master Ripton intoned this abrupt interrogation very 
 seriously. 
 
 " I don't think about it," said Richard, all his faculties 
 bent on signs from Lobourne. 
 
 " Well, bat," Ripton persisted, " suppose we are found 
 out ? " 
 
 " If we are, I must pay for it." 
 
 Sir Austin breathed the better for this reply. He was 
 beginning to gather a clue to the dialogue. His son was 
 engaged in a plot, and was, moreover, the leader of the plot. 
 He listened for further enlightenment. 
 
 " What was the fellow's name ? " inquired Ripton. 
 
 His companion answered, " Tom Bakewell." 
 
 " I'll tell you what," continued Ripton. " Tou let it all 
 clean out to your cousin and uncle at supper. — How capital 
 claret is with partridge-pie ! What a lot I ate — Didn't you 
 see me frown ? " 
 
 The young sensualist was in an ecstasy of gratitude to his 
 late refection, and the slightest word recalled him to it. 
 Richard answered him — 
 
 " Yes ; and felt your kick. It doesn't matter. Rady's 
 safe, and uncle never blabs." 
 
 " Well, my plan is to keep it close. You're never safe if 
 you don't. — ^I never drank much claret before," Ripton was 
 off again. " Won't I now, though I claret's my wine. You 
 know, it may come out any day, and then we're done for," 
 he rather incongruously appended. 
 
 Richard only took up the business-thread of his friend's 
 rambling chatter, and answered — 
 
28. THE OEDEAL OF EICHAKD FEVEEEL. 
 
 " TouVe got nothing to do with it, if we are." 
 " Haven't I, though ! 1 didn't stick in the box, but I'm 
 an accomplice, that's clear. Besides," added Ripton, " do 
 yon think I should leave you to*bear it all on your shoulders ? 
 I ain't that sort of chap, Ricky, I can tell you." 
 
 Sir Austin thought more highly of the boy Thompson. 
 Still it looked a detestable conspiracy, and the altered manner 
 of his son impressed him strangely. He was not the boy of 
 yesterday. To Sir Austin it seemed as if a gulf had sud- 
 denly opened between them. The boy had embarked, and 
 was on the waters of life in his own vessel. It was as vain 
 to call him back as to attempt to erase what Time has written 
 with the Judgment Blood ! This child, for whom he had 
 prayed nightly in such a fervour and humbleness to God, the 
 dangers were about him, the temptations thick on him, and 
 the devil on board piloting. If a day had done so much, 
 what would years do ? Were prayers and all the watchful- 
 ness he had expended of no avail ? 
 
 A sensation of infinite melancholy overcame the poor 
 gentleman — a thought that he was fighting with a fate in 
 this beloved boy. 
 
 He was half disposed to arrest the two conspirators on the 
 spot, and make them confess, and absolve themselves ; but it 
 seemed to him better to keep an unseen eye over his son: 
 Sir Austin's old system prevailed. 
 
 Adrian characterized this system well, in saying that Sir 
 Austin wished to be Providence to his son. 
 
 If immeasurable love were perfect wisdom, one human 
 being might almost impersonate Providence to another. 
 Alas ! love, divine as it is, can do no more than lighten the 
 house it inhabits — must take its shape, sometimes intensify 
 its narrowness — ^can spiritualize, but not expel, the old life- 
 long lodgers above-stairs and below. 
 
 Sir Austin decided to continue quiescent. 
 The valley still lay black beneath the large autumnal 
 stars, and the exclamations of the boys were becoming fevered 
 and impatient. By-and-by one insisted that he had seen a 
 twinkle. The direction he gave was out of their anticipa- 
 tions. Again the twinkle was announced. Both boys started 
 to their feet. It was a twinkle in the right direction now. 
 " He's done it ! " cried Richard in great heat. " Now 
 
AESON. .29 
 
 yoii may say old Blaize'll soon be old Blazes, Rip. I hope 
 he's asleep." 
 
 " I'm sure he's snoring ! — Look there ! He's alight fast 
 enough. He's dry. He'll burn. — I say," Ripton re-assumed 
 the serious intonation, " do you think they'll ever suspect 
 us ? " 
 
 " What if they do ? We must brunt it." 
 
 " Of course we will. But, I say ! I wish you hadn't given 
 them the scent, though. I like to look innocent. I can't 
 when I know people suspect me. Lord ! look there ! Isn't 
 it just beginning to flare up ! " 
 
 The farmer's grounds were indeed gradually standing out 
 in sombre shadows. 
 
 " I'll fetch my telescope," said Richard. Ripton, somehow 
 not liking to be left alone, caught hold of him. 
 
 "No; don't go and lose the best of it. Here, I'll throw 
 open the window, and we can see." 
 
 The window was flung open, and the boys instantly- 
 stretched half their bodies out of it ; Ripton appearing to 
 devour the rising flames with his mouth : Richard with his 
 eyes. 
 
 Opaque and statuesque stood the figure of the baronet 
 behind them. The wind was low. Dense masses of smoke 
 hung amid the darting snakes of fire, and a red malign light 
 was on the neighbouring leafage. No figures could be seen. 
 Apparently the flames had nothing to contend against, for 
 they were making terrible strides into the darkness. 
 
 " Oh ! " shouted Richard, overcome by excitement, " if I 
 had my telescope ! We must have it ! Let me go and fetch 
 it ! I will ! " 
 
 The boys struggled together, and Sir Austin stepped back. 
 As he did so, a cry was heard in the passage. He hurried 
 out, closed the chamber, and came upon little Clare lying 
 senseless along the floor. 
 
30 THE OKDBAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ADEIAN PLIES HIS HOOK. 
 
 In the morning that followed this night, great gossip 
 was interchanged, between Raynham and Loboume. The 
 village told how Farmer Blaize, of Belthorpe Farm, had his 
 rick feloniously set fire to ; his stables had caught fire, him- 
 self had been all but roasted alive in the attempt to rescue 
 his cattle, of which numbers had perished in the flames. 
 Raynham counterbalanced arson with an authentic ghost 
 seen by Miss Clare in the left wing of the Abbey- — the ghost 
 of a lady, dressed in deep mourning, a scar on her forehead, 
 and a bloody handkerchief at her breast, frightful to behold ! 
 and no wonder the child was frightened out of her wits, and 
 lay in a desperate state awaiting the arrival of the London 
 doctors. It was added that the servants had all threatened 
 to leave in a body, and that Sir Austin to appease them had 
 promised to pull down the entire left wing, like a gentle- 
 man ; for no decent creature, said Loboume, could consent 
 to live in a haunted house. 
 
 Rumour for the nonce had a stronger spice of truth than 
 usual. Poor little Clare lay ill, and the calamity that had 
 befallen Farmer Blaize, as regards his rick and his cattle, 
 was not much exaggerated. Sir Austin caused an account 
 of it to be given him at breakfast, and appeared so scrupu- 
 lously anxious to hear the exact extent of injury sustained 
 by the farmer that heavy Benson went down to inspect the 
 scene. Mr. Benson returned, and, acting under Adrian's 
 malicious advice, framed a formal report of the catastrophe, 
 in which the farmer's breeches figured, and certain cooling 
 applications to a part of the farmer's person. Sir Austin 
 perused it without a smile. He took occasion to have it 
 read out before the two boys, who listened very demurely, 
 as to an ordinary newspaper incident ; only when the report 
 particularized the garments damaged, and the unwonted 
 distressing position Farmer Blaize was reduced to in his 
 bed, an indecorous fit of sneezing laid hold of Master Ripton 
 Thompson, and Richard bit his lip and burst into loud 
 laughter, Ripton joining him, lost to consequences. 
 
ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK. 31 
 
 "I trust you feel for this poor man," said Sir Austin to 
 Ms son, somewliat sternly. 
 
 " I'm sorry about the poor horses, sir," Richard replied. 
 
 It was a difficult task for Sir Austin to keep his old 
 countenance toward the hope of Raynham, knowing him the 
 accomplice-incendiary, and believing the deed to have been 
 unprovoked and wanton. But he must do so, he knew, to 
 let the boy have a fair trial against himself. Be it said, 
 moreover, that the baronet's possession of his son's secret 
 flattered him. It allowed him to act, and in a measure to 
 feel, like Providence ; enabled him to observe and provide 
 for the movements of creatures in the dark. He therefore 
 treated the boy as he commonly did, and young Richard 
 saw no change in his father to make him think he was 
 suspected. 
 
 The game was not so easy against Adrian. Adrian did 
 not shoot or fish. Voluntarily he did nothing to work off 
 the destructive nervous fluid, or whatever it may be, which 
 is in man's nature ; so that two culprit boys once in his 
 power were not likely to taste the gentle hand of mercy, and 
 Richard and Ripton paid for many a trout and partridge 
 spared. At every minute of the day Ripton was thrown 
 into sweats of suspicion that discovery was imminent, by 
 some stray remark or message of Adrian. He was as a fish 
 with the hook in his gills, m.ysteriously caught without 
 having nibbled ; and dive into what depths he would he 
 was sensible of a summoning force that compelled him 
 perpetually towards the gasping surface, which he seemed 
 inevitably approaching when the dinner-bell sounded. There 
 the talk was all of Farmer Blaize. If it dropped, Adrian 
 revived it, and his caressing way with Ripton was just such 
 as a keen sportsman feels towards the creature that has 
 owned his skill, and is making its appearance for the world 
 to acknowledge the same. Sir Austin saw the manceuvres, 
 and admired Adrian's shrewdness. But he had to check 
 the young natural lawyer, for the effect of so much masked 
 examination upon Richard was growing baneful. This fish 
 also felt the hook in its gills, but this fish was more of a 
 pike, and lay in different waters, where there were old 
 stumps and black roots to wind itself about, and defy alike 
 strong pulling and delicate handling. In other words. 
 
32 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEKEL. 
 
 Ricliard showed symptoms of a disposition to take refuge 
 in lies. 
 
 " You know the grounds, my dear boy," Adrian observed 
 to him. " Tell me ; do you think it easy to get to the rick 
 unperceived ? I hear they suspect one of the farmer's 
 turned-off hands." 
 
 " I tell you I don't know the grounds," Richard sullenly 
 replied. 
 
 " Not ? " Adrian counterfeited courteous astonishment. 
 " I thought Mr. Thompson said you were over there yester- 
 day ? " 
 
 Ripton, glad to speak a truth, hurriedly assured Adrian 
 that it was not he had said so. 
 
 " Not ? You had good sport, gentlemen, hadn't you ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ! " mumbled the wretched victims, reddening as 
 they remembered, in Adrian's slightly drawled rusticity of 
 tone, Farmer Blaize's first address to them. 
 
 "I suppose you were among the Fire-worshippers last 
 night, too ? " persisted Adrian. " In some countries, I hear, 
 they manage their best sport at night-time, and beat up for 
 game with torches. It must be a fine sight. After all, the 
 country would be dull if we hadn't a rip here and there to 
 treat us to a little conflagration." 
 
 " A rip ! " laughed Richard, to his friend's disgust and 
 alarm at his daring. " You don't mean this Rip, do you ? " 
 
 " Mr. Thompson fire a rick ? I should as soon suspect you, 
 my dear boy. — You are aware, young gentlemen, that it is 
 rather a serious thing — Eh ? In this country, you know, the 
 landlord has always been the pet of the laws. By the way," 
 Adrian continued, as if diverging to another topic, " you met 
 two gentlemen of the road in your explorations yesterday, 
 Magians. Now, if I were a magistrate of the county, like Sir 
 Miles Papworth, my suspicions would light upon those gentle- 
 men. A tinker and a ploughman, I think you said, Mr. 
 Thompson. Not ? ."Well, say two ploughmen." 
 
 " More likely two tinkers," said Richard. 
 
 " Oh ! if you wish to exclude the ploughman — was he out 
 of employ ? " 
 
 Ripton, with Adrian's eyes inveterately fixed on him, stam- 
 mered an affirmative. 
 
 " The tinker, or the ploughman ? " 
 
 " The ploughm — ." Ingenuous Ripton looking about, as 
 
ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK. 33 
 
 if to aid himself whenever he was able to speak the truth, 
 beheld Richard's face blackening at him, and swallowed back 
 half the word. 
 
 "The ploughman!" Adrian took him up cheerily. "Then 
 we have here a ploughman out of employ. Given a plough- 
 man out of employ, and a rick burnt. The burning of a rick 
 is an act of vengeance, and a ploughman out of employ is a 
 vengeful animal. The rick and the ploughman are advancing 
 to a juxtaposition. Motive being established, we have only 
 to prove their proximity at a certain hour, and our ploughman 
 voyages beyond seas." 
 
 " Dear me, is it transportation for rick-burning? " inquired 
 Eipton aghast. 
 
 Adrian spoke solemnly : " They shave your head. Tou are 
 manacled. Tour diet is sour bread and cheese-parings. Tou 
 work in strings of twenties and thirties. Aeson is branded 
 on your backs in an enormous A. Theological works are the 
 sole literary recreation of the well-conducted and deserving. 
 Consider the fate of this poor fellow, and what an act of 
 vengeance brings him to ! Do you know his name ? " 
 
 " How should I know his name ? " said Richard, with a 
 stubborn assumption of innocence painful to see. 
 
 Sir Austin remarked that no doubt it would soon be known, 
 and Adrian perceived that he was to quiet his line, marveling 
 a little at the baronet's blindness to what was so clear. 
 He would not tell, for that would ruin his future influence 
 with Richard; still he wanted some present credit for his 
 discernment and devotion. The boys got away from dinner, 
 and, after deep consultation, agreed upon a course of conduct, 
 which was to commiserate Farmer Blaize loudly, and make 
 themselves look as much like the public as it was possible for 
 two desperate young malefactors to look, one of whom already 
 felt Adrian's enormous A devouring his back with the fierce- 
 ness of the Pronaethean eagle, and isolating him for ever 
 from mankind. Adrian relished their novel tactics sharply, 
 and led them to lengths of lamentation for Farmer Blaize. 
 Do what they might, the hook was in their gills. The farmer's 
 whip had reduced them to bodily contortions : these were 
 decorous compared with the spiritual writhings they had to 
 perform under Adrian's skilful manipulation. Ripton was fast 
 becoming a coward, and Richard a liar, when next morning 
 Austin Wentworth came over from Poer Hall bringing news 
 
 D 
 
34 THE OEDEAIi OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 that one Mr. Thomas Bakewell, yeoman, had been arrested 
 on suspicion of the crime of Arson and lodged in jail, awaiting 
 the magisterial pleasure of Sir Miles Papworth. Austin's 
 eye rested on Richard as he spoke these terrible tidings. 
 The hope of Raynham returned his look, perfectly calm, and 
 had, moreover, the presence of mind not to look at Ripton. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 JUVENILE STRATAGEMS. 
 
 As soon as they could escape, the boys got away together 
 into an obscure corner of the park, and there took counsel 
 of their extremity. 
 
 "Whatever shall we do now?" asked Ripton of his 
 leader. 
 
 Scorpion girt with fire was never in a more terrible prison- 
 house than poor Ripton, around whom the raging element 
 he had assisted to create seemed to be drawing momently 
 narrower circles. 
 
 " There's only one chance," said Richard, coming to a dead 
 halt, and folding his arms resolutely. 
 
 His comrade inquired vrith the utmost eagerness what that 
 ■chance might be ? 
 
 Richard fixed his eyes on a fiint, and replied : " We must 
 rescue that fellow from jail." 
 
 " Rescue him from jail ! " Ripton gazed at his leader, 
 and fell back with astonishment. " My dear Ricky ! but 
 how are we to do it ? " 
 
 Richard, still perusing his flint, replied : " We must man- 
 age to get a file in to him and a rope. It can be done, I 
 tell you. I don't care what I pay. I don't care what I do. 
 He must be got out." 
 
 "Bother that old Blaize ! " exclaimed Ripton, taking off 
 his cap to wipe his frenzied forehead, and brought down his 
 friend's severe reproof. 
 
 " Never mind old Blaize now. Talk about letting it out. 
 Look at you. I'm ashamed of you. Tou talk about Robin 
 Eood and King Richard ! Why, you haven't an atom of 
 
JUVENILE STRATAGEMS. 35 
 
 courage. Why, you let it out every second of the day. 
 Whenever Rady begins speaking you start; I can see the 
 
 perspiration rolling down you. Are you afraid ? And 
 
 then you contradict yourself. Ton never keep to one story. 
 Now, follow me. We must risk everything to get him out. 
 Mind that ! And keep out of Adrian's way as much as you 
 can. And keep to one story." 
 
 With these sage directions the young leader marched 
 his companion- culprit down to inspect the jail where Tom 
 Bakewell lay groaning over the results of the super-mundane 
 conflict, and the victim of it that he was. 
 
 In Lobourne Austin Wentworth had the reputation of the 
 poor man's friend ; a title he earned more largely ere he went 
 to the reward God alone can give to that supreme virtue. 
 Dame Bakewell, the mother of Tom, on hearing of her son's 
 ■ arrest, had run to comfort him and render him what help 
 she could ; but this was only sighs and tears, and, oh deary 
 me ! which only perplexed poor Tom, who bade her leave 
 an unlucky chap to his fate, and not make himself a thun- 
 dering villain. Whereat the dame begged him to take 
 heart, and he should have a true comforter. " And though 
 it's a gentleman that's coming to you, Tom — for he never 
 refuses a poor body," said Mrs. Bakewell, " it's a true 
 Christian, Tom ! and the Lord knows if the sight of him 
 mayn't be the saving of you, for he's light to look on, and a 
 sermon to listen to, he is ! " 
 
 Tom was not prepossessed by the prospect of a sermon, 
 and looked a sullen dog enough when Austin entered his 
 cell. He was surprised at the end of half an hour to find 
 himself engaged in man-to-man conversation with a gentle- 
 man and a Christian. When Austin rose to go, Tom begged 
 permission to shake his hand. 
 
 " Take and tell young master up at the Abbey that I an't 
 the chap to peach. He'll know. He's a young gentleman 
 as '11 make any man do as he wants 'em ! He's a mortal 
 wild young gentleman ! And I'm a Ass ! That's where 
 'tis. But I an't a blackguard. Tell him that, sir ! " 
 
 This was how it came that Austin eyed young Richard 
 seriously while he told the news at Raynham. The boy was 
 shy of Austin more than of Adrian. Why, he did not know ; 
 but he made it a hard task for Austin to catch him alone, 
 and turned sulkv that instant. Austin was not clever liko 
 ' d2 
 
36 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAKD FEVBEEL. 
 
 Adrian : lie seldom divined otlier people's ideas, and always 
 went the direct road to his object; so instead of beating 
 about and setting the boy on the alert at all points, crammed 
 to the muzzle with lies, he just said, " Tom Bakewell told 
 me to let you know he does not intend to peach on you," 
 and left him. 
 
 Richard repeated the intelligence to Ripton, who cried 
 aloud that Tom was a brick. 
 
 " He shan't suffer for it," said Richard, and pondered on a 
 thicker rope and sharper file. 
 
 " But will your cousin tell ? " was Ripton's reflection. 
 
 " He ! " Richard's lip expressed contempt. " A. plough- 
 m^an refuses to peach, and you ask if one of our family 
 will ? " 
 
 Ripton stood for the twentieth time reproyed on this 
 point. 
 
 The boys had examined the outer walls of the jail, and 
 arrived at the conclusion that Tom's escape might be ma- 
 naged if Tom had spirit, and the rope and file could be any- 
 way reached to him.. But to do this, somebody must gain 
 admittance to his cell, and who was to be taken into their 
 confidence ? 
 
 " Try your cousin," Ripton suggested, after much debate. 
 
 Richard, smiling, wished to know if he meant Adrian ? 
 
 " No, no ! " Ripton hurriedly reassured him. " Austin." 
 
 The same idea was knocking at Richard's head. 
 
 " Let's get the rope and file first," said he, and to Bursley 
 they went for those implements to defeat the law, Ripton 
 procuring the file at one shop and Richard the rope at 
 another, with such masterly cunning did they lay their 
 measures for the avoidance of every possible chance of detec- 
 tion. And better to assure this, in a wood outside Bursley 
 Richard stripped to his shirt and wound the rope round his 
 body, tasting the tortures of anchorites and penitential friars, 
 that nothing should be risked to make Tom's escape a 
 certainty. Sir Austin saw the marks at night as his son lay 
 asleep, through the half-opened folds of his bed-gown. 
 
 It was a severe stroke when, after all their stratagems and 
 trouble, Austin Wentworth refused the office the boys had 
 zealously designed for him. Time pressed. In a few days 
 poor Tom would have to face the redoubtable Sir Miles, and 
 get committed, for rumours of overwhelming evidence to 
 
JUVENILE STRATAGEMS. 37 
 
 convict Mm were rife about Lobourne, and Farmer Blaize's 
 wrath was unappeasable. Again and again young Riobard 
 begged his cousin not to see him disgraced, and to help him 
 in this extremity. Austin was firm in his refusal. 
 
 " My dear Ricky," said he, " there are two ways of getting 
 out of a scrape : a long way and a short way. When you've 
 tried the roundabout method, and failed, come to me, and 
 I'll show you the straight route." 
 
 Richard was too entirely bent upon the roundabout method 
 to consider this advice more than empty words, and only 
 ground his teeth at Austin's unkind refusal. 
 
 He imparted to Eipton, at the eleventh hour, that they 
 must do it themselves, to which Ripton heavily assented. 
 
 On the day preceding poor Tom's doomed appearance 
 before the magistrate. Dame Bakewell had an interview with 
 Austin, who went to Raynham immediately, and sought 
 Adrian's counsel what was to be done. Homeric laughter 
 and nothing else could be got out of Adrian when he heard 
 of the doings of these desperate boys : how they had entered 
 Dame Bakewell's smallest of retail shops, and purchased tea, 
 sugar, candles, and comfits of every description, till the shop 
 was clear of customers : how they had then hurried her into 
 her little back-parlour, where Richard had torn open his 
 shirt and revealed the coils of rope, and Ripton displayed the 
 point of a file from a serpentine recess in his jacket : how 
 they had then told the astonished woman that the rope she 
 saw and the file she saw were instruments for the liberation 
 of her son ; that there existed no other means on earth to 
 save him, they, the boys, having unsuccessfully attempted 
 all: how upon that Richard had tried with the utmost 
 earnestness to persuade her to disrobe and wind the rope 
 round her own person : and Ripton had aired his eloquence 
 to induce her to secrete the file : how, when she resolutely 
 objected to the rope, both boys began backing the file, and 
 in an evil hour, she feared, said Dame Bakewell, she had 
 rewarded the gracious permission given her by Sir Miles 
 Papworth to visit her son, by tempting Tom to file the Law. 
 Though, thanks be to the Lord! Dame Bakewell added, 
 Tom had turned up his nose at the file, and so she had told 
 young Master Richard, who swore very bad for a young 
 gentleman. 
 
 " Boys are like monkeys," remarked Adrian, at the close 
 
38 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 of his explosions, " tte gravest actors of farcical nonsense 
 that the world possesses. May I never be where there are 
 no boys ! A couple of boys left to themselves will furnish 
 richer fun than any troop of trained comedians. No : no Art 
 arrives at the artlessness of nature in matters of comedy. 
 Tou can't simulate the ape. Tour antics are dull. They 
 haven't the charming inconsequence of the natural animal. 
 Look at these two ! . Think of the shifts they are put to all 
 day long ! They know I know all about it, and yet their 
 serenity of innocence is all but unruffled in my presence. 
 You're sorry to think about the end of the business, Austin P 
 So am I ! I dread the idea of the curtain going down. Be- 
 sides, it will do Ricky a world of good. A practical lesson 
 is the best lesson." 
 
 " Sinks deepest," said Austin, " but whether he learns 
 good or evil from it is the question at stake." 
 
 Adrian stretched his length at ease. 
 
 " This will be his first nibble at experience, old Time's 
 fruit, hateful to the palate of youth ! for which season only 
 hath it any nourishment ! Experience ! You know Cole- 
 ridge's capital simile ?^ — Mournful you call it ? Well ! all 
 wisdom is mournful. 'Tis therefore, coz, that the wise do 
 love the Conaic Muse. Their own high food would kill 
 them. You shall find great poets, rare philosophers, night 
 after night on the broad grin before a row of yellow lights 
 and mouthing masks. Why ? Because all's dark at home. 
 The stage is the pastime of great minds. That's how it 
 comes that the stage is now down. An age of rampant 
 little minds, my dear Austin ! How I hate that cant of 
 yours about an Age of Work — you, and your Mortons, and 
 your parsons Brawnley, rank radicals all of you, base mate- 
 rialists ! What does Diaper Sandoe sing of your Age of 
 Work ? Listen ! 
 
 " An Age of petty tit for tat, 
 An Age of busy gabble : 
 An Age that's like a brewer's vat, 
 Fermenting for the rabble ! 
 
 " An Age that's chaste in Lore, but laa 
 To virtuous abuses : 
 Whose gentlemen and ladies wax 
 Too dainty for their uses. 
 
JUVENILE STRATAGEMS. 89 
 
 " An Age that drives an Iron florae 
 Of Time and Space defiant ; 
 Exulting in a Giant's Force, 
 And trembling at the Giant. 
 
 •' An Age of Quaker hue and cut, 
 By Mammon misbegotten ; ■ 
 See the mad Hamlet month and strut I 
 And mark the Kings of Cotton 1 
 
 " From this unrest, lo, early wreok'd, 
 A Future staggers crazy, 
 Ophelia of the Ages, deck'd 
 With -woeful weed and daisy ! " 
 
 Murmtmng, " Get your parson Brawnley to answer that!" 
 Adrian changed the resting-place of a leg, and smiled. The 
 Age was an old battle-field between him and Austin. 
 
 " My parson Brawnley, as you call him, has answered it," 
 said Austin, " not by hoping his best, which would probably 
 leave the Age to go mad to your satisfaction, but by doing 
 it. And he has and will answer your Diaper Sandoe in 
 better verse, as he confutes him in a better life." 
 
 " Tou don't see Sandoe's depth," Adrian replied. " Con- 
 sider that phrase, ' Ophelia of the Ages ' ! Is not Brawnley, 
 like a dozen other leading spirits — I think that's your term 
 —just the metaphysical Hamlet to drive her mad ? She, 
 poor maid ! asks for marriage and smiling babes, while my 
 lord lover stands questioning the Infinite, and rants to the 
 Impalpable." 
 
 Austin laughed. " Marriage and smiling babes she would 
 have in abundance, if Brawnley legislated. Wait till you 
 know him. He will be over at Poer Hall shortly, and you 
 will see what a Man of the Age means. But now pray con- 
 sult with me about these boys." 
 
 " Oh, those boys ! " Adrian tossed a hand. " Are there 
 boys of the Age as well as men ? Not ? Then boys are 
 better than men : boys are for all Ages. What do you think, 
 Austin ? They've been studying Latude's Escape. I found 
 the book open in Ricky's room, on the top of Jonathan Wild. 
 Jonathan preserved the secrets of his profession, and taught 
 them nothing. So they're going to make a Latude of Mr. 
 Tom Bakewell. He's to be Bastille Bakewell, whether he 
 will or no. Let them. Let the wild colt run free ! W© 
 
40 THE OEDEAL OF KiCHAED FEVEEBL. 
 
 can't help ttem. "We can only look on. "We should spoil 
 the play." 
 
 Adrian always made a point of feeding the fretful beast 
 Impatience with pleasantries — a not congenial diet; and 
 Austin, the most patient of human beings, began to lose his 
 self-control. 
 
 " Ton talk as if Time belonged to yon, Adrian. "We have 
 but a few hours left us. "Work first, and joke afterwards. 
 The boy's fate is being decided now." 
 
 " So is everybody's, my dear Austin ! " yawned the epi- 
 curean. 
 
 "Yes, but this boy is at present under our guardianship — 
 under yours especially." 
 
 " Not yet ! not yet ! " Adrian interjected languidly. " No 
 getting into scrapes when I have him. The leash, young 
 hound ! The collar, young colt ! I'm perfectly irresponsible 
 at present." 
 
 " Ton may have something different to deal with when you 
 are responsible, if you think that." 
 
 " I take my young prince as I find him, coz : a Julian, or a 
 Caracalla : a Constantine, or a Nero. Then, if he will play 
 the fiddle to a conflagration, he shall play it well : if he must 
 be a disputatious apostate, at any rate he shall understand 
 logic and men, and have the habit of saying his prayers." 
 
 " Then you leave me to act alone ? " said Austin, rising. 
 
 " Without a single curb ! " Adrian gesticulated an acqui- 
 esced withdrawal. " I'm sure you would not, still more 
 certain you cannot, do harm. And be mindful of my prophetic 
 words : "Whatever's done, old Blaize will have to be bought 
 ofE. There's the affair settled at once. I suppose I must go 
 to the chief to-night and settle it myself. "We can't see this 
 poor devil condemned, though it's nonsense to talk of a boy 
 being the prime instigator." 
 
 Austin cast an eye at the complacent languor of the wise 
 youth, his cousin, and the little that he knew of his fellows 
 told him he might talk for ever here, and not be compre- 
 hended. The wise youth's two ears were stuffed with his 
 own wisdom. One evil only Adrian dreaded, it was clear — ■ 
 the action of the law. 
 
 As he was moving away, Adrian called out to him, " Stop, 
 Austin ! There ! don't be anxious ! Tou invariably take 
 the glum side. I've done something. Never mind what. If 
 
daphne's bower. 41 
 
 yon go down to Belthorpe, be civil, but not obsequious. Ton 
 remember the tactics of Scipio Africanus against the Punic 
 elephants ? "Well, don't say a word— in thine ear, coz : I've 
 turned Master Blaize's elephants. If they charge, 'twill be a 
 feint, and back to the destruction of his serried ranks ! Ton 
 understand. Not ? Well, 'tis as well. Only let none say 
 that I sleep. If I must see him to-night, I go down knowing 
 he has not got us in his power." The wise youth yawned, 
 and stretched out a hand for any book that might be within 
 his reach. Austin left him to look about the grounds for 
 Richard. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DAPHNE'S BOWBE. 
 
 A LITTLE laurel-shaded temple of white marble looked out 
 on the river from a knoll bordering the Raynham beechwoods, 
 and was dubbed by Adrian Daphne's Bower. To this spot 
 Richard had retired, and there Austin found him with his 
 head buried in his hands, a picture of desperation, whose last 
 shift has been defeated. He allowed Austin to greet him and 
 sit by him without lifting his head. Perhaps his eyes were 
 not presentable. 
 
 " Where's your friend ? " Austin began. 
 
 " Gone ! " was the answer, sounding cavernous from behind 
 hair and fingers. Am explanation presently followed, that a 
 summons had come for him in the morning from Mr. Thomp- 
 son ; and that Mr. Ripton had departed against his will. 
 
 In fact, Ripton had protested that he would defy his parent 
 and remain by his friend in the hour of adversity and at the 
 post of danger. Sir Austin signified his opinion that a boy 
 should obey his parent, by giving orders to Benson for 
 Ripton's box to be packed and ready before noon ; and 
 Ripton's alacrity in taking the baronet's view of filial duty 
 was as little feigned as his offer to Richard to throw filial 
 duty to the winds. He rejoiced that the Fates had agreed to 
 remove him from the very hot neighbourhood of Loboume, 
 while he grieved, like an honest lad, to see his comrade left 
 
42 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVERBL. 
 
 to face calamity alone. The boys parted amicably, as they 
 could hardly fail to do, when Ripton had sworn fealty to 
 the Feverels with a fervour that made him declare himself 
 bond, and due to appear at any stated hour and at any stated 
 place to fight all the farmers in England, on a mandate from 
 the heir of the house. 
 
 " So you're left alone," said Austin, contemplating the 
 boy's shapely head. " I'm glad of it. We never Imow what's 
 in us till we stand by ourselves." 
 
 There appeared to be no answer forthcoming. Vanity, 
 however, replied at last, " He wasn't much support." 
 
 " Remember his good points now he's gone, Ricky." 
 
 " Oh ! he was staunch," the boy grumbled. 
 
 " And a staunch friend is not always to be found. Now, 
 have you tried your own way of rectifying this business, 
 Ricky ?" 
 
 " I have done everything." 
 
 " And failed !" 
 
 There was a pause, and then the deep-toned evasion — 
 
 " Tom Bakewell's a coward !" 
 
 " I suppose, poor fellow," said Austin, in his kind way, 
 " he doesn't want to get into a deeper mess. I don't think 
 he's a coward." 
 
 " He is a coward," cried Richard. " Do you think if I 
 had a file I would stay in prison ? I'd be out the first 
 night ! And he might have had the rope, too — a rope thick 
 enough for a couple of men his size and weight. Ripton and 
 I and Ned Markham swung on it for an hour, and it didn't 
 give way. He's a coward, and deserves his fate. I've no 
 compassion for a coward." 
 
 " Nor I much," said Austin. 
 
 Richard had raised his head in the heat of his denunciation 
 of poor Tom. He would have hidden it had he known the 
 thought in Austin's clear eyes while he faced them. 
 
 " I never met a coward myself," Austin continued. " I 
 have heard of one or two. One let an innocent man die for 
 him." 
 
 " How base !" exclaimed the boy. 
 
 " Tes, it was bad," Austin acquiesced. 
 
 "Ead!" Richard scorned the poor contempt. "Howl 
 would have spurned him ! He was a coward !" 
 
 " I believe he pleaded the feelings of his family in his 
 
daphne's bower. 43 
 
 excuse, and tried every means to get him off. I have read 
 also in the confessions of a celebrated philosopher that in 
 his youth he committed some act of pilfering, and accused a 
 young servant-girl of his own theft, who was condemned and 
 dismissed for it, pardoning her guilty accuser." 
 
 •' What a coward !" shouted Richard. " And he confessed 
 it puhlicly ?" 
 
 " You may read it yourself." 
 
 " He actually wrote it down, and printed it ?" 
 
 " Tou have the book in your father's library. Would you 
 have done so much ?" 
 
 Richard faltered. No ! he admitted that he never could 
 have told people. 
 
 " Then who is to call that man a coward ?" said Austin. 
 " He expiated his cowardice as all who give way in moments 
 of weakness, and are not cowards, must do. The coward 
 chooses to think ' God does not see. I shall escape.' He 
 who is not a coward, and has succumbed, knows that God 
 has seen all, and it is not so hard a task for him to make 
 his heart bare to the world. Worse, I should fancy it, to 
 know myself an imposter when men praised me." 
 
 Young Richard's eyes were wandering on Austin's gravely 
 cheerful face. A keen intentness suddenly fixed them, and 
 he dropped his head. 
 
 " So I think you're wrong, Ricky, in calling this poor 
 Tom a coward because he refuses to try your means of 
 escape," Austin resumed. " A coward hardly objects to 
 drag in his accomplice. And, where the person involved 
 belongs to a great family, it seems to me that for a poor 
 plough-lad to volunteer not to do so speaks him anything 
 but a coward." 
 
 Richard was silent. Altogether to surrender his rope and 
 file was a fearful sacrifice, after all the time, trepidation, and 
 study he had spent on those two saving instruments. If he 
 avowed Tom's manly behaviour, Richard Feverel was in a 
 totally new position. Whereas, by keeping Tom a coward, 
 Richard Feverel was the injured one, and to seem injured is 
 always a luxury ; sometimes a necessity, whether among boys 
 or men. 
 
 In Austin the Magian conflict would not have lasted long. 
 He had but a blind notion of the fierceness with which it 
 raged in young Richard. Happily for the boy, Austin was 
 
44 THE OKDEAL OF EICHABD FEVEEEL. 
 
 not a preacher. A single insistance, a cant phrase, a fatherly 
 manner, might have wrecked him, by arousing ancient or 
 latent opposition. The born preacher we feel instinctively to 
 be our foe. He may do some good to the wretches that have 
 been struck down, and lie gasping on the battlefield : he 
 rouses antagonism in the strong. Richard's nature, left to 
 itself, wanted little more than an indication of the proper 
 track, and when he said, " Tell me what I can do, Austin ? " 
 he had fought the best half of the battle. His voice was 
 subdued. Austin put his hand on the boy's shoulder. 
 
 " Tou must go down to Farmer Blaize." 
 
 " "Well ! " said Richard, sullenly divining the deed of 
 penance. 
 
 " You'll know what to say to him when you're there." 
 
 The boy bit his lip and frowned. " Ask a favour of that 
 big brute, Austin ? I can't ! " 
 
 " Just tell him the whole case, and that you don't intend 
 to stand by and let the poor fellow suffer without a friend to 
 help him out of his scrape." 
 
 " But, Austin," the boy pleaded, " I shall have to ask 
 him to help off Tom Bakewell ! How can I ask him, when I 
 hate him ? " 
 
 Austin bade him go, and think nothing of the consequences 
 till he got there. 
 
 Richard groaned in soul. 
 
 ' You've no pride, Austin." 
 
 "Perhaps not." 
 
 "You don't know what it is to ask a favour of a brute 
 you hate." 
 
 Richard stuck to that view of the case, and stuck to it 
 the faster the more imperatively the urgency of a movem.ent 
 dawned upon him. 
 
 " Why," continued the boy, " I shall hardly be able to keep 
 my fists off him ! " 
 
 " Surely you've punished him enough, boy ? " said Austin. 
 
 " He struck me ! " Richard's lip quivered. " He dared not 
 come at me with his hands. He struck me vdth a whip. 
 He'll be telling everybody that he horsewhipped me, and that 
 I went down and begged his pardon. Begged his pardon ! 
 A Feverel beg his pardon ! Oh, if I had my will ! " 
 
 " The man earns his bread, Ricky. You poached on his 
 grounds. He turned you off, and you fired his rick." 
 
daphne's bowbk. 45 
 
 "And I'll pay him for his loss. And I won't do any 
 more." 
 
 " Because yon won't ask a favour of him ? " 
 
 " No ! I will not ask a favour of him." 
 
 Anstin looked at the boy steadily. " Ton prefer to receive 
 a favour from poor Tom Bakewell ? " 
 
 At Austin's enunciation of this obverse view of the matter 
 Richard raised his brow. Dimly a new light broke in upon 
 him. " Favour from Tom Bakewell, the ploughman ? How 
 do you mean, Austin ? ' 
 
 " To save yourself an unpleasantness you permit a country 
 lad to sacrifice himself for you ? I confess I should not have 
 so much pride." 
 
 " Pride ! " shouted Richard, stung by the taunt, and set his 
 sight hard at the blue ridges of the hills. 
 
 Not knowing for the moment what else to do, Austin drew 
 a picture of Tom in prison, and repeated Tom's volunteer 
 statement. The picture, though his intentions were far from 
 designing it so, had to Richard, whose perception of humour 
 was infinitely keener, a horrible chaw-bacon smack about it. 
 Visions of a grinning lout, open from ear to ear, unkempt, 
 coarse, splay-footed, rose before him and afflicted him with the 
 strangest sensations of disgust and comicality, mixed up with 
 pity and remorse — a sort of twisted pathos. There lay Tom; 
 hobnail Tom ! a bacon-munching, reckless, beer-swilling 
 animal ! and yet a man ; a dear brave human heart notwith- 
 standing ; capable of devotion and unselfishness. The boy's 
 better spirit was touched, and it kindled his imagination to 
 realize the abject figure of poor clodpole Tom, and surround 
 it with a halo of mournful light. His soul was alive. Feelings 
 he had never known streamed in upon him as from an ethereal 
 casement, an unwonted tenderness, an embracing humour, a 
 consciousness of some ineffable glory, an irradiation of the 
 features of humanity. All this was in the bosom of the boy, 
 and through it all the vision of an actual hob-nail Tom, 
 coarse, unkempt, open from ear to ear; whose presence was 
 a finger of shame to him and an oppression of clodpole; yet 
 toward whom he felt just then a loving-kindness beyond 
 what he felt for any living creature. He laughed at him, 
 and wept over him. He prized him, while he shrank from 
 him. It was a genial strife of the angel in him with consti- 
 tuents less divine ; but the angel was uppermost and led the 
 
46 SCilli OBDEAL OF EI( HAED FEVEREL. 
 
 van — extinguislied. loathing, iumanized laugMer, trans- 
 figured pride — pride ttat would persistently contemplate 
 the corduroys of gaping Tom, and cry to Richard, in tlie 
 very tone of Adrian's ironic voice, " Behold your benefactor ! " 
 
 Austin sat by the boy, unaware of the sublimer tumult he 
 had stirred. Little of it was perceptible in Richard's coun- 
 tenance. The lines of his mouth were slightly drawn ; his 
 eyes still hard set into the distance. He remained thus 
 many minutes. Finally he jumped to his legs, saying, " I'll 
 go at once to old Blaize and tell him." 
 
 Austin grasped his hand, and together they issued out of 
 Daphne's Bower, in the direction of Lobourne. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BITTEB CUP. 
 
 Fabmbb Blaize was not so astonished at the visit of Richard 
 Feverel as that young gentleman expected him to be. The 
 farmer, seated in his easy-chair in the little low-roofed 
 parlour of an old-fashioned, farm-house, with a long clay 
 pipe on the table at his elbow, and a veteran pointer at his 
 feet, had already given audience to three distinguished 
 members of the Feverel blood, who had come separately, 
 according to their accustomed secretiveness, and with one 
 object. In the morning it was Sir Austin himself. Shortly 
 after his departure, arrived Austin Wentworth ; close on his 
 heels, Algernon, known about Lobourne as the Captain, 
 popular wherever he was known. Farmer Blaize reclined 
 in considerable elation. He had brought these great people 
 to a pretty low pitch. He had welcomed them hospitably, 
 as a British yeoman should ; but 'not budged a foot in his 
 demands : not to the baronet : not to the Captain : not to 
 good young Mr. Wentworth. For Farmer Blaize was a solid 
 Englishman ; and, on hearing from the baronet a frank con- 
 fession of the hold he had on the family, he determined to 
 tighten his hold, and only relax it in exchange for tangible 
 advantages — compensation to his pocket, his wounded per- 
 
THE BITTER OUP. 47 
 
 son, and his still more wounded feelings: the total indemnity 
 being, in round figures, three hundred pounds, and a spoken 
 apology from the prime offender, young Mister Kichard. 
 Even then there was a reservation. Provided, the farmer 
 said, nobody had been tampering with any of his witnesses. 
 In that case Farmer Blaize declared the money might go, 
 and he would transport Tom Bakewell, as he had sworn ho 
 would. And it goes hard, too, with an accomplice, by law, 
 added the farmer, knocking the ashes leisurely out of his 
 pipe. He had no wish to bring any disgrace anywhere ; he 
 respected the inmates of Raynham Abbey, as in duty bound; 
 he should be sorry to see them in trouble. Only no tamper- 
 ing with his witnesses. He was a man for Law. Rank was 
 much: money was much: but Law was more. In this 
 country Law was above the sovereign. To tamper with the 
 Law was treason to the realm. 
 
 " I come to you direct," the baronet explained. " I tell 
 you candidly in what way I discovered my son to be mixed 
 up in this miserable affair. I promise you indemnity for 
 your loss, and an apology that shall, I trust, satisfy your 
 feelings, assuring you that to tamper with witnesses is not 
 the province of a Feverel. All I ask of you in return is, not 
 to press the prosecution. At present it rests with you. I 
 am bound to do all that lies in my power for this imprisoned 
 man. How and wherefore my son was prompted to suggest, 
 or assist in, such an act, I cannot explain, for I do not 
 know." 
 
 " Hum ! " said the farmer. " I think I do." 
 
 •' Ton know the cause ? " Sir Austin stared. "I beg you 
 to confide it to me." 
 
 " 'Least, I can pretty nigh neighbour it with a guess," said 
 the farmer. " We an't good friends. Sir Austin, me and your 
 son, just now — ^not to say cordial. I, ye see, Sir Austin, I'm a 
 man as don't like young gentlemen a-poachin' on his grounds 
 without his permission, — in special when birds is plentiful 
 on their own. It appear he do like it. Consequently I has 
 to flick this whip — as them fellers at the races : All in this 
 'ere Ring's mine ! as much as to say ; and who's been hit, 
 he's had fair warnin'. I'm sorry for't, but that's just the 
 case." 
 
 Sir Austin retired to communicate with his son, when lie 
 should find him. 
 
48 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEKEL. 
 
 Algernon's interview passed off in ale and promises. He 
 also assured Farmer Blaize that no Feverel could be affected 
 by his proviso. 
 
 No less did Austin Wentworth. The farmer was satisfied. 
 "Money's safe, I know," said he; "now for the 'pology !" 
 and Parmer Blaize thrust his legs further out, and his head 
 further back. 
 
 The farmer naturally reflected that the three separate 
 visits had been conspired together. Still the baronet's 
 frankness, and the baronet's not having reserved himself for 
 the third and final charge, puzzled him. He was consider- 
 ing whether they were a deep, or a shallow lot, when young 
 Richard was announced. 
 
 A pretty little girl with the roses of thirteen springs in 
 her cheeks, and abundant beautiful bright tresses, tripped 
 before the boy, and loitered shyly by the farmer's arm-chair 
 to steal a look at the handsome new-comer. She was intro- 
 duced to Eichard as the farmer's niece, Lucy Desborough, 
 the daughter of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and, what 
 was better, though the farmer did not pronounce it so loudly, 
 a real good girl. 
 
 Neither the excellence of her character, nor her rank in 
 life, tempted Richard to inspect the little lady. He made 
 an awkward bow, and sat down. 
 
 The farmer's eyes twinkled. " Her father," he continued, 
 " fought and fell for his coontry. A man as fights for's 
 coontry 's a right to hould up his head — ay ! with any in 
 the land. Dosb'roughs o' Dorset ! d'ye know that family. 
 Master Feverel ?" 
 
 Richard did not know them, and, by his air, did not 
 desire to become acquainted with any offshoot of that 
 family. 
 
 " She can make puddens and pies," the farmer went on, 
 regardless of his auditor's gloom. " She's a lady, as good as 
 the best of 'em. I don't care about their being Catholics — 
 the Desb'roughs o' Dorset are gentlemen. And she's good 
 for the pianer, too ! She strums to me of evenin's. I'm for 
 the old tunes : she's for the new. Gal-like ! While she's 
 with me she shall be taught things use'l. She can parley- 
 voo a good 'un and foot it, as it goes ; been in France a 
 couple of year. I prefer the singin' of 't to the talkin' of 't. 
 Come, Luce ! toon up — eh ? — Ye wun't ? That song about 
 
THE BITTEE CUP. 49 
 
 the Yiffendeer — a female" — Farmer Blaize volunteered the 
 translation of the title — '' who wears the — you guess what ! 
 and marches along with the French sojers : a pretty brazen 
 bit o' goods, I sh'd fancy." 
 
 Mademoiselle Lucy corrected her uncle's French, but 
 objected to do more. The handsome cross boy had almost 
 taken away her voice for speech, as it was, and sing in his 
 company she could not ; so she stood, a hand on her uncle's 
 chair to stay herself from falling, while she wriggled a 
 dozen various shapes of refusal, and shook her head at the 
 farmer with fixed eyes. 
 
 "Aha!" laughed the farmer, dismissing her, "they soon 
 learn the difference 'twixt the young 'un and the old 'un. 
 Go along, Luce ! and learn yer lessons for to-morrow." 
 
 Reluctantly the daughter of the Royal Navy glided away. 
 Her uncle's head followed her to the door, where she dallied 
 to catch a last impression of the young stranger's lowering 
 face, and darted through. 
 
 Farmer Blaize laughed and chuckled. "She an't so fond 
 of her uncle as that, every day ! Not that she an't a good 
 nurse — the kindest little soul you'd meet of a winter's walk ! 
 She'll read t' ye, and make drinks, and sing, too, if ye Likes 
 it, and she won't be tired. A obstinate good 'un, she be ! 
 Bless her !" 
 
 The farmer may have designed, by these eulogies of his 
 niece, to give his visitor time to recover his composure, and 
 establish a common topic. His diversion only irritated and 
 confused our shame-eaten youth. Richard's intention had 
 been to come to the farmer's threshold : to summon the 
 farmer thither, and in a loud and haughty tone then and 
 there to take upon himself the whole burden of the charge 
 against Tom Bakewell. He had strayed, during his passage 
 to Belthorpe, somewhat back to his old nature; and his 
 being compelled to enter the house of his enemy, sit in his 
 chair, and endure an introduction to his family, was more 
 than he bargained for. He commenced blinking hard in 
 preparation for the horrible dose to which delay and the 
 farmer's cordiality added inconceivable bitters. Farmer 
 Blaize was quite at his ease ; nowise in a hurry. He spoke 
 of the weather and the harvest : of recent doings up at the 
 Abbey : glanced over that year's cricketing ; hoped that no 
 future Feverel would lose a leg to the game. Richard saw 
 
 E 
 
50 THE OKDBAL OF EICHAED FBVEEEL. 
 
 and heard Arson in it all. He blinked harder as he neared 
 the cup. In a moment of silence, he seized it with a gasp. 
 
 " Mr. Blaize ! I have come to tell yon that I am the per- 
 son who set fire to your rick the other night." 
 
 An odd contraction formed about the farmer's mouth. He 
 changed his posture, and said, " Ay ? that's what ye're come 
 to tell me, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes ! " said Richard firmly. 
 
 " And that be all ? " 
 
 " Tes ! " Richard reiterated. 
 
 The farmer again changed his posture. " Then, my lad, 
 ye've come to tell me a lie ! " 
 
 Farmer Blaize looked straight at the boy, undismayed by 
 the dark flush of ire he had kindled. 
 
 " You dare to call me a liar ! " cried Richard, starting 
 up. 
 
 " I say," the farmer renewed his first emphasis, and 
 smacked his thigh thereto, " that's a lie ! " 
 
 Richard held out his clenched fist. " You have twice in- 
 sulted me. You have struck me : you have dared to call me 
 a liar. I would have apologised^I would have asked your 
 pardon, to have got off that fellow in prison. Yes ! I would 
 have degraded myself that another man should not suffer for 
 my deed " 
 
 " Quite proper ! " interposed the farmer. 
 
 " And you take this opportunity of insulting me afresh. 
 You're a coward, sir ! nobody but a coward would have 
 insulted me in his own house." 
 
 " Sit ye down, sit ye down, young master," said the 
 farmer, indicating the chair and cooling the outburst with 
 his hand. " Sit ye down. Don't ye be hasty. If ye hadn't 
 been hasty t' other day, we sh'd a been friends yet. Sit ye 
 down, sir. I sh'd be sorry to reckon you out a liar, Mr. 
 Feverel, or anybody o' your name. I respects yer father, 
 though we're opp'site politics. I'm willin' to think well o' 
 you. What I say is, that as you say an't the trewth. Mind ! 
 I don't like you none the worse for't. But it an't what is. 
 That's all ! You knows it as well's I ! " 
 
 Richard, disdaining to show signs of being pacified, angrily 
 reseated himself. The farmer spoke sense, and the boy, 
 after his late interview with Austin, had become capable of 
 
THE BITTER CUP. 51 
 
 perceiving vaguely tliat a towering passion is tardly the 
 justification for a wrong course of conduct. 
 
 " Come," continued the farmer, not unkindly, " wtat else 
 have you to say ? " 
 
 Here was the same bitter cup he had already once drained 
 brimming at Richard's lips again! Alas, poor human 
 nature ! that empties to the dregs a dozen of these evil 
 drinks, to evade the single one which Destiny, less cruel, 
 had insisted upon. 
 
 The boy blinked and tossed it off. 
 
 " I came to say that I regretted the revenge I had taken 
 on you for your striking me." 
 
 Farmer Blaize nodded. 
 
 " And now ye've done, young gentleman ? " 
 
 Still another cupful ! 
 
 " I should be very much obliged," Richard formally began: 
 but his stomach was turned ; he could but sip and sip, and 
 gather a distaste which threatened to make the penitential 
 act impossible. " Very much obliged," he repeated : " much 
 obliged, if you would be so kind," and it struck him that 
 had he spoken this at first he would have given it a word- 
 ing more persuasive with the farmer and more worthy of his 
 own pride : more honest, in fact : for a sense of the dis- 
 honesty of what he was saying caused him to cringe and 
 simulate humility to deceive the farmer, and the more he 
 said the less he felt his words, and, feeling them less, he 
 inflated them more. " So kind," he stammered, " so kind " 
 (fancy a Feverel asking this big brute to be so kind !) " as 
 to do me the favour " {me the favour !) " to exert yourself " 
 (it's all to please Austin) " to endeavour to — hem ! to " 
 (there's no saying it !) 
 
 The cup was full as ever. Richard dashed at it again. 
 
 "What I came to ask is, whether you would have the 
 kindness to try what you could do " (what an infamous shame 
 to have to beg like this!) " do to save — do to ensure^— whether 
 
 you would have the kindness " It seemed out of all 
 
 human power to gulp it down. The draught grew more and 
 more abhorrent. To proclaim one's iniquity, to apologise f or- 
 one's wrongdoing ; thus much could be done ; but to beg a 
 favour of the offended party — ^that was beyond the self- 
 abasement any Feverel could consent to. Pride, however, 
 "whose inevitable battle is against itself, drew aside the cur-. 
 
 e2 
 
52 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 tains of poor Tom's prison, crying a second time, " Behold 
 your Benefactor ! " and, with, the words burning in his ears, 
 Richard swallowed the dose : 
 
 " Well, then, I want you, Mr. Blaize, — if you don't mind 
 — will you help me to get this man Bakewell off his punish, 
 ment ? " 
 
 To do Farmer Blaize justice, he waited very patiently for 
 the boy, though he could not quite see why he did not take 
 the gate at the first offer. 
 
 " Oh ! " said he, when he heard and had pondered on the 
 request ; " Hum ! ha ! we'll see about it t'morrow. But if 
 he's innocent, you know, we shan't mak'n guilty." 
 
 " It was I did it ! " Richard declared. 
 
 The farmer's half-amused expression sharpened a bit. 
 
 " So, young gentleman ! and you're sorry for the night's 
 work ? " 
 
 "I shall see that you are paid the full extent of . your 
 losses." 
 
 " Thank'ee," said the farmer drily. 
 
 " And, if this poor man is released to-morrow, I don't care 
 what the amount is." 
 
 Farmer Blaize deflected his head twice in silence. "Bri- 
 bery," one motion expressed : " Corruption," the other. 
 
 " Now," said he, leaning forward, and fixing his elbows on 
 his knees, while he counted the case at his finger's ends, 
 " excuse the liberty, but wishin' to know where this 'ere 
 money's to come from, I sh'd like jest t'ask if so be Sir 
 Austin know o' this ? " 
 
 " My father knows nothing of it," replied Richard. 
 
 The farmer flung back in his chair. " Lie number Two," 
 said his shoulders, soured by the British aversion to being 
 plotted at, and not dealt with openly. 
 
 " And ye've the money ready, young gentleman ? " 
 
 " I shall ask my father for it." 
 
 "And he'll hand't out?" 
 
 " Certainly he will ! " 
 
 Richard had not the slightest intention of ever letting 
 his father into his counsels. 
 
 " A good three hundred pounds, ye know ? " the farmer 
 suggested. 
 
 No consideration of the extent of damages, and the size of 
 
THE BITTER CUP. 53 
 
 the sum, affected young Richard, who said boldly, " He will 
 not otject to pay it when I tell him." 
 
 It was natural Farmer Blaize should be a trifle suspicious 
 that a youth's guarantee would hardly be given for his 
 father's readiness to disburse such a thumping bill, unless 
 he had previously received his father's sanction and au- 
 thority. 
 
 " Hum ! " said he, " why not 'a told him before ? " 
 
 The farmer threw an objectionable shrewdness into his 
 query, that caused Richard to compress his mouth and glance 
 high. 
 
 Farmer Blaize was positive 'twas a lie. 
 
 " Hum ! Te still hold to 't you fired the rick ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " The blame is mine ! " quoth Richard, with the loftiness 
 of a patriot of old Rome. 
 
 " Na, na ! " the straightforward Briton put him aside. 
 " Te did't, or ye didn't do't. Did ye do't, or no ? " 
 
 Thrust in a comer, Richard said, " I did it." 
 
 Farmer Blaize reached his hand to the bell. It was 
 answered in an instant by little Lucy, who received orders 
 to fetch in a dependent at Belthorpe going by the name of 
 the Bantam, and made her exit as she entered, with her eyes 
 on the young stranger. 
 
 "Now," said the farmer, " these be my principles. I'm a 
 plain man, Mr. Feverel. Above board with me, and you'll 
 find me handsome. Try to circumvent me, and I'm a ugly 
 customer. I'll show you I've no animosity. Tour father pays 
 — you apologize. That's enough for me ! Let Tom Bakewell 
 fight't out with the Law, and I'll look on. The Law wasn't 
 on the spot, I suppose ? so the Law ain't much witness. 
 But I am. Leastwise the Bantam is. I tell you, young 
 gentleman, the Bantam saw't ! It's no mortal use whatever 
 your denyin' that ev'dence. And where's the good, sir, I 
 ask ? What comes of 't ? Whether it be you, or whether 
 it be Tom Bakewell — ain't all one ? If I holds back, ain't it 
 sim'lar ? It's the trewth I want ! And here't comes," 
 added the farmer, as Miss Lucy ushered in the Bantam, 
 who presented a curious figure for that rare divinity to 
 enliven. 
 
54 THE OEDEAL OF KICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 A PINE DISTINCTION. 
 
 In ttdld of liody, gait, and stature, Giles Jinkson, the 
 Bantam, was a tolerably fair representative of the Punic 
 elephant, whose part, with diverse anticipations, the generals 
 of the Blaize and Feverel forces, from opposing ranks, ex- 
 pected him to play. Giles, surnamed the Bantam, on 
 account of some forgotten sally of his youth or infancy, 
 moved and looked elephantine. It sufficed that Giles was 
 well fed to assure that Giles was faithful — if uncorrupted. 
 The farm which supplied to him ungrudging provender had 
 all his vast capacity for work in willing exercise: the farmer 
 who held the farm his instinct reverenced as the fountain- 
 source of beef and bacon, to say nothing of beer, which was 
 plentiful at Belthorpe, and good. This Farmer Blaize well 
 knew, and he reckoned consequently that here was an animal 
 always to be relied on — a sort of human composition out of 
 dog, horse, and bull, a cut above each of these quadrupeds 
 in usefulness, and costing proportionately more, but on the 
 whole worth the money, and therefore invaluable, as every- 
 thing worth its money must be to a wise man. When the 
 stealing of grain had been made known at Belthorpe, the 
 Bantam, a fellow-thresher with Tom Bakewell, had shared 
 with him the shadow the guilt. Farmer Blaize, if he hesi- 
 tated which to suspect, did not debate a second as to which 
 he would discard ; and, when the Bantam said he had seen 
 Tom secreting pilkins in a sack. Farmer Blaize chose to 
 telieve him, and ofE went poor Tom, told to rejoice in the 
 clemency that spared his appearance at Sessions. 
 
 The Bantam's small sleepy orbits saw many things, and 
 just at the right moment it seemed. He was certainly the 
 first to give the clue at Belthorpe on the night of the con- 
 fl.agration, and he may, therefore, have seen poor Tom 
 retreating stealthily from the scene, as he averred he did. 
 Lobourne had its say on the subject. Rustic Lobourne 
 hinted broadly at a young woman in the case, and, more- 
 over, told a tale of how these fellow-threshers had, in noble 
 rivalry, one day turned upon each other to see which of the 
 
A FINE DISTINCTION. 55 
 
 two threshed the best ; whereof the Bantam still bore marks, 
 and malice, it was said. However, there he stood, and 
 tugged his forelocks to the company, and if Truth really had 
 concealed herself in him she must have been hard set to find 
 her unlikeliest hiding-place. 
 
 " Now," said the farmer, marshalling forth his elephant 
 with the confidence of one who delivers his ace of trumps, 
 " tell this young gentleman what ye saw on the night of the 
 fire, Bantam ! " 
 
 The Bantam jerked a bit of a bow to his patron, and then 
 swung round, fully obscuring him from Richard. 
 
 Richard fixed his eyes on the floor, while the Bantam in 
 rudest Doric commenced his narrative. Knowing what was 
 to come, and thoroughly nerved to confute the main inci- 
 dent, Richard barely listened to his barbarous locution : but 
 when the recital arrived at the point where the Bantam 
 affirmed he had seen " T'm Baak'U wi's owen hoies," Richard 
 faced him, and was amazed to find himself being mutely 
 addressed by a series of intensely significant grimaces, signs, 
 and winks. 
 
 " What do you mean ? Why are you making those faces 
 at me ? " cried the boy indignantly. 
 
 Farmer Blaize leaned round the Bantam to have a look at 
 him, and beheld the stolidest mask ever given to man. 
 
 " Bain't makin' no faces at nobody," growled the sulky 
 elephant. 
 
 The farmer commanded him to face about and finish. 
 
 "A see T'm Baak'U," the Bantam recommenced, and 
 again the contortions of a horrible wink were directed at 
 Richard. The boy might well believe this churl was lying, 
 and he did, and was emboldened to exclaim — 
 
 " Tou never saw Tom Bakewell set fire to that rick ! " 
 
 The Bantam swore to it, grimacing an accompaniment. 
 
 " I tell you," said Richard, " I put the lucif ers there 
 myself!" 
 
 The suborned elephant was staggered. He meant to 
 telegraph to the young gentleman that he was loyal and true 
 to certain gold pieces that had been given him, and that in 
 the right place and at the right time he should prove so. 
 Why was he thus suspected? Why was he not under- 
 stood ? 
 
56 THE OEDEAL OF EICEAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 '■ A ttowt I see 'un, then," muttered tlie Bantam, trying a. 
 middle course. 
 
 This brought down on him the farmer, who roared, 
 " Thought ! Te thought ! What d'ye mean ? Speak out, 
 and don't be thiukin'. Thought ? What the devil's- 
 that ? " 
 
 " How could he see who it was on a pitch-dark night ? "■ 
 Richard put in. 
 
 " Thought ! " the farmer bellowed louder. " Thought — 
 Devil take ye, when ye took yer oath on't. HuUoa ! What 
 are ye screwin' yer eye at Mr. Peverel for ? — I say, young 
 gentleman, have you spoke to this chap before now ? " 
 
 " I ? " replied Richard. " I have not seen him before." 
 
 Farmer Blaize grasped the two arms of the chair he sat 
 on, and glared his doubts. 
 
 " Come," said he to the Bantam, " speak out, and ha' done- 
 wi't. Say what ye saw, and none o' yer thoughts. Damn 
 yer thoughts ! Te saw Tom Bakewell fire that there 
 rick ! " The farmer pointed at some musk-pots in the 
 window. " What business ha' you to be a-thinkin' ? You're 
 a witness ? Thinkin' an't ev'dence. What'll ye say to- 
 morrow before magistrate ! Mind ! what you says to-day, 
 you'll stick by to-morrow." 
 
 Thus adjured, the Bantam hitched his breech. What on 
 earth the young gentleman meant he was at a loss to specu- 
 late. He could not believe that the young gentleman 
 wanted to be transported, but if he had been paid to help 
 that, vyhy, he would. And considering that this day's 
 evidence rather bound him down to the morrow's, he deter- 
 nained, after much ploughing and harrowing through obsti- 
 nate shocks of hair, to be not altogether positive as to the 
 person. It is possible that he became thereby more a 
 mansion of truth than he previously had been ; for the 
 night, as he said, was so dark that you could not see your 
 hand before your face ; and though, as he expressed it, you 
 might be mortal sure of a man, you could not identify him 
 upon oath, a^.d the party he had taken for Tom Bakewell, 
 and could ha 'e sworn to, might have been the young gentle- 
 man present, especially as he was ready to swear it upon 
 oath. 
 
 So ended the Bantam. 
 
 N'o sooner had he ceased, than Farmer Blaize jumped up 
 
A FINE DISTINCTION. 57 
 
 from Hs chair, and made a fine effort to lift him out of the 
 room from the point of his toe. He failed, and sank back 
 groaning with the pain of the exertion and disappointment. 
 
 " They're liars, every one ! " he cried. " Liars, perj'rers, 
 bribers, and c'rmpters ! — Stop ! " to the Bantam, who was 
 slinking away. " You've done for yerself already ! You 
 swore to it ! " 
 
 " A din't ! " said the Bantam doggedly. 
 
 " You swore to 't," the farmer vociferated afresh. 
 
 The Bantam played a tune upon the handle of the door, 
 and still affirmed that he did not ; a double contradiction at 
 which the farmer absolutely raged in his chair, and was 
 hoarse, as he called out a third time that the Bantam had 
 sworn to it. 
 
 " Noa ! " said the Bantam, ducking his poll. " Noa ! " he 
 repeated in a lower note ; and then, while a sombre grin 
 betokening idiotic enjoyment of his profound casuistical 
 quibble worked at his jaw : — 
 
 " Not up'n o-ath ! " he added, with a twitch of the shoulder 
 and an angular jerk of the elbow. 
 
 Farmer Blaize looked vacantly at Richard, as if to ask 
 him what he thought of England's peasantry after the 
 sample they had there. Richard would have preferred not 
 to laugh, but his dignity gave way to his sense of the ludi- 
 crous, and he let fly an irrepressible peal. The farmer was 
 in no laughing mood. He turned a wide eye back to the 
 door, " Lucky for'm," he exclaimed, seeing the Bantam had 
 vanished, for his fingers itched to break that stubborn head. 
 He grew very pufEy, and addressed Richard solemnly : 
 
 " Now, look ye here, Mr. Feverel ! You've been a tamper, 
 ing with my witness. It's no use denyin' ! I say y' 'ave, sir! 
 You, or some of ye. I don't care about no Feverel ! My 
 witness there has been bribed. The Bantam's been bribed," 
 and he shivered his pipe with an energetic thump on the 
 table — " Bribed ! I knows it ! I could swear to 't ! " 
 
 " Upon oath ? " Richard inquired, with a grave face. 
 
 " Ay, upon oath ! " said the farmer, not observing the 
 impertinence. 
 
 " I'd take my Bible oath on't ! He's been corrupted, my 
 principal witness ! Oh ! it's dam cunnin', but it won't do 
 the trick. I'll transpoort Tom Bakewell, sure as a gun. He 
 shall travel, that man shall. Sorry for you, Mr. Feverel — 
 
58 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAKD FEVKEEL. 
 
 sorry ye taven't seen how to treat me proper — you, or yours. 
 Money won't do everything — no ! it won't. It'll c'rrupt a 
 ■witness, hiit it won't clear a felon. I'd ha' 'soused you, sir ! 
 You're a boy and '11 learn better. I asked no more than 
 payment and a 'pology ; and that I'd ha' taken content — - 
 always provided my witnesses weren't tampered with. Now 
 you must stand yer luck, all o' ye." 
 
 Richard stood up and replied, " Very well, Mr. Blaize." 
 
 " And if," continued the farmer, " Tom Bakewell don't 
 drag you into 't after 'm, why, you're safe, as I hope ye'll 
 be, sincere ! " 
 
 " It was not in consideration of my own safety that I 
 sought this interview with you," said Richard, head erect. 
 
 " Grant ye that," the farmer responded. " Grant ye that ! 
 Yer bold enough, young gentleman — comes of the blood that 
 should be ! If y' had only ha' spoke trewth ! — I believe yer 
 father — ^believe every word he said. 1 do wish I could ha' 
 said as much of Sir Austin's son and heir." 
 
 " "What ! " cried Richard, with an astonishment hardly 
 to be feigned, " you have seen my father ? " 
 
 But Farmer Blaize had now such a scent for lies that he 
 could detect them where they did not exist, and mumbled 
 gruffly, 
 
 " Ay, we knows all about that ! " 
 
 The boy's perplexity saved him from being irritated. Who 
 could have told his father ? An old fear of his father came 
 upon him, a^d a touch of an old inclination to revolt. 
 
 "My father knows of this?" said he, very loudly, and 
 staring, as he spoke, right through the farmer. " Who has 
 played me false ? Who would betray me to him ? It was 
 Austin ! No one knew it but Austin. Yes, and it was Austin 
 who persuaded me to come here and submit to these indig- 
 nities. Why couldn't he be open with me ? I shall never 
 trust him again ! " 
 
 " And why not you with me, young gentleman ? " said the 
 farmer. " I sh'd trust you if ye had." 
 
 Richard did not see the analogy. He bowed stiffly and 
 bade him good afternoon. 
 
 Farmer Blaize pulled the bell. " 'Company the young 
 gentleman out, Lucy," he waved to the little damsel in the 
 doorway. " Do the honours. And Mr. Richard, ye might 
 ha' made a friend o' me, sir, and it's not too late so to do. 
 
THE PRELIMINAEY OKDEAL. 59 
 
 I'm not cruel, but I hate lies. I wliipped my toy Tom, 
 bigger than yon, for not bein' above-board, only yesterday, — 
 ay ! made 'nn stand within swing o' this chair, and take 's 
 measure. Now, if ye'll come down to me, and speak trewth 
 before the trial— if it's only five minutes before 't ; or if Sir 
 Austin, who 's a gentleman, '11 say there's been no tamperin' 
 with any o' my witnesses, his word for 't — well and good ! 
 I'll do my best to help off Tom Bakewell. And I'm glad, 
 young gentleman, you've got a conscience about a poor man, 
 though he's a villain. Good afternoon, sir." 
 
 Richard marched hastily out of the room, and through the 
 garden, never so much as deigning a glance at his wistful 
 little guide, who hung at the garden gate to watch him up 
 the lane, wondering a world of fancies about the handsome 
 proud boy. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 EICHAED PASSES THEOUGH HIS PEELIMINAET OEDEAL, AND IS THE 
 OCCASION OF AN APHOEISM. 
 
 To have determined upon an act something akin to 
 heroism in its way, and to have fulfilled it by lying heartily, 
 and so subverting the whole structure built by good resolu- 
 tion, seems a sad downfall if we forget what human nature, 
 in its green weedy spring, is composed of. Toung Richard had 
 quitted his cousin Austin, fully resolved to do his penance 
 and drink the bitter cup ; and he had drunk it ; drained 
 many cups to the dregs ; and it was to no purpose. Still 
 they floated before him, brimmed, trebly bitter. Away from 
 Austin's influence, he was almost the same boy who had 
 slipped the guinea into Tom Bakewell's hand, and the 
 lucifers into Farmer Blaize's rick. For good seed is long 
 ripening ; a good boy is not made in a minute. Enough that 
 the seed was in him. He chafed on his road to Raynham 
 at the scene he had just endured, and the figure of Bel- 
 thorpe's fat tenant burnt like hot copper on the tablet of 
 his brain, insufferably condescending, and, what was worse, 
 
60 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 in the riglit. Rictard, obscured as his mind's eye was by 
 wounded pride, saw that clearly, and hated his enemy for it 
 the more. 
 
 Heavy Benson's tongue was knelling dinner as Richard 
 arrived at the Abbey. He hurried up to his room to dress. 
 Accident, or design, had laid the book of Sir Austin's apho- 
 risms open on the dressing-table. Hastily combing his hair, 
 Richard glanced down and read — 
 
 " The Dog returneth to his vomit : the Liar must eat his 
 Lie." 
 
 Underneath was interjected in pencil : " The Devil's 
 mouthful !" 
 
 Young Richard ran downstairs feeling that his father had 
 struck him in the face. 
 
 Sir Austin marked the scarlet stain on his son's cheek- 
 bones. He sought the youth's eye, but Richard would not 
 look, and sat conning his plate, an abject copy of Adrian's 
 succulent air at that employment. How could he pretend 
 to the relish of an epicure when he was painfully endea- 
 vouring to masticate The Devil's mouthful ? 
 
 Heavy Benson sat upon the wretched dinner. Hippias, 
 usually the silent member, as if awakened by the unnatural 
 stillness, became sprightly, like the goatsucker owl at mid- 
 night, and spoke much of his book, his digestion, and his 
 dreams, and was spared both by Algernon and Adrian. One 
 inconsequent dream he related, about fancying himself quite 
 young and rich, and finding himself suddenly in a field 
 cropping razors around him, when, just as he had, by steps 
 dainty as those of a French dancing-master, reached the 
 middle, he to his dismay beheld a path clear of the blood- 
 thirsty steel-crop, which he might have taken at first had 
 he looked narrowly ; and there he was. 
 
 Hippias's brethren regarded him with eyes that plainly 
 said they wished he had remained there. Sir Austin, how- 
 ever, drew forth his note-book, and jotted down a reflection. 
 A composer of aphorisms can pluck blossoms even from a 
 razor-crop. Was not Hippias's dream the very counterpart 
 of Richard's position ? He, had he looked narrowly, might 
 have taken the clear path : he, too, had been making dainty 
 steps till he was surrounded by the grinning blades. And 
 from that text Sir Austin preached to his son when they 
 were alone. Little Clare was still too unwell to be per- 
 
THE PEELIMINAEY OBDEAL. 61 
 
 mitted to attend tiie dessert, and father and son were soon 
 closeted together. 
 
 It was a strange meeting. They seemed to have been 
 separated so long. The father took his son's hand; they 
 sat -without a word passing between them. Silence said 
 most. The boy did not understand his father : his father 
 frequently thwarted him : at times he thought his father 
 foolish : but that paternal pressure of his hand was eloquent 
 to him of how warmly he was beloved. He tried once or 
 twice to steal his hand away, conscious it was melting him. 
 The spirit of his pride, and old rebellion, whispered him to 
 be hard, unbending, resolute. Hard he had entered his 
 father's study : hard he had met his father's eyes. He 
 could not meet them now. His father sat beside him gently ; 
 with a manner that was almost meekness, so he loved this 
 boy. The poor gentleman's lips moved. He was praying 
 internally to God for him. 
 
 By degrees an emotion awoke in the boy's bosom. Love 
 is that blessed wand which wins the waters from the hard- 
 ness of the heart. Richard fought against it, for the dignity 
 of old rebellion. The tears would come ; hot and struggling 
 over the dams of pride. Shamefully fast they began to fall. 
 He could no longer conceal them, or check the sobs. Sir 
 Austin drew him nearer and nearer, till the beloved head 
 was on his breast. 
 
 A.n hour afterwards, Adrian Harley, Austin Wentworth, 
 and Algernon Teverel were summoned to the baronet's 
 fitudy. 
 
 Adrian came last. There was a style of affable omnipo- 
 tence about the wise youth as he slung himself into a chair, 
 and made an arch of the points of his fingers, through -ffhich 
 to gaze on his blundering kinsmen. Careless as one may be 
 whose sagacity has foreseen, and whose benevolent efforts 
 Lave forestalled, the point of danger at the threshold, Adrian 
 crossed his legs, and only intruded on their introductory 
 remarks so far as to hum half audibly at intervals — 
 
 " Ripton and Eichard were two pretty men," 
 
 in parody of the old ballad. Toung Richard's red eyes, and 
 the baronet's ruflEed demeanour, told him that an explanation 
 had taken place, and a reconciliation. That was wpU. The 
 
62 THE ohdeal of eichard fevehel. 
 
 baronet ■would now pay cheerfully. Adrian summed and 
 considered these matters, and barely listened when the 
 baronet called attention to what he had to say : which was 
 elaborately to inform all present, what all present very well 
 knew, that a rick had been fired, that his son was implicated 
 as an accessory to the fact, that the perpetrator was now 
 imprisoned, and that Richard's family were, as it seemed to 
 him, bound in honour to do their utmost to effect the man's 
 release. 
 
 Then the baronet stated that he had himseK been down 
 to Belthorpe, his son likewise : and that he had found every 
 disposition in Blaize to meet his wishes. 
 
 The lamp which ultimately was sure to be lifted up to 
 illumine the acts of this secretive race began slowly to 
 dispread its rays ; and, as statement followed statement, they 
 saw that all had known of the business : that all had been 
 down to Belthorpe : all save the wise youth Adrian, who, 
 with due deference and a sarcastic shrug, objected to the 
 proceeding, as putting them in the hands of the man Blaize. 
 His wisdom shone forth in an oration so persuasive and 
 aphoristic that had it not been based on a plea against 
 honour, it would have made Sir Austin waver. But its 
 basis was expediency, and the baronet had abetter aphorism 
 of his own to confute him with. 
 
 " Expediency is man's wisdom, Adrian Harley. Doing 
 right is God's." 
 
 Adrian curbed his desire to ask Sir Austin whether an 
 attempt to counteract the just working of the law was doing 
 right. The direct application of an aphorism was ujipopular 
 at Raynham. 
 
 " I am to understand then," said he, '' that Blaize consents 
 not to press the prosecution." 
 
 " Of course he won't," Algernon remarked. " Confound 
 him ! he'll have his money, and what does he want 
 besides ?" 
 
 " These ag-ricultural gentlemen are delicate customers to 
 deal with. However, if he really consents" 
 
 " I have his promise," said the baronet, fondling his son. 
 
 Toung Richard looked up to his father, as if he wished to 
 speak. He said nothing, and Sir Austin took it as a mute 
 reply to his caresses, and caressed him the more. Adrian 
 perceived a reserve in the boy's manner, and as he was not 
 
THE PRELIMINAET OEDEAL. 63 
 
 quite satisfied that his chief should suppose him to have 
 been the only idle, and not the most acute and vigilant 
 member of the family, he commenced a cross-examination 
 of him by asking who had last spoken with the tenant of 
 Belthorpe ? 
 
 " I think I saw him last," murmured Richard, and relin- 
 quished his father's hand. 
 
 Adrian fastened on his prey. " And left him with a 
 distinct and satisfactory assurance of his amicable inten- 
 tions ?" 
 
 "No," said Richard. 
 
 " Not ?" the Peverels joined in astounded chorus. 
 
 Richard sidled away from his father, and repeated a 
 Bhamefaced "No." 
 
 " Was he hostile ?" inquired Adrian, smoothing his palms, 
 and smiling. 
 
 "Tes," the boy confessed. 
 
 Here was quite another view of their position. Adrian, 
 generally patient of results, triumphed strongly at having 
 evoked it, and turned upon Austin Wentworth, reproving 
 him for inducing the boy to go down to Belthorpe. Austin 
 looked grieved. He feared that Richard had failed in his 
 good resolve. 
 
 " I thought it his duty to go," he observed. 
 
 " It was!" said the baronet emphatically. 
 
 " And you see what comes of it, sir," Adrian struck in. 
 " These agricultural gentlemen, I repeat, are delicate cus- 
 tomers to deal with. For my part I would prefer being in the 
 hands of a policeman. We are decidedly collared by Blaize. 
 What were his words, Ricky ? Give it in his own Doric." 
 
 " He said he would transport Tom Bakewell." 
 
 Adrian smoothed his palms, and smiled again. Then they 
 could afford to defy Mr. Blaize, he informed them signifi. 
 cantly, and made once more a mysterious allusion to the 
 Punic elephant, bidding his relatives be at peace. They were 
 attaching, in his opinion, too much importance to Richard's 
 complicity. The man was a fool, and a very extraordinary 
 arsonite, to have an accomplice at all. It was a thing 
 unknown in the annals of rick-burning. But one would be 
 severer than law itself to say that a boy of fourteen had 
 instigated to crime a full-grown man. At that rate the boy 
 was " father of the man " with a vengeance, and one might 
 
64 THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 hear next that " the baby was father of the boy." They 
 would find common sense a more benevolent ruler than 
 poetical metaphysics. 
 
 "When he had done, Austin, with his customary directness, 
 asked him what he meant. 
 
 " I confess, Adrian," said the baronet, hearing him expos- 
 tulate with Austin's stupidity, " I for one am at a loss. 
 I have heard that this man, Bakewell, chooses voluntarily 
 not to inculpate my son. Seldom have I heard anything that 
 so gratified m.e. It is a view of innate nobleness in the 
 rustic's character which many gentlemen might take example 
 from. We are bound to do our utmost for the man." And, 
 saying that he should pay a second visit to Belthorpe, to 
 inquire into the reasons for the farmer's sudden exposition 
 of vindictiveness. Sir Austin rose. 
 
 Before he left the room Algernon asked Richard if the 
 farmer had vouchsafed any reasons, and the boy then spoke 
 of the tampering with the witnesses, and the Bantam's " Not 
 upon oath ! " which caused Adrian to choke vfith laughter. 
 Even the baronet smiled at so cunning a distinction as that 
 involved in swearing a thing, and not swearing it upon oath. 
 
 " How little," he exclaimed, " does one yeoman know 
 another ! To elevate a distinction into a difference is the 
 natural action of their minds. I will point that out to 
 Blaize. He shall see that the idea is native born." 
 
 Remorselessly Richard saw his father go forth. Adrian, 
 too, was ill at ease. 
 
 " This trotting down to Belthorpe spoils all," said he. 
 " The affair would pass over to-morrow — Blaize has no wit- 
 nesses. The old rascal is only standing out for more 
 money." 
 
 " No, he isn't," Richard corrected him. " It's not that. I'm 
 sure he believes his witnesses have been tampered with, as he 
 calls it." 
 
 " What if they have, boy ? " Adrian put it boldly, " The 
 ground is cut from under his feet." 
 
 " Blaize told me that if my father would give his word 
 there had been nothing of the sort, he would take it. My 
 father will give his word." 
 
 " Then," said Adrian, " you had better stop him from going 
 down." 
 
 Austin looked at Adrian keenly, and questioned him 
 
THE PRELIMINARY ORDEAL, 65 
 
 whether he thought the farmer was justified in his suspicions. 
 The wise youth was not to be entrapped. He had only been 
 given to understand that the witnesses were tolerably unstable, 
 and, like the Bantam, ready to swear lustily, but not upon the 
 Book. How given to understand, he chose not to explain, 
 but he reiterated that the chief should not be allowed to go 
 down to Belthorpe'. 
 
 Sir Austin was in the lane leading to the farm when he 
 heard steps of some one running behind him. It was dark, 
 and he shook off the hand that laid hold of his cloak, roughly, 
 not recognising his son. 
 
 " It's I, sir," said Richard panting. " Pardon me. You 
 musn't go in there." 
 
 " Why not ? " said the baronet, putting his arm about him. 
 
 " Not now," continued the boy. " I will tell you all to-night. 
 I must see the farmer myself. It was my fault, sir. I — I 
 lied to him — the Liar must eat his Lie. Oh, forgive me for 
 disgracing you, sir. I did it— I hope I did it to save Tom 
 Bakewell. Let me go in alone, and speak the truth." 
 
 " Gro, and I will wait for you here," said his father. 
 
 The wind that bowed the old elms, and shivered the dead 
 leaves in the air, had a voice and a meaning for the baronet 
 during that half-hour's lonely pacing up and down under the 
 darkness, awaiting his boy's return. The solemn gladness of 
 his heart gave nature a tongue. Through the desolation flying 
 overhead — the wailing of the Mother of Plenty across the 
 bare-swept land — he caught intelligible signs of the beneficent 
 order of the universe, from a heart newly confirmed in its 
 grasp of the principle of human goodness, as manifested in 
 the dear child who had just left him ; confirmed in its belief 
 in the ultimate victory of good within us, without which 
 nature has neither music nor meaning, and is rock, stone, 
 tree, and nothing more. 
 
 In the dark, the dead leaves beating on his face, he drew 
 forth the note-book, and with groping fingers traced out : 
 " There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness : from 
 that uppermost pinnacle of wisdom, whence we see that this 
 world is well designed." 
 
66 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAKD FEVEREL. 
 
 CHAPTER XI, 
 
 IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL COMEDY IS CLOSED IN 
 A LETTEE. 
 
 Of all the chief actors in the Bakewell Comedy Master 
 Eipton Thompson awaited the fearful morning which was 
 to decide Tom's fate, in dolefulest mood, and sufEered 
 the gravest mental terrors. Adrian, on parting with him, 
 had taken casual occasion to speak of the position of the 
 criminal in modern Europe, assuring him that International 
 Treaty now did what Universal Empire had aforetime done, 
 and that among Atlantic barbarians now, as among the 
 Scythians of old, an ofFender would find precarious refuge 
 and an emissary haunting him. 
 
 In the paternal home, under the roofs of Law, and 
 removed from the influence of his conscienceless young chief, 
 the staggering nature of the act he had put his hand to, its 
 awful felonious aspect, overwhelmed poor Ripton. He saw 
 it now for the first time. " Why it's next to murder ! " he 
 cried out to his amazed soul, and wandered about the house 
 with a prickly skin. Thoughts of America, and commencing 
 life afresh as an innocent gentleman, had crossed the 
 agitated brain of Ripton. He wrote to his friend Richard, 
 proposing to collect disposable funds, and embark, in case of 
 Tom's breaking his word, or of accidental discovery. He 
 dared not confide the secret to his family, as his leader had 
 sternly enjoined him to avoid any weakness of that kind ; 
 and, being by nature honest and communicative, the restric- 
 tion was painful, and melancholy fell upon the boy. Mama 
 Thompson attributed it to love. The daughters of parch- 
 ment rallied him concerning Miss Clare Porey. His hourly 
 letters to Raynham, his silence as to everything and every- 
 body there, his loss of appetite, nervousness, and unwonted 
 propensity to sudden inflammation of the cheeks, were set 
 down for sure signs of the passion. Miss Letitia Thompson, 
 the pretty and least parchmenty one, destined by her mama 
 for the heir of Raynham, and perfectly aware of her brilliant 
 future, up to which she had, since Ripton's departure, 
 dressed and grimaced, and studied cadences (the latter with 
 such success, though not yet fifteen, that she languished to 
 
LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY. 67 
 
 lier maid, and melted the small factotum footman) — Miss 
 Letty, whose insatiable thirst for intimations about the 
 young heir Ripton could not satisfy, tormented him daily in 
 revenge, and once, quite unconsciously, gave the lad a fearful 
 turn ; for after dinner, when Mr. Thompson read the paper 
 by the fire, preparatory to sleeping at his accustomed post, 
 and Mama Thompson and her submissive female brood sat 
 tasking the swift intricacies of the needle, and emulating 
 them with the tongue. Miss Letty stole behind Ripton's 
 chair, and introduced between him and his book the Latin 
 initial letter, large and illuminated, of the theme she sup- 
 posed to be absorbing him, as it did herself. The unexpected 
 vision of this accusing Captain of the Alphabet, this 
 resplendent and haunting A, fronting him bodily, threw 
 Ripton straight back in his chair, while Guilt, with her 
 ancient indecision what colours to assume on detection, flew 
 from red to white, from white to red, across his fallen chaps. 
 Letty laughed triumphantly. 
 
 " Ah — a ! " she sang, " you are found out, Mr. Mum ! " and 
 innocently followed up the attack by asking him how he 
 would wear his badge, before or behind ? which precipitated 
 Ripton from the room, in sick certainty that he was dis- 
 covered, and thrilled the motherly heart of Mama Thompson 
 with the blissful prospect of marrying two of her brood to 
 the House of Feverel. 
 
 "Why, what does A stand for ? Silly ! " said Letitia, after 
 rallying her brother next morning at breakfast. " For 
 Angel, doesn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes, and for America," Ripton answered gloomily. 
 
 " Yes, and you know what else ! " rejoined his persecutor, 
 while another sister, previously instructed, presumed it 
 might possibly stand for Amor. 
 
 " And for Arson," added the deep paternal voice, unwit- 
 tingly springing a mine under poor Ripton. 
 
 ■ Letty's study of the aspects of love, and of the way young 
 people should look, and of the things they should do, under 
 the dominion of the passion, was not much assisted by its 
 outward development in the supposed love-stricken youth. 
 •' I'm sure," she thought, " I shall never be like that. He 
 bounds in his seat. He never looks comfortable. He seems 
 to hate us all, and does nothing but mumble his food, and 
 
 f2 
 
68 THE ORDEAL 01' RICHARD FEVBREL. 
 
 growl, and frown. If that's love, I can't do it ! " she sorrow- 
 fully concluded her reflections. 
 
 The delivery of a letter into Master Ripton's hands, how- 
 ever, furnished her with other and likelier appearances to 
 study. For scarce had Bipton plunged his head into the 
 missive than he gave way to violent transports, such as the 
 healthy- minded little damsel, for all her languishing 
 cadences, deemed she really could express were a downright 
 declaration to be made to her. The boy did not stop at 
 table. Quickly recollecting the presence of his family, he 
 rushed to his own room. Ajid now Miss Letty's ingenuity 
 was taxed to gain possession of that letter. In love, it is 
 said, all stratagems are fair, and many little ladies trans- 
 verse the axiom by applying it to discover the secrets of 
 their friends. Letty ransacked the drawers in Ripton's 
 room, she dived her hands into the pockets of his garments 
 lying about, she turned down the pillow, she spied under 
 the mattress of his bed, with an easy conscience ; and if she 
 found nothing, of course, as she was doing a wrong, she did 
 not despair of gaining her object, and soon knew that Rip- 
 ton carried it about in his left jacket-pocket, persecuting 
 Ripton with her caresses, till she felt the tantalising trea- 
 sure crack beneath her fingers. Some sisters would have 
 coaxed him for a sight of it. Letty was not so foolish . she 
 did not allude to it, and was still hovering round the pocket, 
 at a loss to devise any new scheme, when accident bestowed 
 on her what artifice denied. They were standing on a hill 
 together, and saw some people of their acquaintance coming 
 up in a pony-chaise. Letty told Ripton to wave his hand- 
 kerchief, which he snatched from the very pocket, and 
 waved vigorously, and continued waving, heedless that his 
 sister had on a sudden lost her interest in the pony-chaise. 
 Indeed she presently commanded him to turn a contrary 
 way, and was voluble with reasons for getting home imme- 
 diately, though they had set out for a long walk into the 
 country. Once home, Letitia darted up stairs to be alone 
 with her naughty self. She had the letter. Ripton had 
 dropped it as he drew forth his handkerchief. With the 
 eyes of amazement she read this foreign matter : — 
 
 " Dear Ripton, — If Tom had been committed I would have 
 shot old Blaize. Do you know mj father was behind us 
 
LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY. 69 
 
 that night when Clare saw the ghost and heard all we said 
 before the fire burst out. It is no use trying to conceal any- 
 thing from him. Well as you are in an awful state I will 
 tell you all about it. After you left Ripton I had a conver- 
 sation with Austin and he persuaded me to go down to old 
 Blaize and ask him to help ofE Tom. I went for I would 
 have done anything for Tom after what he said to Austin 
 and I defied the old churl to do his worst. Then he said if 
 my father paid the money and nobody had tampered with 
 his witnesses he would not mind if Tom did get off and he 
 had his chief witness in called the Bantam very like his 
 master I think and the Bantam began winking at me 
 tremendjously as you say, and said he had sworn he saw 
 Tom Bakewell but not upon oath. He meant not on the 
 Bible. He could swear to it but not on the Bible. I burst 
 out laughing and you should have seen the rage old Blaize 
 was in. It was splendid fun. Then we had a consultation 
 at home Austin Rady my father Uncle Algernon who has 
 come down to us again and your friend in prosperity and 
 adversity R. D. F. My father said he would go down to old 
 Blaize and give him the word of a gentleman we had not 
 tampered with his witnesses and when he was gone we were 
 all talking and Rady says he must not see the farmer. I am 
 as certain as I live that it was Rady bribed the Bantam. 
 Well I ran and caught up my father and told him not to go 
 in to old Blaize but I would and eat my words and tell him 
 the truth. He waited for me in the lane. Never mind what 
 passed between me and old Blaize. He made me beg and 
 pray of him not to press it against Tom and then to complete 
 it he brought in a little girl a niece of his and says to me 
 she's your best friend after all and told me to thank her. 
 A little girl twelve years of age. What business had she to 
 mix herself up in my matters. Depend upon it Ripton 
 wherever there is mischief there are girls I think. She had 
 the insolence to notice my face, and ask me not to be unhappy. 
 I was polite of course but I would not look at her. Well the 
 morning came and Tom was had up before Sir Miles Pap- 
 worth. It was Sir Miles gout gave us the time or Tom would 
 have been had up before we could do anything. Adrian did 
 not want me to go but my father said I should accompany 
 him and held my hand all the time. I shall be careful about 
 getting into these scrapes again. When you have done 
 
70 THE OEDEAL OF RICHARD FEYEREL. 
 
 anything honourable jou. do not mind but getting among 
 policemen and magistrates makes you ashamed of yourself. 
 Sir Miles was very attentive to my father and me and dead 
 against Tom. We sat beside him and Tom was brought in. 
 Sir Miles told my father that if there was one thing that 
 showed a low villain it was rick-burning. What do you 
 think of that. I looked him straight in the face and he said 
 to me he was doing me a service in getting Tom committed 
 and clearing the country of such fellows and Rady began 
 laughing. I hate Rady. My father said his son was not in 
 haste to inherit and have estates of his own to watch and 
 Sir Miles laughed too. I thought we were discovered at 
 first. Then they began the examination of Tom. The 
 Tinker was the first witness and he proved that Tom had 
 spoken against old Blaize and said something about burning 
 his rick. I wished I had stood in the lane to Bursley with 
 him alone. Our country lawyer we engaged for Tom cross- 
 questioned him and then he said he was not ready to swear 
 to the exact words that had passed between him and Tom. 
 I should think not. Then came another who swore he had 
 seen Tom lurking about the farmer's grounds that night. 
 Then came the Bantam and I saw him look at Rady. I was 
 tremendjously excited and my father kept pressing my hand. 
 Just fancy my being brought to feel that a word from that 
 fellow would make me miserable for life and he must perjure 
 himself to help me. That comes of giving way to passion. 
 My father says when we do that we are calling in the devil 
 as doctor. Well the Bantam was told to state what he had 
 seen and the moment he began Rady who was close by me 
 began to shake and he was laughing I knew though his face 
 was as grave as Sir Miles. Tou never heard such a rigmarole 
 but I could not laugh. He said he thought he was certain 
 he had seen somebody by the rick and it was Tom Bakewell 
 who was the only man he knew who had a gi'udge against 
 Parmer Blaize and if the object had been a little bigger he 
 would not mind swearing to Tom and would swear to him 
 for he was dead certain it was Tom only what he saw looked 
 smaller and it was pitch-dark at the time. He was asked 
 what time it was he saw the person steal away from the rick 
 and then he began to scratch his head and said supper-time. 
 Then they asked what time he had supper and he said nine 
 o'clock by the clock and we proved that at nine o'clock Tom 
 
LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY. 71 
 
 was drinking in the ale-house with the Tinker at Bursley and 
 Sir Miles swore and said he was afraid he could not commit 
 Tom and when he heard that Tom looked up at me and I say 
 he is a noble fellow and no one shall sneer at Tom while I 
 live. Mind that. "Well Sir Miles asked us to dine with him 
 and Tom was safe and I am to have him and educate him if 
 I like for my servant and I will. And I will give money to 
 his mother and make her rich and he shall never repent he 
 knew me. I say Rip. The Bantam must have seen me. 
 It was when I went to stick in the lucifers. As we were all 
 going home from Sir Miles'a at night he has lots of red- 
 faced daughters but I did not dance with them though they 
 had music and were full of fun and I did not care to I was 
 so delighted and almost let it out. When we left and rode 
 home Rady said to my father the Bantam was not suoh a 
 fool as he was thought and my father said one must be in a 
 state of great personal exaltation to apply that epithet to any 
 man and Rady shut his mouth and I gave my pony a clap of 
 the heel for joy. I think my father suspects what Rady 
 did and does not approve of it. And he need not have done 
 it after all and might have spoilt it. I have been obliged to 
 order him not to call me Ricky for he stops short at Rick so 
 that everybody knows what he means. My dear Austin is 
 going to South America. My pony is in capital condition. 
 My father is the cleverest and best man in the world. Glare 
 is a little better. I am quite happy. I hope we shall meet 
 soon my dear Old Rip and we will not get into any more tre- 
 mendjous scrapes will we. — I remain, Tour sworn friend, 
 
 " RiCHAKD DOKIA FeVEEEL." 
 
 "P.iS. lam to have a nice River Tacht. Good-bye, Rip. 
 Mind you learn to box. Mind you are not to show this to 
 any of your friends on pain of my displeasure. 
 
 " N.B. Lady B. was so angry when I told her that I had 
 not come to her before. She would do anything in the world 
 for me. I like her next best to my father and Austin. Good- 
 bye old Rip." 
 
 Poor little Letitia, after three perusals of this ingenuous 
 epistle, where the laws of punctuation were so loftily dis- 
 regarded, resigned it to one of the pockets of her brother 
 Ripton's best jacket, deeply smitten with the careless com- 
 
72 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 poser. And so ended the last act of the Bakewell Comedy, 
 on which the curtain closes with Sir Austin's pointing out 
 to his friends the beneficial action of the System in it from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 THE BLOSSOMING SEASON. 
 
 Laying of ghosts is a public duty, and as the mystery of 
 the apparition that had frightened little Clare was never 
 solved on the stage of events at Eaynham, where dread 
 walked the Abbey, let us go behind the scenes a moment. 
 Morally superstitious as the baronet was, the character of 
 his mind was opposed to anything like spiritual agency in 
 the affairs of men, and, when the matter was made clear to 
 him, it shook off a weight of weakness and restored his 
 mental balance ; so that from this time he went about more 
 like the man he had once been, grasping more thoroughly 
 the great truth, that This World is well designed. Nay, he 
 could laugh on hearing Adrian, in reminiscence of the ill luck 
 of one of the family members at its first manifestation, call 
 the uneasy spirit, Algernon's Leg. Mrs. Doria was outraged. 
 
 She maintained that her child had seen . Not to believe 
 
 in it was almost to rob her of her personal property. After 
 satisfactorily studying his old state of mind in her. Sir 
 Austin, moved by pity, took her aside one day and showed 
 her that her Ghost could write words in the flesh. It was 
 a letter from the unhappy lady who had given Richard birth, 
 — brief cold lines, simply telling him his house would be 
 disturbed by her no more. Cold lines, but penned by what 
 heart-broken abnegation, and underlying them what anguish 
 of soul ! Like most who dealt with him. Lady Peverel 
 thought her husband a man fatally stern and implacable, 
 and she acted as silly creatures will act when they fancy 
 they see a fate against them : she neither petitioned for her 
 right nor claimed it : she tried to ease her heart's ■ yearning 
 by stealth, and now she renounced all. Mrs. Doria, not 
 wanting in the family tenderness and softness, shuddered at 
 
THE BLOSSOMING SEASON. 73 
 
 him for accepting the sacrifice so composedly : but he bade 
 her to think how distracting to this boy would be the sight 
 of such relations between mother and father. A few years, 
 and as man he should know, and judge, and love her. "Let 
 this be her penance, not inflicted by me ! " Mrs. Doria 
 bowed to the System for another, not opining when it would 
 be her turn to bow for herself. 
 
 Further behind the scenes we observe Rizzio and Mary 
 grown older, much disenchanted: she discrowned, dishevelled, 
 — he with gouty fingers on a greasy guitar. The Diaper 
 Sandoe of promise lends his pen for small hires. His fame 
 has Slink ; his bodily girth has sensibly increased. What he 
 can do, and will do, is still his theme ; meantime the juice of 
 the juniper is in requisition, and it seems those small hires 
 cannot be performed without it. Returning from her wretched 
 journey to her wretoheder home, the lady had to listen to a 
 mild reproof from easy-going Diaper, — a reproof so mild that 
 he couched it in blank verse : for, seldom writing metrically 
 now, he took to talking it. With a fluent sympathetic tear, 
 he explained to her that she was damaging her interests by 
 these proceedings ; nor did he shrink from undertaking to 
 elucidate wherefore. Pluming a smile upon his succulent 
 mouth, he told her that the poverty she lived in was utterly 
 unbefitting her gentle nurture, and that he had reason to 
 believe — could assure her — that an annuity was on the point 
 of being granted her by her husband. And Diaper broke 
 his bud of a smile into full flower as he delivered the radiant 
 information. She learnt that he had applied to her husband 
 for money. It is hard to have one's last prop of self-respect 
 cut away just when we are suffering a martyr's agony at the 
 stake. There was a five minutes' tragic colloquy in the 
 recesses behind the scenes, — totally tragic to Diaper, who 
 had fondly hoped to bask in the warm sun of that annuity, 
 and re-emerge from his state of grub. The lady then wrote 
 the letter Sir Austin held open to his sister. The atmo- 
 sphere behind the scenes is not wholesome, so, having laid the 
 Ghost, we will return and face the curtain. 
 
 That infinitesimal dose of The World which Master 
 Ripton Thompson had furnished to the System with such 
 instantaneous and surprising effect was considered by Sir 
 Austin to have worked well, and to be for the time quite 
 sufficient, so that Ripton did not receive a second invitation 
 
74 THE OKDBAL OF EICHABD FEVEREL. 
 
 to Raynham, and Richard had no special intimate of his own 
 age to rub his excessive vitality against, and wanted none. 
 His hands were full enough with Tom Bakewell. Moreover, 
 his father and he were heart in heart. The boy's mind was 
 opening, and turned to his father affectionately reverent. 
 At this period, when the young savage grows into higher 
 influences, the faculty of worship is foremost in him. At 
 this period Jesuits stamp the future of their chargeling 
 flocks ; and all who bring up youth by a System, and watch 
 it, know that it is the malleable moment. Boys possessing 
 any mental or moral force to give them a tendency, then 
 predestinate their careers ; or, if under supervision, take the 
 impress that is given them : not often to cast it off, and 
 seldom to cast it off altogether. 
 
 In Sir Austin's Note-book was written : " Between Simple 
 Boyhood and Adolescence — The Blossoming Season — on the 
 threshold of Puberty, there is one Unselfish Hour — say, 
 Spiritual Seed-time." 
 
 He took care that good seed should be planted in Richard, 
 and that the most fruitful seed for a youth, namely. Example, 
 should be of a kind to germinate in him the love of every 
 form of nobleness. 
 
 " I am only striving to make my son a Christian," he said, 
 answering them who persisted in expostulating with the 
 System. And to these instructions he gave an aim : " First 
 be virtuous," he told his son, " and then serve your country 
 with heart and soul." The youth was instructed to cherish 
 an ambition for statesmanship, and he and his father read 
 history and the speeches of British orators to some purpose ; 
 for one day Sir Austin found him leaning cross-legged, and 
 with his hand to his chin, against a pedestal supporting the 
 bust of Chatham, contemplating the hero of our Parliament, 
 his eyes streaming with tears. 
 
 People said the baronet carried the principle of Example 
 so far that he only retained his boozing dyspeptic brother 
 Hippias at Raynham in order to exhibit to his son the woful 
 retribution nature wreaked upon a life of indulgence ; poor 
 Hippias having now become a walking complaint. This was 
 unjust, but there is no doubt he made use of every illustra- 
 tion to disgust or encourage his son that his neighbourhood 
 afforded him, and did not spare his brother, for whom Richard 
 entertained a contempt in proportion to his admiration of 
 
THE BLOSSOMING SEASON. 75 
 
 nis father, and was for flying into penitential extremes -which 
 Sir Austin had to soften. 
 
 The boy prayed with his father morning and night. 
 
 " How is it, sir," he said one night, " I can't get Tom 
 Bakewell to pray ?" 
 
 " Does he refuse ?" Sir Austin asked. 
 
 " He seems to he ashamed to," Richard replied. " He 
 wants to know what is the good ? and I don't know what 
 to tell him." 
 
 " I'm afraid it has gone too far with him," said Sir Austin, 
 and until he has had some deep sorrows he will not find 
 the divine want of Prayer. Strive, my son, when you repre- 
 sent the people, to provide for their education. He feels 
 everything now through a dull impenetrable rind. Culture 
 IS half-way to Heaven. Tell him, my son, should he ever be 
 brought to ask how he may know the efficacy of Prayer, and 
 that his prayer will be answered, tell him (he quoted The 
 Pilgeim's Sceip) : 
 
 " ' Who rises from Prayer a better man, his prayer is 
 answered.' " 
 
 " I will, sir," said Richard, and went to sleep happy. 
 
 Happy in his father and in himself, the youth now lived. 
 Conscience was beginning to inhabit him, and he carried 
 some of the freightage known to men ; though in so crude a 
 form that it overweighed him, now on this side, now on 
 that. 
 
 The wise youth Adrian observed these further progres- 
 sionary developments in his pupil, soberly cynical. He was 
 under Sir Austin's interdict not to banter him, and eased his 
 acrid humours inspired by the sight of a felonious young 
 rick- burner turning saint, by grave afBectations of sympathy 
 and extreme accuracy in marking the not widely-distant 
 dates of his various changes. The Bread-and- water phase 
 lasted a fortnight : the Vegetarian (an imitation of his 
 cousin Austin), little better than a month: the religious, 
 somewhat longer : the religious-propagandist (when he was 
 for converting the heathen of Loboume and Bursley, and 
 the domestics of the Abbey, including Tom Bakewell), 
 longer still, and hard to bear ; — he fried to convert Adrian ! 
 All the while Tom was being exercised like a raw recruit. 
 Jlichard had a drill-sergeant from the nearest barracks 
 down for him, to give him a proper pride in himself, and 
 
76 THE OBDEAL OF EICHAED EEVBREL. 
 
 marched him to and fro witli immense satisfaction, and 
 nearly broke his heart trying to get the round-shouldered 
 rustic to take in the rudiments of letters : for the boy had 
 unbounded hopes for Tom, as a hero in grain. 
 
 Richard's pride also was cast aside. He affected to be, 
 and really thought he was, humble. Whereupon Adrian, as 
 by accident, imparted to him the fact that men were 
 animals, and he an animal with them. 
 
 " J an animal ! " cries Richard in scorn, and for weeks he 
 was as troubled by this rudiment of self-knowledge as Tom 
 by his letters. Sir Austin had him instructed in the won- 
 ders of anatomy, to restore his self-respect. 
 
 Seed-time passed thus smoothly, and adolescence came on, 
 and his cousin Clare felt what it was to be of an opposite 
 sex to him. She too was growing, but nobody cared how 
 she grew. Outwardly even her mother seemed absorbed in 
 the sprouting of the green off-shoot of the Feverel tree, and 
 Clare was his handmaiden, little marked by him. 
 
 Lady Blandish honestly loved the boy. She would tell 
 him : " If I had been a girl, I would have had you for my 
 husband." And he with the frankness of his years would 
 reply : " And how do you know I would have had you ? " 
 causing her to laugh and call him a silly boy, for had he not 
 heard her say she would have had him ? Teri'ible words, he 
 knew not then the meaning of ! 
 
 " You don't read your father's Book," she said. Her own 
 copy was bound in purple velvet, gilt-edged, as decorative 
 ladies like to have holier books, and she carried it about 
 with her, and quoted it, and (Adrian remarked to Mrs. 
 Doria) hunted a noble quarry, and deliberately aimed at him 
 therewith, which Mrs. Doria chose to believe, and regretted 
 her brother would not be on his guard. 
 
 " See here," said Lady Blandish, pressing an almondy 
 fhiger-nail to one of the Aphorisms, which instanced how 
 age and adversity must clay-enclose us ere we can effectually 
 resist the magnetism of any human creature in our path. 
 " Can you understand it, child ? " 
 
 Richard informed her that when she read he could. 
 " Well, then, my squire," she touched his cheek and ran 
 her fingers through his hair, " learn as quick as you can not 
 to be all hither and yon with a hundred different attractions, 
 as I was before I met a wise man to guide me." 
 
THE BLOSSOMING SEASON. 77 
 
 " Is my father very wise ? " Richard asked. 
 
 " I think so," the lady emphasized her individual judg- 
 ment. 
 
 " Do you " Richard broke forth, and was stopped by a 
 
 beating of his heart. 
 
 " Do I — what ? " she calmly queried. 
 
 " I was going to say, do you — I mean, I love him so 
 much." 
 
 Lady Blandish smiled and slightly coloured. 
 
 They frequently approached this theme, and always 
 retreated from it ; always with the same beating of heart to 
 Richard, accompanied by the sense of a growing mystery, 
 w^hich, however, did not as yet generally disturb him. 
 
 Life was made very pleasant to him at Raynham, as it 
 was part of Sir Austin's principle of education that his boy 
 should be thoroughly joyous and happy ; and whenever 
 Adrian sent in a satisfactory report of his pupil's advance- 
 ment, which he did pretty liberally, diversions were planned, 
 jnst as prizes are given to diligent school-boys, and Richard 
 was supposed to have all his desires gratified while he 
 attended to his studies. The System flourished. Tall, 
 strong, bloomingly healthy, he took the lead of his com- 
 panions on land and water, and had more than one bonds- 
 man in his service besides Ripton Thompson — the boy with- 
 out a Destiny ! Perhaps the boy with a Destiny was grow- 
 ing up a trifle too conscious of it. His generosity to his 
 occasional companions was princely, but was exercised some- 
 thing too much in the manner of a prince ; and, notwith- 
 standing his contempt for baseness, he would overlook that 
 more easily than an offence to his pride, which demanded an 
 ntter servility when it had once been rendered susceptible. 
 If Richard had his followers he had also his feuds. The 
 Papworths were as subservient as Ripton, but young Ralph 
 Morton, the nephew of Mr. Morton, and a match for Richard 
 in numerous promising qualities, comprising the noble 
 science of fisticuffs, this youth spoke his mind too openly, 
 and moreover would not be snubbed. There was no middle 
 course for Richard's comrades between high friendship or 
 absolute slavery. He was deficient in those cosmopolite 
 habits and feelings which enable boys and men to hold 
 together without caring much for each other; and, like 
 every insulated mortal, he attributed the deficiency, of which 
 
78 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEKEL. 
 
 he "was quite aware, to the fact of his possessing a superior 
 nature. Toung Ralph was a lively talker : therefore, argued 
 Richard's vanity, he had no intellect. He was aifable : 
 therefore he was frivolous. The women liked him : there- 
 fore he was a butterfly. In fine, young Ralph was popular, 
 and our superb prince, denied the privilege of despising, 
 ended by detesting him. 
 
 Early in the days of their contention for leadership, 
 Richard saw the absurdity of affecting to scorn his rival. 
 Ralph was an Eton boy, and hence, being robust, a swimmer 
 and a cricketer. A swimmer and a cricketer is nowhere to 
 be scorned in youth's I'epublic. Finding that manceuvre 
 would not do, Richard was prompted once or twice to 
 entrench himself behind his greater wealth and his posi- 
 tion ; but he soon abandoned that also, partly because his 
 chilliness to ridicule told him he was exposing himself, and 
 chiefly that his heart was too chivalrous. And so he was 
 dragged into the lists by Ralph, and experienced the luck of 
 champions. For cricket, and for diving, Ralph bore away 
 the belt : Richard's middle-stump tottered before his ball, 
 and he could seldom pick up more than three eggs under- 
 water to Ralph's half-dozen. He was beaten, too, in jump- 
 ing and running. Why will silly mortals strive to the 
 painful pinnacles of championship ? Or why, once having 
 reached them, not have the magnanimity and circumspection 
 to retire into private life immediately ? Stung by his 
 defeats, Richard sent one of his dependent Papwortbs to 
 Poer Hall, with a challenge to Ralph Barthrop Morton ; 
 matching himself to swim across the Thames and back, once, 
 twice, or thrice, within a less time than he, Ralph Barthrop 
 Morton, would require for the undertaking. It was accepted, 
 and a reply returned, equally formal in the trumpeting of 
 Christian names, wherein Ralph Barthrop Morton acknow- 
 ledged the challenge of Richard Doria Feverel, and was his 
 man. The match came ofl: on a midsummer morning, under 
 the direction of Captain Algernon. Sir Austin was a 
 spectator from the cover of a plantation by the river-side, 
 unknown to his son, and, to the scandal of her sex. Lady 
 Blandish accompanied the baronet. He had invited her 
 attendance, and she, obeying her frank nature, and knowing 
 what The Pii,geim Sceip said about prudes, at once agreed 
 to view the match, pleasing him mightily. For was not 
 
THE BLOSSOMING SEASON. 79 
 
 here a woman wortliy tlie golden ages of the world ? one 
 who conld look npon man as a creature divinely made, and 
 look with a mind neither tempted, nor taunted, by the 
 Serpent ! Such a women was rare. Sir Austin did not 
 discompose her by uttering his praises. She was conscious 
 of his approval only in an increased gentleness of manner, 
 and something in his voice and communications, as if he 
 were speaking to a familiar, a very high compliment from 
 him. While the lads were standing ready for the signal to 
 plunge from the steep decline of greensward into the shining 
 waters. Sir Austin called upon her to admire their beauty, 
 and she did, and even advanced her head above his shoulder 
 delicately. In so doing, and just as the start was given, a 
 bonnet became visible to Richard. Young Ralph was heels 
 in air before he moved, and then he dropped like dead. He 
 was beaten by several lengths. 
 
 The result of the match was unaccountable to all present, 
 and Richard's friends unanimously pressed him to plead a 
 false start. But though the youth, with full confidence in 
 his better style and equal strength, had backed himself 
 heavily against his rival, and had lost his little river-yacht 
 to Ralph, he would do nothing of the sort. It was the 
 Bonnet had beaten him, not Ralph. The Bonnet, typical of 
 the mystery that caused his heart those violent palpitations, 
 the Bonnet was his dear, detestable enemy. He took a 
 savage pleasure in attributing his evil luck to the Bonnet. 
 It distilled an exquisite bitter-sweet. 
 
 And now, as he progressed from mood to mood, his ambition 
 turned towards a field where; Ralph could not rival him, 
 a,nd- where the Bonnet was etherealized, and reigned glorious 
 mistress. A check to the pride of a boy will frequently 
 divert him to the path where lie his subtlest powers. Richard 
 gave up his companions, servile or antagonistic : he relin- 
 quished the material world to young Ralph, and retired into 
 himself, where he was growing to be lord of kingdoms : 
 where Beauty was his handmaid, and History his minister, 
 and Time his ancient harper, and sweet Romance his bride ; 
 where he walked in a realm vaster and more gorgeous than 
 the great Orient, peopled with the heroes that have been. 
 For there is no princely wealth, and no loftiest heritage, to 
 equal this early one that is made bountifully common to so 
 many, when the ripening blood has put a spark to the 
 
80 THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 imagination, and the earth is seen througt rosy mists of a 
 thousand fresh-awakened nameless and aimless desires ; 
 panting for bliss and taking it as it comes ; making of any 
 sight or sound, perforce of the enchantment they carry with 
 them, a key to infinite, because innocent, pleasure. The 
 passions then are gambolling cubs ; not the I'avaging gluttons 
 they grow to. They have their teeth and their talons, but 
 they neither tear nor bite. They are in counsel and fellow- 
 ship with the quickened heart and brain. The whole sweet 
 system moves to music. 
 
 Something akin to the indications of a change in the spirit 
 of his son, which were now seen, Sir Austin had marked 
 down to be expected, as due to his plan. The blushes of the 
 youth, his long vigils, his clinging to solitude, his abstraction, 
 and downcast but not melancholy air, were matters for 
 rejoicing to the prescient gentleman. " For it comes," said 
 he to Dr. Clifford of Lobourne, after consulting him medically 
 on the youth's behalf and being assured of his soundness, " it 
 comes of a thoroughly sane condition. The blood is healthy, 
 the mind virtuous : neither instigates the other to evil, and 
 both are perfecting toward the flower of manhood. If he 
 reach that pure — in the untainted fulness and perfection of 
 his natural powers — I am indeed a happy father ! But one 
 thing he will owe to me : that at one period of his life he 
 knew paradise, and could read God's handwriting on the 
 earth ! ISTow those abominations whom you call precocious 
 boys — your little pet monsters, doctor ! — and who can wonder 
 that the world is what it is ? when it is full of them — as they 
 will have no divine time to look back upon in their own lives, 
 how can they believe in innocence and goodness, or be other 
 than sons of selfishness and the Devil? But my boy," and 
 the baronet dropped his voice to a key that was touching to 
 hear, " my boy, if he fall, will fall from an actual region of 
 .purity. He dare not be a sceptic as to that. Whatever his 
 darkness, he will have the guiding light of a memory behind 
 him. So much is secure." 
 
 To talk nonsense, or poetry, or the dash between the two, 
 in a tone of profound sincerity, and to enunciate solemn 
 discordances with received opinion so seriously as to convey 
 the impression of a spiritual insight, is the peculiar gift by 
 which monomaniacs, having first persuaded themselves, con- 
 trive to influence their neighbours, and through them to 
 
THE BLOSSOMING SEASON. 81 
 
 make conquest of a good half of the world, for good or for ill. 
 Sir Austin had this gift. He spoke as if he saw the truth, 
 and, persisting in it so long, he was accredited by those who 
 did not understand him, and silenced them that did. " We 
 shall see," was all the argument left to Dr. Clifford, and other 
 unbelievers. 
 
 So far certainly the experiment had succeeded. A comlier, 
 braver, better boy was nowhere to be met. His promise was 
 undeniable. The vessel, too, though it lay now in harbour 
 and had not yet been proved by the buffets of the elements 
 on the great ocean, had made a good trial trip, and got well 
 through stormy weather, as the records of the Bakewell 
 Comedy witnessed to at Raynham. No augury could be 
 hopefuler. The Fates must indeed be hard, the Ordeal 
 severe, the Destiny dark, that could destroy so bright a 
 Spring I But, bright as it was, the baronet relaxed nothing 
 of his vigilant supervision. He said to his intimates : 
 " Every act, every fostered inclination, almost every thought, 
 in this Blossoming Season, bears its seed for the Future. 
 The living Tree now requires incessant watchfulness." And, 
 acting up to his light. Sir Austin did watch. The youth 
 submitted to an hour's examination every night before 
 he sought his bed; professedly to give an account of his 
 studies ; but really to recapitulate his moral experiences of 
 the day. He could do so, for he was pure. Any wildness in 
 hiTTi that his father noted, any remoteness or richness of 
 fancy in his expressions, was set down as incidental to the 
 Blossoming Season. The Blossoming Season explained and 
 answered for all. There is nothing like a theory for binding 
 the wise. Sir Austin, despite his rigid watch and ward, 
 knew less of his son than the servant of his household. And 
 he was deaf, as well as blind. Adrian thought it his duty to 
 tell him that the youth was consuming paper. Lady 
 Blandish likewise hinted at his mooning propensities. Sir 
 Austin from his lofty watch-tower of the System had fore- 
 seen it, he said. But when he came to hear that the youth 
 was writing poetry, his wounded heart had its reasons for 
 being much disturbed. 
 
 " Surely," said Lady Blandish, " you knew he scribbled ? " 
 " A very different thing from writing poetry, madam," 
 Baid the baronet. " No Feverel has ever written poetry." 
 
 a 
 
82 THE OKDEAL OF RICHARD FETEREL. 
 
 " I don't "tliiiik it's a sign of degeneracy," the lady 
 remarked. " He rhymes very prettily to me." 
 
 A London phrenologist, and a friendly Oxford Professor 
 of poetry, quieted Sir Austin's fears. 
 
 The phrenologist said he was totally deficient in the imita- 
 tive faculty ; and the Professor, that he was equally so in the 
 rhythmic, and instanced several consoling false quantities in 
 the few effusions submitted to him. Added to this. Sir 
 Austin told Lady Blandish that Richard had, at his best, 
 done what no poet had ever been known to be capable of 
 doing : he had, with his own hands, and in cold blood, com- 
 mitted his virgin manuscript to the flames : which made 
 Lady Blandish sigh forth, " Poor boy ! " 
 
 Killing one's darling child is a painful imposition. For a 
 youth in his Blossoming Season, who fancies himself a poet, 
 to be requested to destroy his first-bom, without a reason 
 (though to pretend a reason cogent enough to justify the 
 request were a mockery), is a piece of abhorrent despotism, 
 and Richard's blossoms vrithered under it. A strange man 
 had been introduced to him, who traversed and bisected his 
 skull with sagacious stifi fingers, and crushed his soul while, 
 in an infallible voice, declaring him the animal he was : 
 making him feel such an animal ! Not only his blossoms 
 withered, his being seemed to draw in its shoots and twigs. 
 And when, coupled thereunto (the strange man having 
 departed, his work done), his father, in his tenderest man- 
 ner, stated that it would give him pleasure to see those 
 same precocious, utterly valueless, scribblings among the 
 cinders, the last remaining mental blossoms spontaneously 
 fell away. Richard's spirit stood bare. He protested not. 
 Enough that it could be wished ! He would not delay a 
 minute in doing it. Desiring his father to follow him, he 
 went to a drawer in his room, and from a clean-linen recess, 
 never suspected by Sir Austin, the secretive youth drew out 
 bundle after bundle : each neatly tied, named, and num- 
 bered : and pitched them into flames. And so Farewell my 
 young Ambition ! and with it Farewell all true confidence 
 between Father and Son. 
 
THE MAGNETIC AGE. 83 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE MAGNETIC AGE. 
 
 It -was now, as Sir Austin had written it down, The Mag- 
 netic Age: the Age of violent attractions, when to hear 
 mention of love is dangerons, and to see it, a communication 
 of the disease. People at Raynham were put on their guard 
 by the baronet, and his reputation for wisdom was severely 
 criticized in consequence of the injunctions he thought fit to 
 issue through butler and housekeeper down to the lower 
 household, for the preservation of his son from any visible 
 symptom, of the passion. A footman and two housemaids are 
 believed to have been dismissed on the report of heavy 
 Benson that they were in or inclining to the state ; upon 
 which an undercook and a dairymaid voluntarily threw up 
 their places, averring that " they did not want no young 
 men, but to have their sex spied after by an old wretch like 
 that," indicating the ponderous butler, "was a little too 
 much for a Christian woman," and then they were ungene- 
 rous enough to glance at Benson's well-known marital 
 calamity, hinting that some men met their deserts. So 
 intolerable did heavy Benson's espionage become, that Rayn- 
 ham would have grown depopulated of its womankind had 
 not Adrian interfered, who pointed out to the baronet what 
 a fearful arm his butler was wielding. Sir Austin acknow- 
 ledged it despondently. " It only shows," said he, with a 
 fine spirit of justice, " how all but impossible it is to legislate 
 where there are women !" 
 
 "I do not object," he added; "I hope I am too just to 
 object to the exercise of their natural inclinations. All I 
 ask from them is discreetness." 
 
 " Ay," said Adrian, whose discreetness was a marvel. 
 
 " No gadding about in couples," continued the baronet, 
 "no kissing in public. Such occurrences no boy should 
 witness. Whenever people of both sexes are thrown together, 
 they will be silly ; and where they are high-fed, uneducated, 
 and barely occupied, it must be looked for as a matter of 
 course. Let it be known that I only require discreetness." 
 
 Discreetness, therefore, was instructed to reign at tho 
 Abbey. Under Adrian's able tuition the fairest of its. 
 domestics acquired that virtue. 
 
 g2 
 
84 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 Discreetness, too, was enjoined to the upper iLousehold. 
 Sir Austin, wlio had not previously appeared to notice the 
 case of Lobourne's hopeless curate, now desired Mrs. Doria 
 to interdict, or at least discourage, his visits, for the appear- 
 ance of the man was that of an embodied sigh and groan. 
 
 " Really, Austin !" said Mrs. Doria, astonished to find her 
 brother more awake than she had supposed, " I have never 
 allowed him to hope." 
 
 " Let him see it, then," replied the baronet ; " let him see 
 it." 
 
 " The man amuses me," said Mrs. Doria. " Ton know, 
 we have few amusements here, we inferior creatures. I con- 
 fess I should like a barrel-organ better ; that reminds one of 
 town and the opera ; and besides, it plays more than one 
 . iune. However, since you think my society bad for him, 
 let him stop away." 
 
 The sight of the Note-book backing a sardonic smile, 
 caused Mrs. Doria her unusual flash of irony ; and truly it 
 was hard upon a lady to mark this cold Rhadamanthus 
 deliberately and openly jotting her down to fire judgement 
 and condemnation at her sex in some future edition of the 
 Yerdicts. "With the self-devotion of a woman she abjured 
 it, and grew patient and sweet the moment her daughter 
 Clare was spoken of, and the business of her life in view. 
 Mrs. Doria's maternal heart had betrothed the two cousins, 
 Richard and Clare ; had already beheld them espoused and 
 fruitful. For this she yielded the pleasures of town; for 
 this she immured herself at Raynham; for this she bore 
 with a thousand follies, exactions, inconveniences, things 
 abhorrent to her, and Heaven knows what forms of torture 
 and self-denial, which are smilingly endured by that greatest 
 of voluntary martyrs — a mother with a daughter to marry. 
 Mrs. Doria, an amiable widow, had surely married but for 
 her daughter Clare. The lady's hair no woman could possess 
 without feeling it her pride. It was the daily theme of her 
 lady's-maid, — a natural aureole to her head. She was gay, 
 witty, still physically youthful enough to claim a destiny ; 
 and she sacrificed it to accomplish her daughter's ! sacrificed, 
 as with heroic scissors, hair, wit, gaiety — let us not attempt 
 to enumerate how much ! more than may be said. And she 
 was only oae of thousands ; thousands who have no portion 
 of the hero's reward ; for he may reckon on applause, and 
 
THE MAGNETIC AGE. 85 
 
 condolence, and sympathy, and honour ; they, poor slaves ! 
 must look for nothing but the opposition of their own sex 
 and the sneers of ours. 0, Sir Austin ! had you not been 
 so blinded, what an Aphorism might have sprung from this 
 point of observation ! Mrs. Doria was coolly told, between 
 sister and brother, that during the Magnetic Age her 
 daughter's presence at Raynham was undesireable. Instead 
 of nursing offence, her sole thought was the mountain of 
 prejudice she had to contend against. She bowed, and said, 
 Clare wanted sea-air — she had never quite recovered the 
 shock of that dreadful night. How long, Mrs. Doria wished 
 to know, might the Peculiar Period be expected to last ? 
 
 " That," said Sir Austin, " depends. A year, perhaps. 
 He is entering on it. I shall be most grieved to lose you, 
 Helen. Clare is now — how old ? " 
 
 " Seventeen." 
 
 " She is marriageable." 
 
 " Marriageable, Austin ! at seventeen ! don't name such a 
 thing. My child shall not be robbed of her youth." 
 
 " Our women marry early, Helen." 
 
 " My child shall not ! " 
 
 The baronet reflected a moment. He did not wish to lose 
 his sister. 
 
 "As you are of that opinion, Helen," said he, "perhaps 
 we may still make arrangements to retain you with 
 ns. Would you think it adviseable to send Clare — she 
 should know discipline — to some establishment for a few 
 months?" . . . 
 
 " To an asylum, Austin ? " cried Mrs. Doria, controlling 
 her indignation as well as she could. 
 
 " To some select superior seminary, Helen. There are 
 such to be found." 
 
 " Austin ! " Mrs. Doria exclaimed, and had to fight with a 
 moisture in her eyes. " Unjust ! alasurd ! " she murmured. 
 The baronet thought it a natural proposition that Clare 
 should be a bride or a schoolgirl. 
 
 " I cannot leave my child." Mrs. Doria trembled. " Where 
 she goes, I go. I am aware that she is only one of our sex, 
 and therefore of no value to the world, but she is my child. 
 I will see, poor dear, that you have no cause to complain of 
 her." 
 
 " I thought," Sir Austin remarked, " that you acquiesced 
 in my views with regard to my son." 
 
86 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEt. 
 
 " Tes— generally,'' said Mrs. Doria, and felt culpable that 
 she had not before, and could not then, tell her brother that 
 he had set up an Idol in his house — an Idol of flesh ! more 
 retributive and abominable than wood, or brass, or gold. 
 But she had bowed to the Idol too long — she had too 
 entirely bound herself to gain her project by subserviency 
 to enjoy that gratification now. She had, and she dimly 
 perceived it, committed a greater fault in tactics, in teach- 
 ing her daughter to bow to the Idol also. Love of that kind 
 Richard took for tribute. He was indifferent to Clare's soft 
 eyes. The parting kiss he gave her was ready and cold as 
 his father could desire, and Sir Austin had hardly slept 
 overnight for thinking of the effect it might have on the 
 magnetic youth. He caressed his son as if Richard had 
 done something virtuous. Compensation his boy should 
 have for any trifling crosses to his feelings. He should 
 have yachts, horses, whatever he fancied. Sir Austin now 
 grew eloquent to him in laudation of manly pursuits : but 
 Richard thought his eloquence barren, his attempts at com- 
 panionship awkward, and all manly pursuits and aims, life 
 itself, vain and worthless. To what end ? sighed the blos- 
 somless youth, and cried aloud, as soon as he was relieved 
 of his father's society, what was the good of anything ? 
 Whatever he did — whichever path he selected, led back to 
 Raynham. And whatever he did, and however wretched 
 and wayward he showed himself, only confirmed Sir Austin 
 more and more in the truth of his previsions. Tom Bake- 
 well, now the youth's groom, had to give the baronet a 
 report of his young master's proceedings, in common with 
 Adrian, and while there was no harm to tell Tom spoke out. 
 " He do ride like fire every day to Pig's Snout," naming the 
 highest hill in the neighbourhood, " and stand there and 
 stare, never movin', like a mad 'un. And then hoam agin 
 all slack as if he'd been beaten in a race by somebody." 
 
 To the interrogation — Did he look East or West ? Tom, 
 dreading a snare, replied that he had not marked : " He 
 seemed for to look where he could look fur away." 
 
 " There is no woman in that ! " mused the baronet. " He 
 would have ridden back as hard as he went," reflected this 
 profound scientific humanist, " had there been a woman in 
 it. He would shun vast expanses, and seek shade, conceal- 
 ment, solitude. The desire for distances betokens emptiness 
 
THE MAGNETIC AGE. »7 
 
 and undirected hunger : wlien the heart is possessed by an 
 image we fly to wood and forest, like the guilty." 
 
 Adrian's report accused his pupil of an extraordinary 
 access of cynicism. 
 
 "Exactly," said the baronet. "As I foresaw. At this 
 period an insatiate appetite is accompanied by a fastidious 
 palate. Nothing but the quintessences of existence, and 
 those in exhaustless supplies, will satisfy this craving, which 
 is not to be satisfied ! Hence his bitterness. Life can 
 furnish no food fitting for him. The strength and purity of 
 his energies have reached to an almost divine height, and 
 roam through the Inane. Poetry, love, and such- like, are 
 the drugs earth has to offer to high natures, as she offers to 
 low ones debauchery. 'Tis a sig^, this sourness, that he is 
 subject to none of the empiricisms that are afloat. Now to 
 keep him clear of them ! " 
 
 The Titans had an easier task in storming Olympus. As 
 yet, however, it could not be said that Sir Austin's System 
 had failed. On the contrary, it had reared a youth, hand- 
 some, intelligent, well-bred, and, observed the ladies, with 
 acute emphasis, innocent. W here, they asked, was such 
 another young man to be found ? 
 
 " Oh ! " said Lady Blandish to Sir Austin, " if men could 
 give their hands to women unsoiled — how different would 
 many a marriage be ! She will be a happy girl who calls 
 Richard husband." 
 
 " Happy, indeed ! " was the baronet's caustic ejaculation. 
 " But where shall I meet one equal to him, and his match ? " 
 
 " I was innocent when I was a girl," said the lady. 
 
 Sir Austin bowed a reserved opinion. 
 
 " Do you think no girls innocent ? " 
 
 Sir Austin gallantly thought them all so. 
 
 " No, that you know they are not," said the lady, stamp- 
 ing. " But they are more innocent than boys, I am sure." 
 
 " Because of their education, madam. Ton see now what 
 a youth can be. Perhaps, when my System is published, or 
 rather — to speak more humbly — when it is practised, the 
 balance may be restored, and we shall have virtuous young 
 men." 
 
 " It's too late for poor me to hope for a husband from one 
 of them," said the lady, pouting and laughing. 
 
 " It is never too late for beauty to waken love," returned 
 
88 THE OEDEAL OF RICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 the baronet, and they trifled a little. They were approach- 
 ing Daphne's Bower, which they entered, and sat there to 
 taste the coolness of a descending midsummer day. 
 
 The baronet seemed in a humour for dignified fooling ; the 
 lady for serious converse. 
 
 " T shall believe again in Arthur's knights," she said. 
 " When I was a girl I dreamed of one." 
 
 •' And he was in quest of the San Greal ? " 
 
 "If you like." 
 
 " And showed his good taste by turning aside for the more 
 tangible San Blandish ? " 
 
 " Of course you consider it would have been so," sighed 
 the lady ruffling. 
 
 " I can only judge by our generation," said Sir Austin, 
 with a bend of homage. 
 
 The lady gathered her mouth. " Either we are very 
 mighty, or you are very weak." 
 
 " Both, madam." 
 
 " But whatever we are, and if we are bad, bad ! we love 
 virtue, and truth, and lofty souls, in men : and, when we 
 meet those qualities in them, we are constant, and would 
 die for them — die for them. Ah ! you know men but not 
 women." 
 
 " The knights possessing such distinctions must be 
 young, I presume ? " said Sir Austin. 
 
 " Old, or young ! " 
 
 " But if old, they are scarce capable of enterprise ? " 
 
 " They are loved for themselves, not for their deeds." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " Tes — ah ! " said the lady mocking him. " Intellect may 
 subdue women — make slaves of them ; and they worship 
 beauty perhaps as much as you do. But they only love for 
 ever and are mated when they meet a noble nature." 
 
 Sir Austin looked at her wistfully. 
 
 " And did you encounter the knight of your dream ? " 
 
 " Not then." She lowered her eyelids. It was prettily 
 done. 
 
 " And how did you bear the disappointment ? " 
 
 " My dream was in the nursery. The day my frock was 
 lengthened to a gown I stood at the altar. I am not the 
 only girl that has been made a woman in a day, and given 
 to an ogre instead of a true knight." 
 
THE MAGNETIC AGE. 89 
 
 " Good God ! " exclaimed Sir Austin, " women Have much 
 to bear." 
 
 Here the couple changed characters. The lady became 
 gay as the baronet grew earnest. 
 
 " You know it is our lot," she said. " And we are allowed 
 many amusements. If we fulfil our duty in producing chil- 
 dren, that, like our virtue, is its own reward. Then, as a 
 widow, I have wonderful privileges." 
 
 " To preserve which, you remain a widow ? " 
 
 " Certainly," she responded. " I have no trouble now in 
 patching and piecing that rag the world calls — a character. 
 I can sit at your feet every day unquestioned. To be sure, 
 others do the same, but they are female eccentrics, and have 
 cast ofE the rag altogether : mind mends itself." 
 
 Sir Austin drew nearer to her. " Tou would have made 
 an admirable mother, madam." 
 
 The lady smiled. This from Sir Austin was very like 
 positive wooing. 
 
 " It is," he continued, " ten thousand pities that you are 
 not one." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " She spoke with an extreme humility. 
 
 " I would," he went on, " that heaven had given you a 
 daughter." 
 
 " Would you have thought her worthy of Richard ? " 
 
 " Our blood, madam, should have been one ! " 
 
 The lady tapped her toe with her parasol, blushing. " But 
 I am a mother," she said. 
 
 Sir Austin's brows started up. 
 
 " Richard is my son." 
 
 That he could look relieved by so presumptuous a speech 
 was a sign how far the lady had gone with him. 
 
 " Yes ! Richard is my boy," she reiterated. 
 
 Sir Austin's most graciously appended, " Call him ours, 
 madam," and held his head as if to catch the word from her 
 lips, which, however, she chose to refuse, or defer. They 
 made the coloured "West a common point for their eyes several 
 minutes, and then Sir Austin said, " Listen, madam." 
 
 Lady Blandish turned to him very sweetly. 
 
 " As you will not say ' ours,' madam, let me. And, as you 
 have therefore an equal claim on the boy, I will confide to 
 you a project I have lately conceived." 
 
 The announcement of a project hardly savoured of a coming 
 
90 THE ORDEAL OF KICHAKD FEVEEEL. 
 
 proposal, but for Sir Austin to confide one to a woman was 
 almost tantamount to a declaration. So Lady Blandish, 
 thought, and so said her soft, deep-eyed smile, as she perused 
 the ground while listening to the project. It concerned 
 Richard's nuptials. He was now nearly eighteen. He was 
 to marry when he was five-and-twenty. Meantime a young 
 lady, some years his junior, was to be sought for in the homes 
 of England, who would be every way fitted by education, 
 instincts, and blood — on each of which qualifications Sir 
 Austin unreservedly enlarged — to espouse so perfect a youth 
 and accept the honourable duty of assisting in the perpetua- 
 tion of the Eeverels. The baronet went on to say that he 
 proposed to set forth immediately, and devote a couple of 
 months, to the first essay in his Ccelebite search. 
 
 " I fear," said Lady Blandish, when the project had been 
 fully unfolded, "you have laid down for yourself a difiicult 
 task. Tou must not be too exacting." 
 
 " I know it." The baronet's shake of the head was piteous. 
 
 " Even in England she will be rare. But I confine myself 
 to no class. If I ask for blood it is for untainted, not what 
 you call high blood. I believe many of the middle classes 
 are frequently more careful — more pure-blooded — than our 
 ai'istocracy. Show me among them a Grod-fearing family 
 who educate their children — I should prefer a girl without 
 brothers and sisters — as a Christian damsel should be edu- 
 cated — say, on the model of my son, and she may be penni- 
 less, I will pledge her to Richard Eeverel." 
 
 Lady Blandish bit her lip. " And what do you do with 
 Richard while you are absent on this expedition ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " said the baronet, " he accompanies his father." 
 
 " Then give it up. His future bride is now pinafored and 
 bread-and-buttery. She romps, she cries, she dreams of play 
 and pudding. How can he care for her ? He thinks more 
 at his age of old women like me. He will be certain to kick 
 against her, and destroy your plan, believe me. Sir Austin." 
 
 " Ay ? ay ? do you think that ? " said the baronet. 
 
 Lady Blandish gave him a multitude of reasons. 
 
 " Ay ! true," he muttered. " Adrian said the same. He 
 must not see her. How could I think of it ! The child is 
 naked woman. He would despise her. Naturally ! " 
 
 " Naturally ! " echoed the lady. 
 
 " Then, madam," and the baronet rose, " there is one thing 
 
AN ATTKACTION. 91 
 
 for me to determine upon. I must, for the first time in his 
 life, leave tim." 
 
 " Will you, indeed P " said the lady. 
 
 " It is my duty, madam, having thus brought him up, to 
 see that he is properly mated, — not wrecked upon the quick- 
 sands of marriage, as a youth so delicately trained might be ; 
 more easily than another ! Betrothed, he will be safe from 
 a thousand snares. I may, I think, leave him for a term. 
 My precautions have saved him from the temptations of his 
 season." 
 
 " And under whose charge will you leave him ? " Lady 
 Blandish inquired. 
 
 She had emerged from the temple, and stood beside Sir 
 A.ustin on the upper steps, under a clear summer twilight. 
 
 " Madam ! " he took her hand, and his voice was gallant 
 and tender, " under whose but yours ? " 
 
 As the baronet said this, he bent above her hand, and 
 raised it to his lips. 
 
 Lady Blandish felt that she had been wooed and asked in 
 wedlock. She did not withdraw her hand. The baronet's 
 salute was flatteringly reverent. He deliberated over it, as 
 one going through a grave ceremony. And he, the scorner of 
 women, had chosen her for his homage ! Lady Blandish for- 
 got that she had taken some trouble to arrive at it. She 
 received the exquisite compliment in all its unique honey- 
 sweet : for in love we must deserve nothing or the fine 
 bloom of fruition is gone. 
 
 The lady's hand was still in durance, and the baronet had 
 not recovered from his profound inclination, when a noise 
 from the neighbouring beechwood startled the two actors in 
 this courtly pantomime. They turned their heads, and beheld 
 the hope of Raynham on horseback, surveying the scene 
 aghast. The next moment he had galloped away. 
 
 CHAPTER XrV. 
 
 AN ATTEACTION. 
 
 All night Richard tossed on his bed with his heart in a 
 rapid canter, and his brain bestriding it, traversing the rich 
 
92 THE OEDEAL OF EICHARD FEVEEEL. 
 
 antasted world, and the great Realm of Mystery, from whicii 
 he "was now restrained no longer. Months he had wandered 
 about the gates of the Bonnet, wondering, sighing, knocking 
 at them, and getting neither admittance nor answer. He had 
 the key now. His own father had given it to him. His 
 heart was a lightning steed, and bore him on and on over 
 limitless regions bathed in superhuman beauty and strange- 
 ness, where cavaliers and ladies leaned whispering upon close 
 green swards, and knights and ladies cast a splendour upon 
 savage forests, and tilts and tourneys were held in golden 
 courts lit to a glorious day by ladies' eyes, one pair of which, 
 dimly visioned, constantly distinguishable, followed him 
 through the boskage and dwelt upon him in the press, 
 beaming while he bent above a hand glittering white and 
 fragrant 'as the frosted blossom of a May night. Awhile the 
 heart would pause and flutter to a shock : he was in the act 
 of consummating all earthly bliss by pressing his lips to the 
 small white hand. Only to do that, and die ! cried the 
 Magnetic Youth : to fling the Jewel of Life into that one 
 cup and drink it off ! He was intoxicated by anticipation. 
 For that he was born. There was, then, some end in existence, 
 something to live for ! to kiss a woman's hand, and die ! 
 He would leap from the couch, and rush to pen and paper to 
 relieve his swarming sensations. Scarce was he seated when 
 the pen was dashed aside, the paper sent flying with the 
 exclamation, " Have I not sworn I would never write again ? " 
 Sir Austin had shut that safety-valve. The nonsense that 
 was in the youth might have poured harmlessly out, and its 
 urgency for ebullition was so great that he was repeatedly 
 oblivious of his oath, and found himself seated under the 
 lamp in the act of composition before pride could speak a 
 word. Possibly the pride even of Richard Feverel had been 
 swamped if the act of composition were easy at such a time, 
 and a single idea could stand clearly foremost ; but myriads 
 were demanding the first place ; chaotic hosts, like ranks of 
 stormy billows, pressed impetuously for expression, and 
 despair of reducing them to form, quite as much as pride, to 
 which it pleased him to refer his incapacity, threw down the 
 powerless pen, and sent him panting to his outstretched 
 length and another headlong career through the rosy-girdled 
 land. 
 
 Toward morning the madness of the fever abated some- 
 
AN ATTRACTION. 93 
 
 what, and lie -went fortli into the air. A lamp was still 
 burning in his father's room, and Richard thought, as he 
 looked up, that he saw the ever-vigilant head on the watch. 
 Instantly the lamp was extinguished, the window stood cold 
 against the hues of dawn. Had he cast a second glance at 
 his own chamber he might then have seen the ever- vigilant 
 head on the watch. Sir Austin had slept no more than his 
 son. Beholding him so early abroad his worst fears were 
 awakened. He hurried to gaze at the forsaken couch, a 
 picture of tempest ; the papers, with half -written words 
 ending in reckless tails and wild dashes, strewn everywhere 
 about, blankly eloquent; chairs upset, drawers left open, 
 companion slippers astray about the room. The abashed 
 baronet dared not whisper to his soul what had thus dis- 
 tracted the youth. As little could he make self-confession 
 that it was impossible for him to face his son for some time 
 to come. No doubt his conscious eye looked inward, and 
 knew ; but he chose to juggle with it, and say to himself, 
 that not an hour must be lost in betrothing Richard, and 
 holding him bond to virtue, and therefore he would imme- 
 diately depart on his expedition. The pain of not folding 
 the beloved son to his breast before he went was moreover 
 a fortunate beguilement of the latent dread that his going 
 just now was a false step. It would be their first separation. 
 Sir Austin ascended to the roof of the Abbey, and descried 
 him hastening to the boat-house by the riverside. Ere he 
 was out of sight, the baronet's sense of sacrifice had blinded 
 his conscious eye, and enabled him to feel altogether a martyr 
 to duty. 
 
 Strong pulling is an excellent medical remedy for certain 
 classes of fever. Richard took to it instinctively. The 
 clear fresh water, burnished with sunrise, sparkled against 
 his arrowy prow ; the soft deep shadows curled smiling away 
 from his gliding keel. Overhead solitary laorning unfolded 
 itself, from blossom to bud, from bud to flower ; still delicious 
 changes of light and colour, to whose influences he was heed- 
 less as he shot under willows and aspens, and across sheets 
 of river-reaches, pure mirrors to the upper glory, himself 
 the sole tenant of the stream. Somewhere at the founts of 
 the world lay the land he was rowing toward ; something of 
 its shadowed lights might be discerned here and there. It 
 was not a dream, now he knew. There was a secret abroad. 
 
94 THE OEDEAL OF RICHAKD FEVEREL, 
 
 The woods "were full of it ; the waters rolled with it, and the 
 winds. Oh, why could not one in these days do some high 
 knightly deed which should draw down ladies' eyes from 
 their heaTcn, as in the days of Arthur ! To such a meaning 
 breathed the unconscious sighs of the youth, when he had 
 pulled through his first feverish energy. 
 
 He was off Bursley, and had lapsed a little into that musing 
 quietude which follows strenuous exercise, when he heard a 
 hail and his own name called. It was no lady, no fairy, hut 
 young Ralph Morton, an irruption of miserable masculine 
 prose. Heartily wishing him abed with the rest of mankind, 
 Richard rowed in and jumped ashore. Ralph immediately 
 seized his arm, saying that he desired earnestly to have a 
 talk with him, and dragged the Magnetic Youth from his 
 water-dreams, up and down the wet mown grass. That he 
 had to say seemed to be difficult of utterance, and Richard, 
 though he barely listened, soon had enough of his old rival's 
 gladness at seeing him, and exhibited signs of impatience ; 
 whereat Ralph, as one who branches into matter somewhat 
 foreign to his mind, but of great human interest and import- 
 ance, put the question to him : 
 
 " I say, what woman's name do you like best ?" 
 
 " I don't know any," quoth Richard indiilerently. " Why 
 are you out so early ?" 
 
 In answer to this, Ralph suggested that the name of Mary 
 might be considered a pretty name. 
 
 Richard agreed that it might be; the housekeeper at 
 Raynham, half the women cooks, and all the housemaids, 
 enjoyed that name ; the name of Mary was equivalent for 
 woman at home. 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Ralph. " We have lots of Marys. 
 It's so common. Oh ! I don't like Mary best. What do you 
 think of Lucy ?" 
 
 Richard thought it just like another. 
 
 " Do you know," Ralph continued, throwing off the mask 
 and plunging into the subject, " I'd do anything on earth 
 for some names — one or two. It's not Mary, nor Lucy. 
 Clarinda's pretty, but it's like a novel. Clarihel, I like. 
 Names beginning with ' 01 ' I prefer. The ' Cl's ' are always 
 gentle and lovely girls you would die for ! Don't you think 
 so?" 
 
 Richard had never been acquainted with any of them to 
 inspire that emotion. Indeed these urgent appeals to his 
 
AN ATTRACTION. 95 
 
 fancy in feminine names at five o'clock in the morning 
 slightly surprised him, thongh he was but half awake to the 
 outer world. By degrees he perceived that Ralph was quite 
 changed. Instead of the lusty, boisterous boy, his rival in 
 manly sciences, who spoke straightforwardly and acted up to 
 his speech, here was an abashed and blush-persecuted youth, 
 who sued piteouslyfor a friendly ear wherein to pour the one 
 idea possessing him. Gradually, too, Richard apprehended 
 that Ralph likewise was on the frontiers of the Realm of 
 Mystery, perhaps further towards it than he himself was ; 
 and then, as by a sympathetic stroke, was revealed to him 
 the wonderful beauty and depth of meaning in feminiae 
 names. The theme appeared novel and delicious, fitted to 
 the season and the hour. But the hardship was that Richard 
 could choose none from the number ; all were the same to 
 him ; he loved them all. 
 
 " IJon't you really prefer the ' Cl's ' ? " said Ralph, most 
 persuasively. 
 
 " !N"ot better than the names ending in ' a ' and ' y,' 
 Richard replied, wishing he could, for Ralph was evidently 
 ahead of him. 
 
 " Come under these trees," said Ralph. And under the 
 trees Ralph unbosomed. His name was down for the army : 
 Eton was quitted for ever. In a few months he would 
 have to join his regiment, and before he left he must say 
 
 good-bye to his friends Would Richard tell him Mrs. 
 
 Forey's address ? he had heard she was somewhere by the 
 sea. Richard did not remember the address, but said he 
 would willingly take charge of any letter and forward it. 
 
 " Will you ? " cried Ralph, diving his hand into his 
 pocket ; " here it is. But don't let anybody see it." 
 
 " My aunt's name is not Clare," said Richard, perusing 
 what was composed of the exterior formula. " Ah ! why, 
 you've addressed it to Clare herself." 
 
 " Have I ? " murmured Ralph, hiding his hot face in a 
 stumble, and then peeping at the address to verify. " So I 
 have. The address, you know .... It's because I like to 
 write the name of Clare," he added hurriedly by way of 
 excellent justification. 
 
 " Is that the name you like best ? " 
 
 Ralph counterqueried, " Don't you think it very nice — 
 beautiful, I mean ? " 
 
96 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 " Not SO good as Clara," said Rictard. 
 
 " Oh ! a hundred times better," shouted young Ralph in a 
 fervour. 
 
 Richard meditated unwittingly — " I suppose we like the 
 names of the people we like best ? " 
 
 No answer from Ralph. 
 
 " Emmeline Clementina Matilda Laura, Countess Bland- 
 ish," Richard continued in a low tone, transferring the 
 names, and playing on them like musical strings. 
 
 " Eh ? " quoth Ralph. 
 
 " I'm certain," said Richard, as he finished his perform, 
 ance, " I'm certain we like the names of the people we like 
 best." And, having made this great discovery for himself, 
 he fixed his eyes on blushing Ralph. If he discovered any- 
 thing further he said nothing, but bade him good-bye, 
 jumped back into his boat, and pulled down the tide. The 
 moment Ralph was hidden by an abutment of the banks, 
 Richard reperused the address. For the first time it 
 struck him that his cousin Clare was a very charming 
 creature : he remembered the look of her eyes, and especially 
 the last reproachful glance she gave him at parting. 
 What business, pray, had Ralph to write to her ? Did she 
 not belong to him Richard reverel ? He read the words 
 again and again : Clara Doria Forey. Why, Clare was 
 the name he liked best — nay, he loved it. Doria, too — she 
 shared his own name with him. Away went his heart, not at 
 a canter now, at a gallop, as one who sights the quarry. 
 He felt too weak to pull. Clare Doria Forey — oh, perfect 
 melody ! Sliding with the tide, he heard it fluting in the 
 bosom of the hills. 
 
 When nature has made us ripe for love, it seldom occurs 
 that the Fates are behindhand in furnishing a temple for 
 the flame. 
 
 Above green-flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by the 
 thunder below, lilies, golden and white, were swaying at 
 anchor among the reeds. Meadow-sweet hung from the 
 banks thick with weed and trailing bramble, and there also 
 hung a daughter of earth. Her face was shaded by a broad 
 straw hat with a flexible brim that left her lips and chin in the 
 sun, and, sometimes nodding, sent forth a light of promising 
 eyes. Across her shoulders, and behind, flowed large loose 
 curls, brown in shadow, almost golden where the ray touched 
 
AN ATTRACTION. 97 
 
 them. Slie was simply dressed, befitting decency and the 
 season. On a closer inspection you might see that her lips 
 were stained. This blooming young person was regaling on 
 dewberries. They grew between the bank and the water. 
 Apparently she found the fruit abundant, for her hand was 
 making pretty progress to her mouth. Fastidious youth, 
 which shudders and revolts at woman plumping her ex- 
 quisite proportions on bread-and-butter, and would (we 
 must suppose) joyfully have her quite scraggy to have her 
 quite poetical, can hardly object to dewberries. Indeed the 
 act of eating them is dainty and induces musing. The dew- 
 berry is a sister to the lotus, and an innocent sister. You 
 eat : mouth, eye, and hand are occupied, and the undrugged 
 mind free to roam. And so it was with the damsel who 
 knelt there. The little skylark went up above her, all song, 
 to the smooth southern cloud lying along the blue : from a 
 dewy copse standing dark over her nodding hat the black- 
 bird fluted, calling to her with thrice mellow note : the king- 
 fisher flashed emerald out of green osiers : a bow- winged 
 heron travelled aloft, seeking solitude : a boat slipped to- 
 ward her, containing a dreamy youth ; and still she plucked 
 the fruit, and ate, and mused, as if no fairy prince were in- 
 vading her territories, and as if sh« wished not for one, or 
 knew not her wishes. Surrounded by the green shaven 
 meadows, the pastoral summer buzz, the weirf all's thunder- 
 ing white, amid the breath and beauty of wild flowers, she 
 was a bit of lovely human life in a fair setting ; a terrible 
 attraction. The Magnetic Youth leaned round to note his 
 proximity to the weir-piles, and beheld the sweet vision. 
 Stiller and stiller grew nature, as at the meeting of two 
 electric clouds. Her posture was so graceful that, though 
 he was making straight for the weir, he dared not dip a 
 scull. Just then one most enticing dewberry caught her 
 eyes. He was floating by unheeded, and saw that her hand 
 stretched low, and could not gather what it sought. A 
 stroke from his right brought him beside her. The damsel 
 glanced up dismayed, and her whole shape trembled over 
 the brink. Richard sprang from his boat into the water. 
 Pressing a hand beneath her foot, which she had thrust 
 against the crumbling wet sides of the bank to save herself, 
 he enabled her to recover her balance, and gain safe earth, 
 whither, emboldened by the incident, touching her finger's 
 tip, he followed her. 
 
 H 
 
98 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PEEDINAND AND MIEANDA. 
 
 He had landed on an island of the still- vexed Bermoothes. 
 The world lay wrecked behind him : Raynham hung in mists, 
 remote, a phantom to the vivid reality of this white hand 
 which had drawn him thither away thousands of leagues in 
 an eye-twinkle. Hark, how Ariel sung overhead ! What 
 splendour in the heavens ! What marvels of beauty about 
 his enchanted head ! And, you wonder ! Fair Flame ! by 
 
 whose light the glories of being are now first seen 
 
 Radiant Miranda ! Prince Ferdinand is at your feet. 
 
 Or is it Adam, his rib taken from his side in sleep, and 
 thus transformed, to make him behold his Paradise, and lose 
 it? . . . 
 
 The youth looked on her with as glowing an eye. It was 
 the First Woman to him. 
 
 And she — mankind was all Caliban to her, saving this one 
 princely youth. 
 
 So to each other said their changeing eyes in the moment 
 they stood together ; he pale, and she blushing. 
 
 She was indeed sweetly fair, and would have been held 
 fair among rival damsels. On a magic shore, and to a youth 
 educated by a System, strung like an arrow drawn to the 
 head, he, it might be guessed, could fly fast and far with 
 her. The soft rose in her cheeks, the clearness of her eyes, 
 bore witness to the body's virtue ; and health and happy 
 blood were in her bearing. Had she stood before Sir Austin 
 among rival damsels, that Scientific Humanist, for the con- 
 sunmiation of his System, would have thrown her the hand, 
 kerchief for his son. The wide summer-hat, nodding over 
 her forehead to her brows, seemed to flow with the flowing 
 heavy curls, and those fire-threaded mellow curls, only half- 
 curls, waves of hair call them, rippling at the ends, went 
 like a sunny red-veined torrent down her back almost to 
 her waist : a glorious vision to the youth, who embraced it as 
 a flower of beauty, and read not a feature. There were 
 curious features of colour in her face for him to have read. 
 Her brows, thick and brownish against a soft skin showing 
 the action of the blood, met in the bend of a bow, extend- 
 
FERDINAND AND MIRANDA. 09 
 
 ing to the temples long and level : you saw that she was 
 fashioned to peruse the sights of earth, and by the plia- 
 bility of her brows that the wonderful creature used her 
 faculty, and was not going to be a statue to the gazer. 
 Under the dark thick brows an arch of lashes shot out, giv- 
 ing a wealth of darkness to the full frank blue eyes, a 
 mystery of meaning — more than brain was ever meant to 
 fathom : richer, henceforth, than all mortal wisdom to Prince 
 Ferdinand. For when nature turns artist, and produces 
 contrasts of colour on a fair face, where is the Sage, or what 
 (the Oracle, shall match the depth of its lightest look ? 
 
 Prince Ferdinand was also fair. In his slim boating-attire 
 liis figure looked heroic. His hair, rising from the parting 
 to the right of his forehead, in what his admiring Lady 
 Blandish called his plume, fell away slanting silkily to the 
 temples across the nearly imperceptible upward curve of 
 his brows there — felt more than seen, so slight it was — and 
 gave to his profile a bold beauty, to which his bashful, 
 breathless air was a flattering charm. An arrow drawn to 
 the head, capable of flying fast and far with her ! He 
 leaned a little forward to her, drinking her in with all his 
 eyes, and young Love has a thousand. Then truly the 
 System triumphed, just ere it was to fall ; and could Sir 
 Austin have been content to draw the arrow to the head, and 
 let it fly, when it would fly, he might have pointed to his son 
 again, and said to the world, " Match him ! " Such keen 
 bliss as the youth had in the sight of her, an innocent youth 
 alone has powers of soul in him to experience. 
 
 " Women ! " says The Pilgrim's Scrip, in one of its soli- 
 tary outbursts, "Women, who like, and will have for hero, a 
 rake ! how soon are you not to learn that you have taken 
 bankrupts to your bosoms, and that the putrescent gold that 
 attracted you is the slime of the Lake of Sin ! " 
 
 If these two were Ferdinand and Miranda, Sir Austin was 
 not Prospero, and was not present, or their fates might have 
 been different. 
 
 So they stood a moment, changeing eyes, and then Miranda 
 spoke, and they came down to earth, feeling no less in 
 heaven. 
 
 She spoke to thank him for his aid. She used quite com- 
 H 2 
 
100 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED FEVBREL. 
 
 mon simple -words ; and used them, no doubt, to express a 
 common simple meaning : but to him she was uttering magic, 
 casting spells, and the efEect they had on him was manifested 
 in the incoherence of his replies, which were too foolish to 
 be chronicled. 
 
 The couple were again mute. Suddenly Miranda, with an 
 exclamation of anguish, and innumerable lights and shadows 
 playing over her lovely face, clapped her hands, crying 
 aloud, " My book ! my book ! " and ran to the bank. 
 
 Prince Ferdinand was at her side. "What have you 
 lost ? " he said. 
 
 " My book 1 my book ! " she answered, her long delicious 
 curls swinging across her shoulders to the stream. Then 
 turning to him, divining his rash intention, " Oh, no, no ! let 
 me entreat you not to," she said ; " I do not so very much 
 mind losing it." And in her eagerness to restrain him she 
 unconsciously laid her gentle hand upon his arm, and took 
 the force of motion out of him. 
 
 " Indeed, I do not really care for the silly book," she con- 
 tinued, withdrawing her hand quickly, and reddening. 
 " Pray do not ! " 
 
 The young gentleman had kicked off his shoes. Ho sooner 
 was the spell of contact broken than he jumped in. The 
 water was still troubled and discoloured by his introductory 
 adventure, and, though he ducked his head with the spirit of 
 a dabchick, the book was missing. A scrap of paper floating 
 from the bramble just above the water, and looking as if fire 
 had caught its hedges and it had flown from one adverse 
 element to the other, was all he could lay hold of ; and he 
 returned to land disconsolately, to hear Miranda's murmured 
 mixing of thanks and pretty expostulations. 
 
 " Let me try again," he said. 
 
 " No, indeed ! " she replied, and used the awful threat : 
 " I will run away if you do," which effectually restrained 
 him. 
 
 Her eye fell on the fire-stained scrap of paper, and 
 brightened, as she cried, " There, there ! you have what I 
 want. It is that. I do not care for the book. No, please ! 
 You are not to look at it. Give it me." 
 
 Before her playfully imperative injunction was fairly 
 lipoken, Richard had glanced at the document and discovered 
 a Grifl&n between Two Wheatsheaves : his crest in silver : 
 
FERDINAND AND MIRANDA. 101 
 
 and below — ■wonderment immense ! his own handwriting ! 
 remnant of his Tbiirnt-ofiering ! a page of the sacrificed 
 poems ! one blossom preserved from the deadly universal 
 blight. 
 
 He handed it to her in silence. She took it, and put it in 
 her bosom. 
 
 "Who would have said, have thought, that, where all else 
 perished, Odes, fluttering bits of broad- winged Epic, Idyls, 
 Lines, Stanzas, this one Sonnet to the stars should be 
 miraculously reserved for such a starry fate ! passing 
 beatitude ! 
 
 As they walked silently across the meadow, Richard 
 strove to remember the hour and the mood of m.ind in which 
 he had composed the notable production. The stars were 
 invoked, as seeing and foreseeing all, to tell him where then 
 his love reclined, and so forth ; Hesper was complacent 
 enough to do so, and described her in a couplet — 
 
 " Through sunset's amber see me shining fan", 
 As her blue eyes shine through her golden hair." 
 
 And surely no words could be more prophetic. Here were 
 two blue eyes and golden hair ; and by some strange chance, 
 that appeared like the working of a divine finger, she had 
 become the possessor of the prophecy, she that was to fulfil 
 it ! The youth was too charged with emotion to speak. 
 Doubtless the damsel had less to think of, or had some 
 trifling burden on her conscience, for she seem.ed to grow 
 embarrassed. At last she drew up her chin to look at her 
 companion under the nodding brim of her hat (and the 
 action gave her a charmingly freakish air), crying, "But 
 where are you going to ? Ton are wet through. Let me 
 thank you again ; and pray leave me, and go home and 
 change instantly." 
 
 "Wet?" replied the magnetic muser, with a voice of 
 tender interest; "not more than one foot, I hope ? I will 
 leave you while you dry your stockings in the sun." 
 
 At this she could not withhold a shy and lovely laugh. 
 
 " Not I, but you. Tou know you saved me, and would 
 try to get that silly book for me, and you are dripping wet. 
 Axe you not very uncomfortable ? " 
 
 In all sincerity he assured her that he was not. 
 
102 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 " And you really do not feel that you are wet ? "" 
 
 He really did not : and it was a fact that he spoke truth. 
 
 She pursed her sweet dewberry mouth in the most comical 
 way, and her blue eyes lightened laughter out of the half- 
 dosed lids. 
 
 " I cannot help it," she said, her mouth opening, and 
 sounding harmonious bells of laughter in his ears. " Pardon 
 me, won't you ? " 
 
 His face took the same soft smiling curves in adnairation 
 of her. 
 
 " Not to feel that you have been in the water the very 
 moment after ! " she musically interjected, seeing she was 
 excused. 
 
 " It's true," he said ; and his own gravity then touched 
 him to join a duet with her, which made them no longer feel 
 strangers, and did the work of a month of intimacy. Better- 
 than sentiment, laughter opens the breast to love ; opens the 
 whole breast to his full quiver, instead of a corner here and 
 there for a solitary arrow. Hail the occasion propitious, 
 British young ! and laugh and treat love as an honest 
 God, and dabble not with the sentimental rouge. These two- 
 laughed, and the souls of each cried out to other, " It is I, 
 It is I." 
 
 They laughed and forgot the cause of their laughter, and 
 the sun dried his light river-clothing, and they strolled 
 toward the blackbird's copse, and stood near a stile in sight 
 of the foam of the weir and the many-coloured rings of 
 eddies streaming forth from it. 
 
 Richard's boat, meanwhile, had contrived to shoot the 
 weir, and was swinging, bottom upward, broadside with 
 the current down the rapid backwater. 
 
 " "Will you let it go," said the damsel, eyeing it curi- 
 ously. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, and low, as if he spoke in the core of 
 his thought. " What do I care for it now ! " 
 
 His old life was whirled away with it, dead, drowned. 
 His new life was with her, alive, divine. 
 
 She flapped low the brim of her hat. " Tou must really 
 not come any farther," she softly said. 
 
 " And will you go, and not tell me who you are ? " he 
 asked, growing bold as the fears of losing her came across 
 him. " And will you not tell me before you go " — his face- 
 burned — " how you came by that — that paper ? " 
 
FERDINAND AND MIRANDA. 103 
 
 Slie chose to select the easier question to reply to : " Tou 
 ought to know me ; we have been introduced." Sweet was 
 her winning off-hand affability. 
 
 "Then who, in heaven's name, are you? Tell me! I 
 never could have forgotten you." 
 
 " Tou have, I think," she said demurely. 
 
 " Impossible that we could ever have met, and I forget 
 you ! " 
 
 She looked up to him quickly. 
 
 " Do you remember Belthorpe ? " 
 
 " Belthorpe ! Belthorpe ! " quoth Richard, as if he had to 
 touch his brain to recollect there was such a place. " Do 
 you mean old Blaize's farm ? " 
 
 " Then I am old Blaize's niece." She tripped him a soft 
 curtsey. 
 
 The magnetized youth gazed at her. By what magic was 
 it that this divine sweet creature could be allied with that 
 old churl ! 
 
 '■ Then what — what is your name ? " said his mouth, while 
 his eyes added, " wonderful creature ! How came you to 
 enrich the earth ? " 
 
 " Have you forgot the Desboroughs of Dorset, too ? " she 
 peered at him archly from a side- bend of the flapping 
 brim. 
 
 " The Desboroughs of Dorset ? " A light broke in on 
 him. " And have you grown to this ? That little girl I saw 
 there ! " 
 
 He drew close to her to read the nearest features of the 
 vision. She could no more laugh off the piercing fervour of 
 his eyes. Her volubility fluttered under his deeply wistful 
 look, and now neither voice was high, and they were 
 mutually constrained. 
 
 " Tou see," she murmured, " we are old acquaintances." 
 
 Richard, with his eyes still intently fixed on her, returned, 
 " Tou are very beautiful ! " 
 
 The words slipped out. Perfect simplicity is uncon- 
 sciously audacious. Her overpowering beauty struck his 
 heart, and, like an instrument that is touched and answers to 
 the touch, he spoke. 
 
 Miss Desborough made an effort to trifle with this terrible 
 directness ; but his eyes would not be gainsaid, and checked 
 her lips. She turned away from them, her bosom a little 
 
104 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 rebellious. Praise so passionately spoken, and by one wbo 
 has been a damsel's first dream, dream.ed of nightly many 
 long nights, and clothed in the virgin silver of her thoughts 
 in bud, praise from him is coin the heart cannot reject, if it 
 would. She quickened her steps to the stile. 
 
 " I have offended you ! " said a mortally wounded voice 
 across her shoulder. 
 
 That he should think so were too dreadful. 
 
 " Oh no, no ! you would never offend me." She gave him 
 her whole sweet face. 
 
 " Then why — why do you leave me ? " 
 
 " Because," she hesitated, " I must go." 
 
 " No. You must not go. Why must you go ? Do not 
 
 so" 
 
 " Indeed I must," she said, pulling at the obnoxious broad 
 
 brim of her hat ; and, interpreting a pause he made for his 
 
 assent to her rational resolve, shyly looking at him, she held 
 
 her hand otit, and said, " Good-bye," as if it were a natural 
 
 thing to say. 
 
 The hand was pure white — white and fragrant as the 
 frosted blossom of a Maynight. It was the hand whose 
 shadow, cast before, he had last night bent his head reveren- 
 tially above, and kissed — resigning himself thereupon over 
 to execution for payment of the penalty of such daring — 
 by such bliss well rewarded. 
 
 He took the hand, and held it, gazing between her eyes. 
 
 " Good-bye," she said again, as frankly as she could, and 
 at the same time slightly compressing her fingers on his in 
 token of adieu. It was a signal for his to close firmly upon 
 hers. 
 
 " Ton will not go ? " 
 
 " Pray let me," she pleaded, her sweet brows suing in 
 wrinkles. 
 
 " You will not go ? " Mechanically he drew the white 
 hand nearer his thumping heart. 
 
 " I must," she faltered piteously. 
 
 " You will not go ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ! yes ! " 
 
 " Tell me. Do you wish to go ? " 
 
 The question was subtle. A moment or two she did not 
 answer, and then forswore herself, and said. Yes. 
 
 " Do you — do you wish to go ? " He looked with quiver. 
 ing eyelids under hers. 
 
FEEDINAND AND MIRANDA, 105 
 
 A fainter Yes responded to tis passionate repetition. 
 
 " You wish — wish to leave me ? " His breath went with 
 the words. 
 
 " Indeed I must." 
 
 Her hand became a closer prisoner. 
 
 All at once an alarming delicious shudder went through 
 her frame. From him to her it coursed, and back from her 
 to him. Forward and back love's electric messenger rushed 
 from heart to heart, knocking at each, till it surged tumul- 
 tuously against the bars of its prison, crying out for its mate. 
 They stood trembling in unison, a lovely couple under these 
 fair heavens of the morning. 
 
 When he could get his voice it said, " Will you go ? " 
 
 But she had none to reply with, and could only mutely 
 bend upward her gentle wrist. 
 
 " Then, farewell ! " he said, and, dropping his lips to the 
 soft fair hand, kissed it, and hung his head, swinging away 
 from her, ready for death. 
 
 Strange, that now she was released she should linger by 
 him. Strange, that his audacity, instead of the executioner, 
 brought blushes and timid tenderness to his side, and the 
 sweet words, " You are not angry with me ? " 
 
 " With you, O Beloved ! " cried his soul. " And you for- 
 give me, fair charity ! " 
 
 She repeated her words in deeper sweetness to his be- 
 wildered look ; and he, inexperienced, possessed by her, 
 almost lifeless with the divine new emotions she had realized 
 in him, could only sigh and gaze at her wonderingly. 
 
 " I think it was rude of me to go without thanking you 
 again," she said, and again proffered her hand. 
 
 The sweet heaven-bird shivered out his song above him. 
 The gracious glory of heaven fell upon his soul. He touched 
 her hand, not moving his eyes from her, nor speaking, and 
 she, with a soft word of farewell, passed across the stile, and 
 up the pathway through the dewy shades of the copse, and 
 out of the arch of the light, away from his eyes. 
 
 And away with her went the wild enchantment. He looked 
 on barren air. But it was no more the world of yesterday. 
 The marvellous splendours had sown seeds in him, ready to 
 spring up and bloom at her gaze ; and in his bosom now the 
 vivid conjuration of her tones, her face, her shape, makes 
 
106 THE OEDEAL OF RICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 them leap and illumine him like fitful summer lightnings — 
 ghosts of the vanished sun. 
 
 There was nothing to tell him that he had been making 
 love and declaring it with extraordinary rapidity; nor did 
 he know it. Soft flushed cheeks ! sweet mouth! strange sweet 
 brows ! eyes of softest fire ! how could his ripe eyes behold 
 you, and not plead to keep you ? Nay, how could he let you 
 go ? And he seriously asked himself that question. 
 
 To-morrow this place will have a memory — the river and 
 the meadow, and the white falling weir : his heart will 
 build a temple here ; and the skylark will be its high-priest,, 
 and the old blackbird its glossy-gowned chorister, and there 
 will be a sacred repast of dewberries. To-day the grass is. 
 grass : his heart is chased by phantoms and finds rest no- 
 where. Only when the most tender freshness of his flower 
 comes across him does he taste a moment's calm ; and no 
 sooner does it come than it gives place to keen pangs of fear 
 that she may not be his for ever. 
 
 Erelong he learns that her name is Lucy. Erelong he 
 meets Ralph, and discovers that in a day he has distanced 
 him by a sphere. Erelong he and Ralph and the curate of 
 Loboume join in their walks, and raise classical discussions 
 on ladies' hair, fingering a thousand delicious locks, from those 
 of Cleopatra to the Borgia's. "Fair! fair! all of them fair ! " 
 sighs the melancholy curate, '' as are those women formed for 
 our perdition ! I think we have in this country what will 
 match the Italian or the Greek." His mind flutters to Mrs. 
 Doria, Richard blushes before the vision of Lucy, and Ralph, 
 whose heroine's hair is a dark luxuriance, dissents, and 
 claims a noble share in the slaughter of men for dark-haired 
 Wonders. They have no mutual confidences, but they 
 are singularly kind to each other, these three children o£ 
 instinct. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. / 
 
 UNMASKJ^TG OP MASTER KIPTON THOMPSON. 
 
 Lady Blandish, and others who professed an interest in 
 the fortunes and future of the systematized youth, had occa- 
 
UNJIASKINO OF MASTEE MPTON THOMPSON. lOT 
 
 eionally mentioned names of families whose alliance, accord- 
 ing to apparent calculations, woiild not degrade his blood : 
 and over these names, secretly preserved on an open leaf of 
 the note-book. Sir Austin, as he neared the metropolis, dis- 
 tantly dropped his eye. There v^ere names historic and 
 names mushroomic ; names that the Conqueror might have 
 called in his muster-roll ; names that had been, clearly, 
 tossed into the upper stratum of civilized life by a mill- 
 wheel or a merchant-stool. Against them the baronet had 
 written M. or Po., or Pr. — signifying, Money, Position, 
 Principles, favouring the latter with special brackets. The 
 wisdom of a worldly man, which he could now and then 
 adopt, determined him, before he commenced his round of 
 visits, to consult and sound his solicitor and his physician 
 thereanent ; lawyers and doctors being the rats who know 
 best the merits of a house, and on what sort of foundation it 
 is standing. 
 
 Sir Austin entered the gi'eat city with a sad mind. Th& 
 memory of his misfortune came upon him vividly, as if no 
 years had intervened, and it were but yesterday that he 
 found the letter telling him that he had no wife and his son 
 no mother, He wandered on foot through the streets the 
 first night of his arrival, looking strangely at the shops and 
 shows and bustle of the world from which he had divorced 
 himself ; feeling as destitute as the poorest vagrant. He had 
 almost forgotten how to find his way about, and came across 
 his old mansion in his efforts to regain his hotel. The win- 
 dows were alight — signs of merry life within. He stared at 
 it from the shadow of the opposite side. It seemed to him 
 he was a ghost gazing upon his living past. And then the 
 phantom which had stood there mocking while he felt as 
 other men — the phantom, now flesh and blood reality, seized 
 and convulsed his heart, and filled its unforgiving crevices 
 with bitter ironic venom. He remembered by the time 
 reflection returned to him that it was Algernon, who had the' 
 house at his disposal, probably giving a card-party, or some- 
 thing of the sort. In the morning, too, he remembered that 
 he had divorced the world to wed a System, and must 
 be faithful to that exacting Spouse, who, now alone of things 
 on earth, could fortify and recompense him. 
 
 Mr. Thompson received his client with the dignity and 
 emotion due to such a rent-roll and the unexpectedness of 
 
108 THE ORDEAL OF lUCUAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 the honour. He was a thin stately man of law, garbed 
 as one who guve audience to acred bishops, and carrying on 
 his countenance the stamp of paternity to the parchment- 
 skins, and of a virtuous attachment to Port wine sufficient to 
 increase his respectability in the eyes of moral Britain. 
 After congratulating Sir Austin on the fortunate issue of two 
 or three suits, and being assured that the baronet's business 
 in town had no concern therewith, Mr. Thompson ventured 
 to hope that the young heir was all his father could desire 
 him to be, and heard with satisfaction that he was a pattern 
 to the youth of the Age. 
 
 " A difficult time of life. Sir Austin ! " said the old lawyer, 
 shaking his head. " We must keep our eyes on them — keep 
 awake ! The mischief is done in a minute." 
 
 " We must take care to have seen where we planted, and 
 that the root was sound, or the mischief will do itself in 
 spite of, or under the very spectacles of, supervision," said 
 the baronet. 
 
 His legal adviser murmured " Exactly," as if that were 
 his own idea, adding, " It is my plan with Ripton, who has 
 had the honour of an introduction to you, and a yery 
 pleasant time he spent with my young friend, whom he does 
 not forget. Ripton follows the Law. He is articled to me, 
 and will, I trust, succeed me worthily in your confidence. I 
 bring him into town in the morning ; I take him back at 
 night. I think I may say that I am quite content with 
 him." 
 
 " Do you think," said Sir Austin, fixing his brows, " that 
 you can trace every act of his to its motive ? " 
 
 The old lawyer bent forward and humbly requested that 
 this might be repeated. 
 
 "Do you" — Sir Austin held the same searching expres- 
 sion — " do you establish yourself in a radiating centre of in- 
 tuition : do you base your watchfulness on so thorough an 
 acquaintance with his character, so perfect a knowledge of 
 the instrument, that all its movements — even the eccentric 
 ones — are anticipated by you, and provided for ? " 
 
 The explanation was a little too long for the old lawyer to 
 entreat another repetition. Winking- with the painful dc- 
 prcciiiion of a deaf man, Mr. Thompson smiled urbanely, 
 cough 'd conciliatingly, and said he was afraid he could not 
 tifliri )iat much, though he was happily enabled to say 
 
UNMASKING OF MASTER RIPTON THOMPSOX. 10!) 
 
 that Ripton tad borne an extremely good character at 
 school. 
 
 " I find," Sir Austin remarked, as sardonically he relaxed 
 his inspecting pose and mien, " there are fathers who are 
 content to be simply obeyed. Now I require not only that my 
 son should obey ; I would have him guiltless of the impulse 
 to gainsay my wishes — feeling me in him stronger than his 
 undeveloped nature, up to a certain period, where my re- 
 sponsibility ends and his commences. Man is a self-acting 
 machine. He cannot cease to be a machine; but, though 
 self-acting, he may lose the powers of self-g^dance, and in 
 a wrong course his very vitalities hurry him to perdition. 
 Young, he is an organism ripening to the set mechanic 
 diurnal round, and while so he needs all the angels to hold 
 watch over him that he grow straight and healthy, and fit 
 for what machinal duties he may have to perform "... 
 
 Mr. Thompson agitated his eyebrows dreadfully. He was 
 utterly lost. He respected Sir Austin's estates too much to 
 believe for a moment he was listening to downright folly. 
 Yet how otherwise explain the fact of his excellent client 
 being incomprehensible to him ? For a middle-aged gentle- 
 man, and one who has been in the habit of advising and manag- 
 ing, will rarely have a notion of accusing his understanding ; 
 and Mr. Thompson had not the slightest notion of accusing 
 his. But the baronet's condescension in coming thus to him, 
 and speaking on the subject nearest his heart, might well 
 affect him, and he quickly settled the case in favour of both 
 parties, pronouncing mentally that his honoured client had 
 a meaning, and so deep it was, so subtle, that no wonder he 
 experienced difficulty in giving it fitly significant words. 
 
 Sir Austin elaborated his theory of the Organism and the 
 Mechanism, for his lawyer's edification. At a recurrence of 
 the word " healthy " Mr. Thompson caught him up — 
 
 " I apprehended you ! Oh, I agree with you, Sir Austin ! 
 entirely ! Allow me to ring for my son Ripton. I think, if 
 you condescend to examine him, you will say that regular 
 habits, and a diet of nothing but law-reading — for other 
 forms of literature I strictly interdict — have made him all 
 that you instance." 
 
 Mr. Thompson's hand was on the bell. Sir Austin arrested 
 him. 
 
 " Permit me to see the lad at his occupation," said he. 
 
110 THE OEDEAL OF EICHARD FEVEEEL. 
 
 Our old friend Ripton sat in a room apart witii the con. 
 fidential clerk, Mr. Beazley, a veteran of law, now little 
 l)etter than a document, looking already signed and sealed, 
 and shortly to be delivered, who enjoined nothing from his 
 pupil and companion save absolute silence, and sounded his 
 praises to his father at the close of days when it had been, 
 rigidly observed — not caring, or considering, the finished dry 
 old document that he was, under what kind of spell a turbu- 
 lent commonplace youth could be charmed into stillness six 
 hours a day. Ripton was supposed to be devoted to the 
 study of Blackstone. A tome of the classic legal commen- 
 tator lay extended outside his desk, under the partially 
 lifted lid of which nestled the assiduous student's head 
 — law being thus brought into direct contact with his brain- 
 pan. The office-door opened, and he heard not ; his name 
 was called, and he remained equally moveless. His method 
 of taking in Blackstone seemed absorbing as it was novel. 
 
 " Comparing notes, I daresay," whispered Mr. Thompson 
 to Sir Austin. " I call that study ! " 
 
 The confidential clerk rose, and bowed obsequious senility. 
 
 " Is it like this every day, Beazley P " Mr. Thompson 
 asked with parental pride. 
 
 " Ahem ! " the old clerk replied, " he is like this every day, 
 sir. I could not ask more of a mouse." 
 
 Sir Austin stepped forward to the desk. His proximity 
 roused one of Ripton's senses, which blew a call to the others. 
 Down went the lid of the desk. Dismay, and the ardours of 
 study, flashed together in Ripton's face. He slouched from 
 his perch with the air of one who means rather to defend his 
 position than welcome a superior, the right hand in his 
 waistcoat pocket fumbling a key, the left catching at his 
 vacant stool. 
 
 Sir Austin put two fingers on the youth's shoulder, and 
 said, leaning his head a little on one side, in a way habitual 
 to him, " I am glad to find my son's old somrade thus pro- 
 fitably occupied. I know what study is myself. But beware 
 of prosecuting it too excitedly ! Come ! you must not be 
 offended at our interruption ; you will soon take up the 
 thread again. Besides, you know, you must get accustomed 
 to the visits of your client." 
 
 So condescending and kindly did this speech sound to Mr. 
 Thompson, that, seeing Ripton still preserve his appearance 
 
UNMASKING OF MASTER EIPTON THOMPSON. 1 1 1 
 
 of disorder and sneaking defiance, he thought fit to nod and 
 frown at the youth, and desired him to inform the baronet 
 what particular part of Blackstone he was absorbed in 
 mastering at that moment. 
 
 Ripton hesitated an instant, and blundered out, with 
 •dubious articulation, " The Law of Gravelkind." 
 " What Law ?" said Sir Austin, perplexed. 
 " Gravelkind," again rumbled Ripton's voice. 
 Sir Austin turned to Mr. Thompson for an explanation. 
 The old lawyer was shaking his law- box. 
 
 " Singular !" he exclaimed. " He will make that mistake ! 
 What law, sir ?" 
 
 Ripton read his error in the sternly painful expression of 
 his father's face, and corrected himself. " Gavelkind, sir." 
 " Ah ! " said Mr. Thompson, with a sigh of relief. 
 
 " Gravelkind, indeed ! Gavelkind ! An old Kentish " 
 
 He was going to expound, but Sir Austin assured him he 
 knew it, and a very absurd law it was, adding, " I should 
 like to look at your son's notes, or remarks on the judicious- 
 ness of that family arrangement, if he has any." 
 
 " Tou were making notes, or referring to them, as we 
 entered," said Mr. Thompson to the sucking lawyer; ''a 
 very good plan, which I have always enjoined on yon. Were 
 you not ?" 
 
 Ripton stammered that he was afraid he had not any notes 
 to show, worth seeing. 
 
 " What were you doing then, sir ?" 
 
 " Making notes," muttered Ripton, looking incarnate sub- 
 terfuge. 
 "Exhibit!" 
 
 Ripton glanced at his desk and then at his father ; at Sir 
 Austin, and at the confidential clerk. He took out his key. 
 It would not fit the hole. 
 
 "Exhibit !" was peremptorily called again. 
 In his praiseworthy efforts to accommodate the keyhole, 
 Ripton discovered that the desk was already unlocked. Mr. 
 Thompson marched to it, and held the lid aloft. A book was 
 lying open within, which Ripton immediately hustled among 
 a mass of papers and tossed into a dark corner, not before 
 the glimpse of a coloured frontispiece was caught by Sir 
 Austin's eye. 
 
 The baronet smiled, and said, " Tou study Heraldry, too ? 
 Are you fond of the science ?" 
 
112 THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEEEL. 
 
 Ripton replied that he was very fond of it — extremely 
 attached, and threw a further pile of papers into the dark 
 corner 
 
 The notes had been less conspicuously placed, and the 
 search for them was tedious and vain. Papers, not legal, or 
 the fruits of study, were found that made Mr. Thompson 
 more intimate with the condition of his son's exchequer ; 
 nothing in the shape of a remark on the Law of Gavelkind. 
 
 Mr. Thompson suggested to his son that they might be 
 among those scraps he had thrown carelessly into the dark 
 corner. Ripton, though he consented to inspect them, was 
 positive they were not there. 
 
 " What have we here ?" said Mr. Thompson, seizing a 
 neatly folded paper addressed to the Editor of a law pub- 
 lication, as Ripton brought them forth, one by one. Forth- 
 with Mr. Thompson fixed his spectacles and read aloud : 
 
 " To the Editor of the Jurist. 
 
 " Sir, — In your recent observations on the great case of 
 Crim" 
 
 Mr. Thompson hem'd ! and stopped short, like a man who 
 comes unexpectedly upon a snake in his path. Mr. Beazley's 
 feet shuffled. Sir Austin changed the position of an arm. 
 
 " It's on the other side, I think," gasped Ripton. 
 
 Mr. Thompson confidently turned over, and intoned with 
 emphasis. 
 
 " To Absalom, the son of David, the little Jew usurer of 
 Bond Court, Whitecross Gutters, for his introduction to 
 Venus, I U Five pounds, when I can pay. 
 
 " Signed : Ripton Thompson." 
 
 Underneath this fictitious legal instrument was discreetly 
 appended : 
 
 " (Mem. Document not binding.)" 
 
 There was a pause : an awful under-breath of sanctified 
 wonderment and reproach passed round the oflice. Sir 
 Austin assumed an attitude. Mr. Thompson shed a glance 
 of severity on his confidential clerk, who parried by throw- 
 ing up his hands. 
 
UNMASKING OF MASTER BIPTON THOMPSON. 113 
 
 Ripton, now fairly bewildered, stirffed another paper 
 under his father's nose, hoping the outside perhaps would 
 satisfy him : it was marked " Legal Considerations." Mr- 
 Thompson had no idea of sparing or shielding his son. In 
 fact, like many men whose self-love is wounded by their 
 offspring, he felt vindictive, and was ready to sacrifice him 
 up to a certain point, for the good of both. He therefore 
 opened the paper, expecting something worse than what he 
 had hitherto seen, despite its formal heading, and he was not 
 disappointed. 
 
 The " Legal Considerations " related to the Case regarding 
 which E/ipton had conceived it imperative upon him to 
 address a letter to the Editor of the "Jurist," and was in- 
 deed a great case, and an ancient; revived apparently for 
 the special purpose of displaying the forensic abilities of the 
 Junior Counsel for the Plaintiif, Mr. Ripton Thompson, 
 whose assistance the Attorney- General, in his opening state- 
 ment, congratulated himself on securing ; a rather unusual 
 thing, due probably to the eminence and renown of that 
 youthful gentleman at the Bar of his country. So much was 
 seen from the copy of a report purporting to be extracted 
 from a newspaper, and prefixed to the Junior Counsel's 
 remarks, or Legal Considerations, on the conduct of the 
 Case, the admissibility and non-admissibility of certain 
 evidence, and the ultimate decision of the judges. 
 
 Mr. Thompson, senior, lifted the paper high, with the 
 spirit of one prepared to do execution on the criminal, and 
 in the voice of a town-crier, varied by a bitter accentuation 
 and satiric sing-song tone, deliberately read : 
 
 " Vtjlcan v. Maes. 
 
 " The Attorney- General, assisted by Mr. Ripton Thomp- 
 son, appeared on behalf of the Plaintiff. Mr. Serjeant 
 Cupid, Q.C., and Mr. Capital Opportunity, for the De- 
 fendant." 
 
 " Oh ! " snapped Mr. Thompson, senior, peering venom at 
 the unfortunate Ripton over his spectacles, " your notes are 
 on that issue, sir ! Thus you employ your time, sir ! " 
 
 With another side-shot at the Confidential Clerk, who 
 retired immediately behind a strong entrenchment of shrugs, 
 Mr. Thompson continued to read 
 
114 THE OEDEAL OF KICHAHD FEVEEEL. 
 
 " This Case is too well known to require more tlian a 
 partial summary of particulars " . . . . 
 
 " Ahem ! we will skip the particulars, however partial," 
 said Mr. Thompson. " Ah ! — what do you mean here, sir,, 
 by the ' chief of the Olympic games,' which you eulogize ? " 
 
 " Not I," answered Ripton, from under his head. "It's 
 Mr. Cap — Mr. Opp — It's the Defendant's Counsel. I'm 
 against." 
 
 Outraged by hearing the culprit speak at all, his father- 
 broke in, " How dare you talk so unblushingly, sir ! " 
 
 Ripton dropped his head a degree lower. 
 
 " Enough ! " cried Mr. Thompson, appealing mutely to all 
 present, and elongating his syllables with a vehement sneer; 
 " I think we may be excused your Legal Considerations on 
 such a Case. This is how you employ your law-studies, sir ! 
 Ton put them to this purpose ? Mr. Beazley ! you will 
 henceforward sit alone. I must have this young man under 
 my own eye. Sir Austin ! permit me to apologize to you for 
 subjecting you to a scene so disagreeable. It was a father's- 
 duty not to spare him." 
 
 Mr. Thompson wiped his forehead, as Brutus might hav&' 
 done after passing judgment on the scion of his house. 
 
 " These papers," he went on, fluttering Ripton's precious 
 lucubrations in a waving judicial hand, " I shall retain. The 
 day will come when he will regard them with shame. And 
 it shall be his penance, his punishment, to do so ! Stop ! " 
 he cried, as Ripton was noiselessly shutting his desk, "have- 
 you more of them, sir ; of a similar description ? Rout them 
 out ! Let us know you at your worst. What have you 
 there — in that corner? " 
 
 Ripton was understood to say he devoted that comer to- 
 old briefs on important cases. 
 
 Mr. Thompson thrust his trembling fingers among the old 
 briefs, and turned over the volume Sir Austin had observed, 
 but without much remarking it, for his suspicions had not. 
 risen to print. 
 
 " A Manual of Heraldry ? " the baronet politely inquired,, 
 before it could well escape. 
 
 " I like it very much," says Ripton, clutching the book in, 
 dreadful torment. 
 
 " Allow me to see that you have our arms and eresfc 
 correct." The baronet proffered a hand for the book. 
 
GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD. 115 
 
 "A Griffin between two Wh.eatskeaves," cries Ripton, still 
 clutcliing it nervoTisly. 
 
 Mr. Thompson, without any notion of what he was doing, 
 drew the book from Ripton's hold; whereupon the two seniors 
 laid their grey heads together over the title-page. It set 
 forth ia attractive characters beside a coloured frontispiece, 
 which embodied the promise displayed there, the entrancing 
 adventures of Miss Random, a strange young lady. 
 
 Had there been a Black Hole within the area of those law 
 regions to consign Ripton to there and then, or an Iron Rod 
 handy to mortify his sinful flesh, Mr. Thompson would have 
 used them. As it was, he contented himself by looking Black 
 Holes and Iron Rods at the detected youth, who sat on his 
 perch insensible to what might happen next, collapsed. 
 
 Mr. Thompson cast the wicked creature down with a 
 " Pah ! " He, however, took her up again, and strode away 
 with her. Sir Austin gave Ripton a forefinger, and kindly 
 touched his head, saying, " Good-bye, boy ! At some future 
 date Richard will be happy to see you at Raynham." 
 
 Undoubtedly this was a great triujnph to the System ! 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD. 
 
 The conversation between solicitor and client was resumed. 
 
 " Is it possible," quoth Mr. Thompson, the moment he had 
 ushered his client into his private room, " that you will con- 
 sent. Sir Austin, to see him and receive him again ? " 
 
 " Certainly," the baronet replied. " Why not ? This by 
 no means astonishes me. When there is no longer danger to 
 my son he will be welcome as he was before. He is a school- 
 boy. I knew it. I expected it. The results of your prin- 
 ciple, Thompson ! " 
 
 " One of the very worst books of that abominable class ! " 
 exclaimed the old lawyer, opening at the coloured frontis- 
 piece, from which brazen Miss Random smiled bewitchingly 
 out, as if she had no doubt of captivating Time and all his 
 veterans on a fair field. " Pah ! " he shut her to with the 
 energy he would have given to the ofiice of publicly slapping 
 
 I 2 
 
116 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FBVEREL. 
 
 her face ; "from this day I diet him on bread and water — 
 rescind his pocket-money ! — How he could have got hold of 
 such a book ! How he — ! And what ideas ! Concealing 
 them from me as he has done so cunningly ! He trifles with 
 vice ! His mind is in a putrid state ! I might have believed 
 — T did believe — I might have gone on believing — my son 
 Ripton to be a moral young man ! " The old lawyer interjected 
 on the delusion of fathers, and sat down in a lamentable 
 abstraction. 
 
 " The lad has come out ! " said Sir Austin. " His adoption 
 of the legal form is amusing. He trifles with vice, true : 
 people newly initiated are as hardy as its intimates, and a 
 young sinner's amusements will resemble those of a confirmed 
 debauchee. The satiated, and the insatiate, appetite alike 
 appeal to extremes. Tou are astonished at this revelation 
 of your son's condition. I expected it ; though assuredly, 
 believe me, not this sudden and indisputable proof of it. 
 But I knew that the seed was in him, and therefore I have 
 not latterly invited him to Raynham. School, and the cor- 
 ruption there, will bear its fruits sooner or later. I could 
 advise you, Thompson, what to do with him : it would be my 
 plan." 
 
 Mr. Thompson murmured, like a true courtier, that he 
 should esteem it an honour to be favoured with Sir Austin 
 Feverel's advice : secretly resolute, like a true Briton, to 
 follow his own. 
 
 " Let him, then," continued the baronet, " see vice in its 
 nakedness. While he has yet some innocence, nauseate him ! 
 yice, taken little by little, usurps gradually the whole crea- 
 ture. My counsel to you, Thompson, would be, to drag him 
 through the sinks of town." 
 
 Mr. Thompson began to blink again. 
 
 " Oh, I shall punish him. Sir Austin ! Do not fear me, 
 sir. I have no tenderness for vice." 
 
 " That is not what is wanted, Thompson. Tou mistake 
 me. He should be dealt with gently. Heavens ! do you 
 hope to make him hate vice by making him a martyr for its 
 sake ? Tou must descend from the pedestal of age to 
 become his Mentor : cause him to see how certainly and 
 pitilessly vice itself punishes : accompany him into its 
 haunts " 
 
 " Over town ? " broke forth Mr. Thompson. 
 
GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD. 117 
 
 " Over town," said tlie baronet. 
 
 " And depend upon it," lie added, " that, until fathers act 
 thoroughly up to their duty, we shall see the sights we see 
 in great cities, and hear the tales we hear in little villages, 
 with death and calamity in our homes, and a legacy of 
 sorrow and shame to the generations to come. I do aver," 
 he exclaimed, becoming excited, " that, if it were not for the 
 duty to my son, and the hope I cherish in him, I, seeing the 
 accumulation of misery we are handing down to an innocent 
 posterity — to whom, through our sin, the fresh breath of life 
 will be foul — I — yes ! I would hide my name ! For whither 
 are we tending ? "What home is pure absolutely ? What 
 cannot our doctors and lawyers tell us ? 
 
 Mr. Thompson acquiesced significantly. 
 
 " And what is to come of this ? " Sir Austin continued. 
 " When the sins of the fathers are multiplied by the sons, is 
 not perdition the final sum of things ? And is not life, the 
 boon of heaven, growing to be the devil's game utterly ? But 
 for my son, I would hide my name. I would not bequeath it 
 to be cursed by them that walk above my grave ! " 
 
 This was indeed a terrible view of existence. Mr. Thomp- 
 son felt uneasy. There was a dignity in his client, an im- 
 pressiveness in his speech, that silenced remonstrating reason 
 and the cry of long years of comfortable respectability. Mr. 
 Thompson went to church regularly; paid his rates and dues 
 without overmuch, or at least more than common, grumbling. 
 On the surface he was a good citizen, fond of his children, 
 faithful to his wife, devoutly marching to a fair seat in heaven 
 on a path paved by something better than a thousand a year. 
 But here was a man sighting him from below the surface, 
 and though it was an unfair, unaccustomed, not to say un- 
 English, method of regarding one's fellow-man, Mr. Thompson 
 was troubled by it. What though his client exaggerated ? 
 Facts were at the bottom of what he said. And he was acute 
 — he had unmasked ilipton ! Since Ripton's exposure he 
 winced at a personal application in the text his client 
 preached from. Possibly this was the secret source of part 
 of his anger against that peccant youth. 
 
 Mr. Thompson shook his head, and, with dolefully puckered 
 visage and a pitiable contraction of his shoulders, rose slowly 
 up from his chair. Apparently he was about to speak, but 
 he straightway turned and went meditatively to a side-recess 
 
118 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEBL. 
 
 in the room, whereof lie opened a door, drew forth a tray 
 and a decanter labelled poet, filled a glass for his client, 
 deferentially invited him to partake of it; filled another 
 glass for himself, and drank. 
 
 That was his reply. 
 
 Sir Austin never took wine before dinner. Thompson had 
 looked as if he meant to speak : he waited for Thompson's 
 words. 
 
 Mr. Thompson saw that, as his client did not join him in 
 his glass, the eloquence of that Forty reply was lost on his 
 client. 
 
 Haying slowly ingurgitated and meditated upon this 
 precious draught, and turned its flavour over and over with 
 an aspect of potent Judicial wisdom (one might have thought 
 that he was weighing mankind in the balance), the old 
 lawyer heaved, and said, sharpening his lips over the ad- 
 mirable vintage, " The world is in a very sad state, I fear, 
 Sir Austin ! " 
 
 His client gazed at him queerly. 
 
 " But that," Mr. Thompson added immediately, ill-con- 
 cealing by his gaze the glowing intestinal congratulations 
 going on within him, " that is, I think you would say, Sir 
 Austin — if I could but prevail upon you — a tolerably good 
 character wine ! " 
 
 " There's virtue somewhere, I see, Thompson ! " Sir 
 Austin murmured, without disturbing his legal adviser's 
 dimples. 
 
 The old lawyer sat down to finish his glass, saying, that 
 such a wine was not to be had everywhere. 
 
 They were then outwardly silent for a space. Inwardly 
 one of them was full of riot and jubilant uproar : as if the 
 solemn fields of law were suddenly to be invaded and 
 possessed by troops of Bacchanals : and to preserve a 
 decently wretched physiognomy over it, and keep on terms 
 with his companion, he had to grimace like a melancholy 
 clown in a pantomime. 
 
 Mr. Thompson brushed back his hair. The baronet was 
 still expectant. Mr. Thompson sighed deeply, and emptied 
 his glass. He combated the change that had come over him. 
 He tried not to see Ruby. He tried to feel miserable, and it 
 was not in him. He spoke, drawing what appropriate 
 inspirations he could from his client's countenance, to show 
 
GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD. 119 
 
 'that they had views in common : " Degenerating sadly, I 
 (fear ! " 
 
 The baronet nodded. 
 
 " According to what my wine-merchants say," continued 
 Mr. Thompson, " there can be no doubt about it." 
 
 Sir Austin stared. 
 
 " It's the grape, or the ground, or something," Mr. Thomp- 
 son went on. " All I can say is, our youngsters will have a 
 bad look-out ! In my opinion Government should be com- 
 pelled to send out a Commission to inquire into the cause. 
 To Englishmen it would be a public calamity. It surprises 
 me — I hear men sit and talk despondently of this extraor- 
 dinary disease of the vine, and not one of them seem^s 
 to think it incumbent on him to act, and do his best to stop 
 it." He fronted his client like a man who accuses an enor- 
 mous public delinquency. " Nobody makes a stir ! The 
 apathy of Englishmen will become proverbial. Pray try it, 
 Sir Austin ! Pray allow me. Such a wine cannot disagree 
 at any hour. Do ! I am allowanced two glasses three hours 
 before dinner. Stomachic. I find it agree with me surpris- 
 ingly : quite a new man. I suppose it will last our time. It 
 must ! What should we do ? There's no Law possible with- 
 out it. Not a lawyer of us could live. Ours is an occupa- 
 tion which dries the blood. We require — Ahem ! have I 
 taken my second glass ? " 
 
 Mr. Thompson meditated; conceived that he had, and 
 again that he had not. The same luxury of indecision 
 occurred daily, and daily another glass solved the difficulty. 
 
 " Too much is decidedly bad," he continued, looking 
 firmly convinced. " But just the quantum makes men of 
 ms." 
 
 Launched on 'the theme, he determined to overbear his 
 client vinously. 
 
 " Now that very wine — Sir Austin — I think I do not err 
 in saying, that very wine your respected father, Sir Pylcher 
 Eeverel, used to taste whenever he came to consult my 
 father, when I was a boy. And I remember one day being 
 •called in, and Sir Pylcher himself poured me out a glass. I 
 wish I could call in Eipton now, and do the same. No ! 
 Leniency in such a case as that ! — The wine would not hurt 
 him — I doubt if there be much left for him to welcome his 
 ;guests with. Sal ha! Now if I could persuade you. Sir 
 
120 THE OBDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 Austin, as you do not take wine before dinner, some day to 
 favour me witli your company at my little country cottage — 
 I have a wine there — the fellow to that — I think you would, 
 I do think you would " — Mr. Thompson meant to say, he 
 thought his client would arrive at something of a similar 
 jocund contemplation of his fellows in their degeneracy that 
 inspirited lawyers after potation, but condensed the sensual 
 promise into " highly approve." 
 
 Sir Austin speculated on his legal adviser with a sour 
 mouth comically compressed. 
 
 It stood clear to him that Thompson before his Port, and 
 Thompson after, were two diiferent men. To indoctrinate 
 him now was too late : it was perhaps the time to make the 
 positive use of him he wanted. 
 
 Drawing forth the Note-book: and pencilling roughly: 
 " Two prongs of a fork ; the World stuck between them — 
 Port and the Palate : 'Tis one which fails first — Down goes 
 World;" and again the hieroglyph— " Port-spectacles." He 
 said, " I shall gladly accompany you this evening, Thomp- 
 son," words that transfigured the delighted lawyer, and 
 restored the skeleton of a great Aphorism to his pocket, 
 there to gather flesh and form, with numberless others in a 
 like condition. 
 
 " I came to visit my lawyer," he said to "himself. " I think 
 I have been dealing with The World in epitome !" 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE SYSTEM ENCOUNTERS THE WILD OATS SPECIAL PLEA. 
 
 The rumour circulated that Sir Austin reverel,the recluse 
 of Raynham, the rank misogynist, the rich baronet, was in 
 town, looking out a bride for his only son and uncorrupted 
 heir. Doctor Benjamin Bairam was the excellent authority. 
 Doctor Bairam had safely delivered Mrs. Deborah Gossip of 
 this interesting bantling, which was forthwith dandled in 
 dozens of feminine laps. Doctor Bairam could boast the 
 first interview with the famous recluse. He had it from 
 his own lips that the object of the baronet was to look out a 
 bride for his only son and uncorrupted heir ; " and," added 
 
THE WILD OATS PLEA. 121 
 
 the doctor, "she'll be lucky who gets him." Which was 
 interpreted to mean, that he would be a catch ; the doctor 
 probably intending to allude to certain extraordinary diffi- 
 ciilties in the way of a choice. 
 
 A demand was made on the publisher of The Pilgeim's 
 ScEip for all his outstanding copies. Conventionalities were 
 defied. A summer-shower of cards fell on the baronet's 
 table. 
 
 He had few male friends. He shunned the Clubs as nests 
 of scandal. The cards he contemplated were mostly those 
 of the sex, with the husband, if there was a husband, evi- 
 dently dragged in for propriety's sake. He perused the 
 cards and smiled. He knew their purpose. What terrible 
 light Thompson and Bairam had thrown on some of them ! 
 Heavens ! in what a state was the blood of this Empire. 
 
 Before commencing his campaign he called on two ancient 
 intimates. Lord Heddon, and his distant cousin Darley 
 Absworthy, both Members of Parliament, useful men, though 
 gouty, who had sown in their time a fine crop of wild oats, 
 and advocated the advantage of doing so, seeing that they 
 did not fancy themselves the worse for it. He found one 
 with an imbecile son and the other with consumptive 
 daughters. " So much," he wrote in the Note-book, " for 
 the Wild Oats theory!" 
 
 Darley was proud of his daughters' white and pink skins. 
 " Beautiful complexions," he called them. The eldest was 
 in the market, immensely admired. Sir Austin was intro- 
 duced to her. She talked fluently and sweetly. A youth 
 not on his guard, a simple school-boy youth, or even a man, 
 might have fallen in love with her, she was so affable and 
 fair. There was something poetic alsout her. And she was 
 quite well, she said, the baronet frequently questioning her 
 on that point. She intimated that she was robust; but 
 towards the close of their conversation her hand would now 
 and then travel to her side, and she breathed painfully an 
 instant, saying, " Isn't it odd ? Dora, Adela, and myself, 
 we all feel the same queer sensation — about the heart, I 
 think it is — after talking much." 
 
 Sir Austin nodded and blinked sadly, exclaiming to his 
 soul, " Wild oats ! wild oats !" 
 
 He did not ask permission to see Dora and Adela. 
 Lord Heddon vehemently preached wild oats. 
 
122 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEBEL. 
 
 "It's all nonsense, Feverel," lie said, " about bringing up 
 a lad out of tlie common way. He's all the better for a little 
 racketing wben he's green — feels his bone and muscle — 
 learns to know the world. He'll never be a man if he hasn't 
 played at the old game one time in his life, and the earlier 
 the better. I've always found the best fellows were wildish 
 once. I don't care what he does when he's a green-horn ; 
 besides, he's got an excuse for it then. Tou can't expect to 
 have a man, if he doesn't take a man's food. You'll have a 
 milksop. And, depend upon it, when he does break out he'll 
 go to the devil, and nobody pities him. Look what those 
 fellows, the grocers, do when they get hold of a young — 
 what d'ye call 'em ? — apprentice. They know the scoundrel 
 was born with a sweet tooth. Well ! they give him the run 
 of the shop, and in a very short time he soberly deals out 
 the goods, a devilish deal too wise to abstract a morsel even 
 for the pleasure of stealing. I know you have contrary 
 theories. Tou hold that the young grocer should have a 
 soul above sugar. It won't do ! Take my word for it, 
 Feverel, it's a dangerous experiment, that of bringing up 
 flesh and blood in harness. No colt will bear it, or he's a 
 tame beast. And look you: take it on medical grounds. 
 Early excesses the frame will recover from : late ones break 
 the constitution. There's the case in a nutshell. How's 
 your son ? " 
 
 " Sound and well ! " replied Sir Austin. " And yours ? " 
 
 " Oh, Lipscombe's always the same ! " Lord Heddon sighed 
 peevishly. " He's quiet — that's one good thing ; but there's 
 no getting the country to take him, so I must give up hopes 
 of that." 
 
 Lord Lipscombe entering the room just then. Sir Austin 
 surveyed him, and was not astonished at the refusal of the 
 country to take him. 
 
 " Wild oats ! wild oats ! " again thinks the baronet, as 
 lie contemplates the headless, degenerate, weedy issue and 
 result. 
 
 Both Darley Absworthy and Lord Heddon spoke of the 
 marriage of their offspring as a matter of course. " And if 
 I were not a coward," Sir Austin confessed to himself, " I 
 should stand forth and forbid the banns ! This universal 
 ignorance of the inevitable consequence of sin is frightful ! 
 The wild oats plea is a torpedo that seems to have struck the 
 
THE WILD OATS PLEA. 123 
 
 ■world, and rendered it morally insensible." However, they 
 silenced him. He was obliged to spare their feelings on a 
 snbject to him so deeply sacred. The healthful image of his 
 noble boy rose before him, a triumphant living rejoinder to 
 any hostile argument. 
 
 He was content to remark to his doctor, that he thought 
 the third generation of wild oats would be a pretty thin 
 crop ! 
 
 Families against whom neither Thompson lawyer nor 
 Bairam physician could recollect a progenitorial blot, either 
 on the male or female side, were not numerous. " Only," 
 said the doctor, " you really must not be too exacting in 
 these days, my dear Sir Austin. It is impossible to contest 
 your principle, and you are doing mankind incalculable ser- 
 vice in calling its attention to this the gravest of its duties : 
 but as the stream of civilization progresses we must be a 
 little taken in the lump, as it were. The world is, I can 
 assure you — and I do not look only above the surface, you can 
 believe — the world is awakening to the vital importance of 
 the question." 
 
 " Doctor," replied Sir Austin, " if you had a pure-blood 
 Arab barb would you cross him with a screw ? " 
 
 " Decidedly not," said the doctor. 
 
 " Then permit me to say, I shall employ every care to 
 match my son according to his merits," Sir Austin returned. 
 "I trust the world is awakening, as you observe. I have 
 been to my publisher, since my arrival in town, with a 
 manuscript ' Proposal for a New System of Education of our 
 British Youth,' which may come in opportunely. I think 
 I am entitled to speak on that subject." 
 
 " Certainly," said the doctor. " Ton will admit. Sir 
 Austin, that, compared with continental nations — our neigh- 
 bours, for instance — we shine to advantage, in morals, as in 
 everything else. I hope you admit that ? " 
 
 " I find no consolation in shining by comparison with a 
 lower standard," said the baronet. " If I compare the 
 ■enlightenment of your views — for you admit my principle — 
 with the obstinate incredulity of a country doctor's, who sees 
 nothing of the world, you are hardly flattered, I presume ? " 
 
 Doctor Bairam would hardly be flattered at such a com- 
 parison, assuredly, he interjected. 
 
 "Besides," added the baronet, "the French make no 
 
124 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 pretences, and thereby escape one of the main penalties of 
 hypocrisy. Whereas we ! — but I am not their advocate, 
 credit me. It is better, perhaps, to pay our homage to yirtue. 
 At least it delays the spread of entire cori'uptness." 
 
 Doctor Bairam wished the baronet success, and diligently 
 endeavoured to assist his search for a mate worthy of the 
 pure-blood barb, by putting several mamas, whom he visited, 
 on the alert. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A SHADOWY VIEW OF CCELBBS PATEE GOING ABOUT WITH A 
 GLASS SLIPPEB. 
 
 One of these mamas favoured by Doctor Benjamin Bairam 
 was Mrs. Caroline Grandison, said to be a legitimate descen- 
 dant of the great Sir Charles : a lady who, in propriety of 
 demeanour and pious manners, was the petticoated image of 
 her admirable ancestor. The clean-linen of her morality was 
 spotless as his. As nearly she neighboured perfection, and 
 knew it as well. Let us hope that her history will some day 
 be written, and the balance restored in literature which it 
 was her pride to have established for her sex in life. 
 
 Mrs. Caroline was a colourless lady of an unequivocal 
 character, living upon drugs, and governing her husband 
 and the world from her sofa. Woolly Negroes blest her 
 name, and whiskered John- Thomases deplored her weight. 
 The world was given to understand that sorrows and disap- 
 pointments had reduced her to the contemplative posture 
 which helped her to consider the ui'gent claims of her black 
 fellow-creatures and require the stalwart services of her 
 white. In her presence the elect had to feel how very much 
 virtue is its own reward ; for, if they did not rightly esteem 
 the honour she did them, they had little further encourage- 
 ment from Mrs. Caroline Grandison. On the other hand her 
 rigour toward vice was unsparing ; especially in the person 
 of one of her own sex, whom she treated as heaven treats 
 fallen angels. A sinful man — why, Mrs. Caroline expected 
 nothing better : but a sinful woman — Oh ! that was a 
 scandal, a shame ! And you met no sinful woman at Mrs. 
 
A SHADOWY VIEW OF CCELEBS PATER. 125 
 
 Caroline Grandison's parties. As a consequence, possibly, 
 though one hardly dares suppose it, her parties were the 
 dullest in London, and gradually fell into the hands of 
 popular preachers, specific doctors, raw missionaries with 
 their passage paid for, and a chance dean or so ; a non- 
 dancing, stout-dining congregation, in the midst of which a 
 gay young guardsman was dismally out of his element, and 
 certainly would not have obtruded his unsodden spirit had 
 there been no fair daughters. 
 
 The completeness of the lady's reputation was rounded by 
 the whispers of envious tongues ; which, admitting the 
 inviolability of her character, remarked that indeed she was 
 a little too careful to appear different from others, and took 
 an ascetic delight in the contrast. There is no doubt that 
 she took a great deal of medicine. Dr. Bairam may have 
 contributed toward her asceticism somewhat. The worthy 
 doctor may even, perhaps, have contributed a trifle to her 
 perfection. 
 
 Tn her sweet youth this lady fell violently in. love with the 
 great Sir Charles, and married him in fancy. The time 
 coming, when maiden fancy must give way to woman fact, 
 she compromised her reverent passion for the hero by 
 declaring that she would never change the name he had 
 honoured her with, and must, if she espoused any mortal, 
 give her widowed hand to a Grandison. Accordingly two 
 cousins were proposed to her ; but the moral reputation of 
 these Grandisons was so dreadful, and such a disgrace to the 
 noble name they bore, that she rejected them with horror. 
 Woman's mission, however, being her perpetual precept, she 
 felt at the age of twenty-three bound to put it in practice, 
 and, as she was handsome, and most handsomely- endowed, 
 a quite unobjectionable gentleman was discovered, who, for 
 the honour of assisting her in her mission, agreed to dis- 
 embody himself in her great name, and be lost in the blaze 
 of Sir Charles. With his concurrence she rapidly produced 
 eight daughters. A son was denied to her. This was the 
 second generation of Grandisons denied a son. Her husband, 
 the quite unobjectionable gentleman, lost heart after the 
 arrival of the eighth, and surrendered his mind to more 
 frivolous pursuits. She also appeared to lose heart ; it was 
 her saintly dream to have a Charles. So assured she was 
 that he was coming at last that she prepared male baby- 
 
] 26 THE OEDEAL OF EICHARD FEVEEBL. 
 
 linen with her own hands for the disappointing eighth. 
 When, in that moment of creative suspense, Dr. Bairam's 
 soft voice, with sacred melancholy, pronounced, " A daughter,, 
 madam ! " Mrs. Caroline Grandison covered her face, and 
 wept. She afterwards did penance for her want of resigna- 
 tion, and relapsed npon religion and little dogs. 
 
 Mrs. Caroline Grandison appeared to lose heart. But 
 people said she was not really solaced by religion and little 
 dogs. People said, that her repeated consultations with Dr. 
 Bairam had one end in view, and that all those quantities of 
 medicine were consumed for a devout purpose. Eight is not 
 a number to stop at. Nine if you like, but not eight. No 
 one thinks of stopping at eight. People said that the per- 
 tinacity of her spirit weakened her mind, and that she con- 
 sulted cards and fortune- tellers, and cast horoscopes, to 
 discover if there would be a ninth, and that ninth a Charles. 
 They might truly have said, that the potency of Dr. Bairam's 
 prescriptions weakened the constitution. Mrs. Caroline 
 Grandison grew fretful, and reclined on an invalid couch,, 
 while her name hunted foxes. 
 
 The disappointing eighth was on the verge of her teens 
 when Sir Austin visited town. None of Mrs. Caroline Gran- 
 dison's daughters had married : owing, it was rumoured, 
 to the degeneracy of the males of our day. The elder ones 
 had, in their ignorance, wished to marry young gentlemen 
 of their choosing. Mrs. Caroline Grandison bade them wait 
 till she could find for them something like Sir Charles : she 
 was aware that such a man would hardly be found alive 
 again. If they rebelled, as model young ladies occasionally 
 will, Mrs. Caroline Grandison declared that they were ill,, 
 and called in Dr. Bairam to prescribe, who soon reduced 
 them. Physic is an immense ally in bringing about filial 
 obedience. 
 
 No lady living was better fitted to appreciate Sir Austin, 
 and understand his System, than Mrs. Caroline Grandison. 
 When she heard of it from Dr. Bairam, she rose from her 
 couch and called for her carriage, determined to follow him 
 np and come to terms with him. All that was told her of 
 the baronet conspired to make her believe he was Sir Charles 
 in person fallen upon evil times : the spirit of Sir Charles 
 revived to mix his blood v^ith hers and produce a race of 
 moral Paladins after Sir Charles's pattern. She reviewed 
 
A SHADOWY VIEW OF CCELEBS PATEK. 127" 
 
 her daugliters. Any one of the three younger ones wonld be a. 
 suitable match, and, if he wanted perfectly educated young 
 women, where else could he look for them ? But he was 
 difficult to hunt down. He went abroad shyly. He was 
 never to be met in general society. The rumour of him was 
 everywhere, and an extremely unfavourable rumour it was, 
 from mothers who had daughters, and hopes for their- 
 daughters, which a few questions of his had kindled, and a 
 discovery of his severe requisitions extingpiished. It ap- 
 peared that he had seen numerous young ladies. He had 
 politely asked them to sit down and take off their shoes ; but 
 such monstrous feet they had mostly that he declined the- 
 attempt to try on the Glass Slipper, and politely departed ; 
 or tried it on, and with a resigned sad look declared that it 
 would not, would not fit ! 
 
 Some of the young ladies had been to schools. Their feet 
 were all enormously too big, and there was no need for them 
 to take off their shoes. Some had been very properly edu- 
 cated at home ; and to such, if Bairam physician and 
 Thompson lawyer did not protest, the Slipper was applied ; 
 but by occult arts of its own it seemed to find out that their 
 habits were somehow bad, and incapacitated them from 
 espousing the Fairy Prince. The Slipper would not fit 
 at all. 
 
 Unsuspecting damsels were asked at what time they rose 
 in the morning, and would reply, at any hour. Some said, 
 they finished in the morning the romance they had relin- 
 quished to sleep overnight, little considering how such a 
 practice made the feet swell. One of them thought it a fine 
 thing to tell him she took Metastasio to bed with her and 
 pencilled translations of him when she awoke. 
 
 There was a damsel closer home who did not take Metas- 
 tasio to bed with her, and who ate dewberries early in the 
 morning, whose foot, had Sir Austin but known it, would 
 have fitted into the intractable Slipper as easily and neatly 
 as if it had been a soft kid glove made to her measure. 
 Alas ! the envious sisters were keeping poor Cinderella out 
 of sight. Dewberries still abounded by the banks of the 
 river ; and thither she strolled, and there daily she was met 
 by one who had the test of her merits in his bosom : and; 
 there, on the night the scientific humanist conceived he hadi 
 
128 THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 alighted on the identical house which held the foot to fit the 
 Slipper, there under consulting stars, holy for evermore 
 henceforth, the Fairy Prince, trembling and with tears, has 
 taken from her lips the first ripe fruit of love, and pledged 
 himself hers. 
 
 A night of happy augury to Father and Son. They were 
 looking out for the same thing ; only one employed science, 
 the other instinct ; and which hit upon the right it was for 
 time to decide. Sir Austin dined with Mrs. Caroline Gran- 
 dison. They had been introduced by Sir Miles Papworth. 
 
 " What ! " said Sir Miles, when Mrs. Caroline expressed 
 her wish for an introduction, " you want to know Feverel ? 
 Aha ! Why, you are the very woman for him, ma'am. It's 
 one of the strong-minded he's after. So you shall, so you 
 shall. I'll give a dinner to-morrow. And let me tell you in 
 confidence that the value of his mines is increasing, ma'am. 
 Tou needn't be afraid about his crotchets. Feverel has his 
 €ye on the main chance as well as the rest of us." 
 
 " Tou do not believe, Sir Miles, that one m.ay esteem him 
 for his principles and sympathize with his object ? " said 
 Mrs. Caroline. 
 
 " Well, ma'am," Sir Miles returned, " I'm a plain man. I 
 said to my wife the other day — she was talking something 
 in that way — and I said to her, If Feverel had five hundred, 
 instead of fifty thousand, a-year — he's got that clear, ma'am, 
 and it'll double — how about his principles then ? Aha ! A 
 rich man can play the fool if he likes, and you women clap 
 your hands, and cheer him. Now, if I were to have a System 
 for all my rascals, you'd call me something like what I 
 should be — eh ? You would, though ! And I wish I had 
 sometimes, for they're every one of 'em in scrapes, and I've 
 got to pay the piper. But that's part of their education, to 
 my mind, so down goes the money." 
 
 " Have you seen much of his son ? " Mrs. Caroline in- 
 quired, restraining an appearance of particular interest. 
 
 " Not much, ma'am ; not much. Aha ! I expect it's the 
 mothers '11 be asking about Ms son, and the daughters 
 about mine — eh ? " Sir Miles indulged in a stout laugh. 
 
 " He's a fine lad. I'll say that for him, ma'am. He'll go 
 a long way when he's once loose, that lad will. I came to 
 hear the other day that I was pretty near transporting him 
 once, the young villain ! " 
 
A SHADOWY VIEAV OF OCELEBS PATER. 129 
 
 Sir Miles told Mrs. Caroline certain facts that had gradu- 
 ally become public intelligence about his neighbourhood 
 concerning the Bakewell Comedy. 
 
 Mrs. Caroline threw her hands aloft. 
 
 " Have I frightened you a bit, ma'am ? " said twinkling 
 Sir Miles ; but the perverse woman, with the downfall of 
 her hands, checked his exultation by exclaiming : " Is it not 
 a proof of his father's wisdom to watch him so rigorously ! " 
 
 Next day, at Sir Miles Papworth's hastily-ordered dinner, 
 Mrs. Caroline Grandison, who had summoned her great 
 dormant energies successfully to stand upon her feet, was 
 handed down by Sir Austin. They sat together, and talked 
 together. 
 
 Sir Austin and Mrs. Caroline discovered that they had in 
 common from an early period looked on life as a science : 
 and, having arrived at this joint understanding, they, with 
 the indifference of practised dissectors, laid out the world 
 and applied the knife to the people they knew. In other 
 •words, they talked most frightful scandal. It is proverbial 
 what a cold torturer science can be. Malice is nothing to it. 
 They reviewed their friends. Pure blood was nowhere. Sir 
 Austin hinted his observations since his arrival in town, and 
 used a remark or two from Bairam and Thompson. Mrs. 
 Caroline cleverly guessed the families, and still further 
 opened his eyes. Together they quashed the wild-oats 
 special plea. Mrs. Caroline gave him a clearer idea of his 
 system than he had ever had before. She ran ahead of his 
 thoughts like nimble fire. She appeared to have forethought 
 them all, and taken a leap beyond. When he plodded and 
 hesitated on his conception, she, at a word, struck boldly 
 into black and white, making him fidget for his Note-book 
 to reverse a sentence or two on Woman. And she quoted 
 The Pilgrim's Scrip. 
 
 " How true are some of the things you say, Sir Austin ! 
 And how false, permit me to add, are others ! " she depre- 
 catingly remarked. " That, for instance, on Domestic 
 Differences. How could you be so cynical as to say, ' In a 
 dissension between man and wife that one is in the right who 
 has Tuost friends.' It really angered me. Cannot one be 
 absolutely superior — ^notoriously the injured one ?" (Mrs. 
 Caroline was citing her own case against the faint-hearted 
 fox-hunting Unobjectionable.) "But you amply revenge 
 
130 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 it. Ton say, ' Oreat Hopes have lean offspring.^ How trae 
 that is ! How I know it myself ! How true every dis- 
 appointed woman must know it to be ! And what you say 
 of the Instincts and the Mind — something — that our Instincts 
 seek stability here below, and are always casting anchor — 
 som.ething — without the Captain's consent— and that it is 
 at once the fruitful source of unhappiness and the proof of 
 immortality — I'm making nonsense of it, but I appreciated 
 the wisdom fully." 
 
 In this way she played with him. The theorist was 
 dazzled, delighted. Lady Blandish was too like a submis- 
 sive slave to the System. Mrs. Caroline wedded it on the 
 equal standing of an English wife, who gives her half and 
 more to the union. 
 
 Her name appeared on his card-table the day after the 
 dinner. Six of her eight daughters, and a sprinkling of her 
 little dogs, were ready for his visit by the afternoon or 
 fashionable morning. Charlotte and Harriet were absent. 
 Clementina was the elder in attendance, and the rest pre- 
 sented fairly decreasing heights down to the disappointing 
 last, Carola, called as near Charles as was permissible, a 
 right ruddy young woman out of the nursery. 
 
 " We receive you into the family," the fond mother leaned 
 on her elbows maternally smiling, to welcome her visitor. 
 " I wished my daughters to share with me the pleasure of 
 your acquaintance." 
 
 " And knew well, madam, how to gratify me most." Sir 
 Austin bowed to the ceremony of introduction, and took a 
 hand of each, retaining Carola 's. 
 
 " This is your youngest, madam ?" 
 
 " Tes." Mrs. Caroline suppressed a sigh. 
 
 " And how old are you, my dear ?" 
 
 Carola twisted, and tried to read the frill of her trousers. 
 She was dressed very young. 
 
 "My child!" her mother admonished her. Whereat 
 Carola screwed out a growl, " Thirteen." 
 
 " Thirteen this day," said her mother. 
 
 '' Allow me to congratulate you, my dear." Sir Austin 
 bent forward, and put his lips to her forehead. 
 
 Carola received the salute with the stolidity of a naughty 
 doll. 
 
 " She is not well to-day," said Mrs. Caroline. " She is 
 
A SHADOWY VIEW OF OCELEBS PATER. 131 
 
 asTially full of life and gaiety — almost too much of an animal, 
 I sometimes think." 
 
 "At her age she can scarcely be that," observed Sir 
 Austin. 
 
 " She's the maddest creature I ever knew." Mrs. Caroline 
 immediately went upon his tack with unction. " To-day 
 she is shy. She is not herself. Possibly something has dis- 
 agreed with her." 
 
 " That nasty medicine, it is, mama," mumbled wiKul 
 Carola, swinging her frock. 
 
 Sir Austin turned to Mrs. Caroline, and inquired anxiously 
 if the child took much medicine. 
 
 " The smallest occasional doses," Mrs. Caroline remarked, 
 to an accompaniment of interjectory eyebrows and chins 
 from all her younger daughters, and a reserved demure 
 -aspect of the elder ones. 
 
 "I do not like much medicine for children," said the 
 baronet, a little snappishly. 
 
 " Only the smallest occasional doses ! " Mrs. Caroline 
 repeated, making her voice small and the doses sound 
 sweet. 
 
 " My son has had little, or nothing," said the baronet. 
 
 The young ladies looked on the father of that son with 
 interest. 
 
 "Will you come and see our gymnasium ?" Mrs. Caroline 
 asked quickly. 
 
 "It is," she added, rising with heroic effort, "not to be 
 compared to our country one. But it is of excellent use, 
 and all my girls exercise in it, when in town, once a day, 
 without intermission. My principle is, that girls require a 
 development of their frames as well as boys ; and the more 
 muscle they have the better women they make. I used it 
 constantly till disappointment and sorrow broke the habit." 
 
 " On my honour, madam," said the enraptured baronet, 
 "you are the only sensible woman I have met," and he 
 'Offered his arm to conduct the strenuous invalid. 
 
 Daughters and little dogs trooped to the gymnasium, which 
 was fitted up in the court below, and contained swing-poles, 
 and stride-poles, and newly invented instruments for bringing 
 out special virtues : an instrument for the lungs : an instru- 
 ment for the liver ; one for the arms and thighs ; one for the 
 wrists ; the whole for the promotion of the Christian accom. 
 'plishments. 
 
 k2 
 
132 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAKD FEVEREL. 
 
 Owing, probably, to the exhaustion consequent on their 
 previous exercises of tbe morning, the young ladies, except- 
 ing Carola, looked fatigued and pale, and anything but well- 
 braced ; and for the same reason, doubtless, when the younger 
 ones were requested by their mother to exhibit the use of 
 the several instruments, each of them wearily took hold of 
 the depending strap of leather, and wearily pulled it, like 
 mariners oaring in the deep sea ; oaring to a haven they have 
 no faith in. 
 
 " I sometimes hear them," said their mama, "while I am 
 reclining above, singing in chorus. ' Row, brothers, row,' is 
 one of their songs. It sounds pretty and cheerful." 
 
 The baronet was too much wrapped up in the enlighten- 
 ment of her principle to notice the despondency of their 
 countenances. 
 
 '• We have a professor of gymnastics, who comes twice a 
 week to superintend," said Mrs. Caroline. 
 
 " How old did you say your daughter is, madam ? " the 
 baronet abruptly interrogated her. 
 
 " Which P — Oh ! " she followed his eye and saw it resting 
 on ruddy Carola, " thirteen. She this day completes her 
 thirteenth year. That will do, dears ; much of it is not good 
 after your dinners." 
 
 The baronet placidly nodded approval of all her directions, 
 and bestowed a second paternal kiss upon Carola. 
 
 " They talk of the Future Man, madam," he said. " I 
 seem to be in the house of the Future Woman." 
 
 " Happy you that have a son ! " exclaimed Mrs. Caroline, 
 and, returning to the drawing-room, they exchanged Systems 
 anew, as a preparatory betrothal of the subjects of the 
 Systems. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A DIVEESION PLATED ON A PENNT-WHISTLE. 
 
 Aw AT with Systems ! Away with a corrupt World ! Let 
 ns breathe the air of the Enchanted Island. 
 
 Golden lie the meadows : golden run the streams ; red 
 
A DIVERSION ON A PENNY-WHISTLE. 133 
 
 gold is on the pine-stems. The sun is coming down to earth, 
 and walks the fields and the waters. 
 
 The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the 
 waters shout to him golden shouts. He comes, and his 
 heralds run hefore him, and touch the leaves of oaks and 
 planes and beeches lucid green, and the pine-stems redder 
 gold; leaving brightest footprints upon thickly- weeded banks, 
 where the foxglove's last upper-bells incline, and bramble- 
 shoots wander amid moist rich herbage. The plumes of the 
 woodland are alight ; and beyond them, over the open, 'tis a 
 race with the long-thrown shadows ; a race across the heaths 
 and up the hills, till, at the farthest bourne of mounted 
 «astem cloud, the heralds of the sun lay rosy fingers, and 
 rest. 
 
 Sweet are the shy recesses of the woodland. The ray 
 treads softly there. A film athwart the pathway quivers 
 ■many-hued against purple shade fragrant with warm pines, 
 deep moss-beds, feathery ferns. The little brown squirrel 
 drops tail, and leaps ; the inmost bird is startled to a chance 
 tuneless note. From silence into silence things move. 
 
 Peeps of the revelling splendour above and around enliven 
 the conscious full heart within. The flaming West, the crim- 
 son heights, shower their glories through voluminous leafage. 
 But these are bowers where deep bliss dwells, imperial joy, 
 that owes no fealty to yonder glories, in which the young 
 lamb gambols and the spirits of men are glad. Descend, 
 great Radiance ! embrace creation with beneficent fire, and 
 pass from us ! Tou and the vice-regal light that succeeds to 
 you, and all heavenly pageants, are the ministers and the 
 slaves of the throbbing content within. 
 
 For this is the home of the enchantment. Here, secluded 
 from vexed shores, the prince and princess of the island 
 meet : here like darkling nightingales they sit, and into eyes 
 and ears and hands pour endless ever-fresh treasures of their 
 souls. 
 
 Roll on, grinding wheels of the world: cries of ships 
 going down in a calm, groans of a System which will not 
 know its rightful hour of exultation, complain to the 
 universe. Tou are not heard here. 
 
 He calls her by her name, Lucy : and she, blushing at her 
 great boldness, has called him by his, Richard. Those two 
 names are the key-notes of the wonderful harmonies the 
 angels sing aloft. 
 
134 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL, 
 
 " Lucy ! my beWed ! " 
 
 " O Richard ! " 
 
 Out in the world there, on the skirts of the woodland, a/, 
 sheep-hoy pipes to meditative eve on a penny- whistle. 
 
 Love's musical instrument is as old, and as poor : it has 
 but two stops ; and yet, you see, the cunning musician does 
 thus much with it ! 
 
 Other speech they have little ; light foam playing upon 
 waves of feeling, and of feeling compact, that bursts only 
 when the sweeping volume is too wild, and is no more than 
 their sigh of tenderness spoken. 
 
 Perhaps love played his tune so well because their natures 
 had unblunted edges, and were keen for bliss, confiding in it 
 as natural food. To gentlemen and ladies he fine-draws 
 upon the viol, ravishingly; or blows into the mellow 
 bassoon ; or rouses the heroic ardours of the trumpet ; or, it 
 may be, commands the whole Orchestra for them. And they 
 are pleased. He is still the cunning musician. They 
 langiiish, and taste ecstasy : but it is, however sonorous, an 
 earthly concert. For them the spheres move not to two 
 notes. They have lost, or forfeited and never known, the 
 first snpersensual spring of the ripe senses into passion ; 
 when they carry the soul with them, and have the privileges 
 of spirits to walk disembodied, boundlessly to feel. Or one 
 has it, and the other is a dead body Ambrosia let them 
 eat, and drink the nectar : here sit a couple to whom Love's 
 simple bread and water is a finer feast. 
 
 Pipe, happy sheep-boy. Love ! Irradiated angels, unfold 
 your wings and lift your voices ! 
 
 They have outflown philosophy. Their instinct has shot 
 beyond the ken of science. They were made for their Eden. 
 
 " And this divine gift was in store for me ! " 
 
 So runs the internal outcry of each, clasping each : it is 
 their recurring refrain to the harmonies. How it illumined 
 the years gone by and suffused the living Future ! " 
 
 " Tou for me : I for you ! " 
 
 " We are bom for each other ! " 
 
 They believe that the angels have been busy about them 
 from their cradles. The celestial hosts have worthily 
 striven to bring them together. And, O victory ! wonder I 
 after toil and pain, and difficulties exceeding, the celestial; 
 hosts have succeeded ! 
 
A DIVEESION ON A PENNY-WHISTLE. 135 
 
 " Here we two sit who are written above as one ! " 
 
 Pipe, tappy Love ! pipe on to these dear innocents ! 
 
 The tide of colour has ebbed from the npper sky. In the 
 West the sea of sunken fire draws back ; and the stars leap 
 forth, and tremble, and retire before the advancing moon, 
 who slips the silver train of cloud from her shoulders, and, 
 with her foot upon the pine-tops, surveys heaven. 
 
 " Lucy, did you never dream of meeting me ? " 
 
 " O Richard ! yes ; for I remembered you." 
 
 " Lucy ! and did you pray that we might meet ? " 
 
 " I did ! " 
 
 Toung as when she looked upon the lovers in Paradise, 
 the fair Immortal journeys onward. Fronting her, it is not 
 night but veiled day. Full half the sky is flushed. Not 
 darkness : not day ; but the nuptials of the two. 
 
 " My own ! my own for ever ! Ton are pledged to me ? 
 Whisper ! " 
 
 He hears the delicious music. 
 
 " And you are mine ? " 
 
 A soft beam travels to the fern-covert under the pine- wood 
 where they sit, and for answer he has her eyes : turned to 
 him an instant, timidly fluttering over the depths of his, and 
 then downcast ; for through her eyes her soul is naked 
 to him. 
 
 " Lucy ! my bride ! my life ! " 
 
 The night-jar spins his dark monotony on the branch of 
 the pine. The soft beam travels round them, and listens to 
 their hearts. Their lips are locked. 
 
 Pipe no more, Love, for a time ! Pipe as you will you 
 cannot express their first kiss ; nothing of its sweetness, and 
 of the sacredness of it nothing. St. Cecilia up aloft, before 
 the silver organ-pipes of Paradise, pressing fingers upon 
 all the notes of which Love is but one, from her you may 
 hear it. 
 
 So Love is silent. Out in the world there, on the skirts of 
 the woodland, the self-satisfied sheep-boy delivers a last com- 
 placent squint down the length of his penny-whistle, and, 
 with a flourish correspondingly awry, he also marches into 
 silence, hailed by supper. The woods are still. There is 
 heard but the night-jar spinning on the pine-branch, circled 
 by moonlight. 
 
] 36 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CELEBRATES THK IIME-HONOURED TREATMENT OF A DRAGON BY 
 THE HERO. 
 
 Enchanted Islands have not yet rooted out tteir old brood 
 of dragons. Wherever there is romance, these monsters 
 come by inimical attraction. Because the heavens are cer- 
 tainly propitious to true lovers, the beasts of the abysses are 
 banded to destroy them, stimulated by innumerable sad 
 victories ; and every love-tale is an Epic War of the upper 
 and lower powers. I wish good fairies were a little more 
 active. They seem to be cajoled into security by the happi- 
 ness of their favourities ; whereas the wicked are always 
 alert, and circumspect. They let the little ones shut their 
 eyes to fancy they are not seen, and then commence. 
 
 These appointments and meetings, involving a start from 
 the dinner-table at the hour of contemplative digestion and 
 prime claret ; the hour when the wise youth Adrian delighted 
 to talk at his ease — to recline in dreamy consciousness that a 
 work of good was going on inside him ; these abstractions 
 from his studies, excesses of gaiety, and glumness, heavings 
 of the chest, and other odd signs, but mainly the disgusting 
 behaviour of his pupil at the dinner-table, taught Adrian to 
 understand, though the young gentleman was clever in 
 excuses, that he had somehow learnt there was another half 
 to the divided Apple of Creation, and had embarked upon 
 the great voyage of discovery of the difference between the 
 two halves. With his usual coolness Adrian debated whether 
 he might be in the philosophic or the practical stage of the 
 voyage. For himself, as a man and a philosopher, Adrian 
 had no objection to its being either; and he had only to 
 consider which was temporarily most threatening to the 
 ridiculous System he had to support. Richard's absence 
 annoyed him. The youth was vivacious, and his enthusiasm 
 good fun ; and besides, when he left table, Adrian had to sit 
 alone with Hippias and the Eighteenth Century, from both 
 of whom he extracted all the amusement that could be got, 
 and he saw his digestion menaced by the contagious society 
 of two ruined stomachs, who bored him just when he loved 
 himself most. Poor Hippias was now so reduced that he had 
 
TREATMENT OF A DEAGON. 137 
 
 profoundly to calculate whether a particular dish, or an 
 extra-glass of wine, would have a bitter efEect on him and be 
 felt through the remainder of his years. He was in the habit 
 of uttering his calculations half aloud, wherein the prophetic 
 doubts of experience, and the succalent insinuations of appe- 
 tite, contended hotly. It was horrible to hear him, so let us 
 pardon Adrian for tempting him to a decision in favour of 
 the moment. 
 
 " Happy to take wine with you," Adrian would say, and 
 Hippias would regard the decanter with a pained forehead, 
 and put up the doctor. 
 
 " Drink, nephew Hippy, and think of the doctor to- 
 morrow ! " the Eighteenth Century cheerily ruffles her cap 
 at him, and recommends her own practice. 
 
 " It's this literary work ! " interjects Hippias, handling his 
 glass of remorse. " I don't know what else it can be. Tou 
 have no idea how anxious I feel. I have frightful dreams. 
 I'm perpetually anxious." 
 
 " No wonder," says Adrian, who enjoys the childish simpli- 
 city to which an absorbed study of his sensational existence 
 has brought poor Hippias. " No wonder. Ten years of 
 Fairy Mythology ! Could any one hope to sleep in peace 
 after that ? As to your digestion, no one has a digestion 
 who is in the doctor's hands. They prescribe from dogmas, 
 and don't count on the system. They have cut you down 
 from two bottles to two glasses. It's absurd. Tou can't 
 sleep, because your system is crying out for what it's accus- 
 tomed to." 
 
 Hippias sips his Madeira with a niggardly confidence, but 
 assures Adrian that he really should not like to venture on 
 a bottle now : it would be rank madness to venture on a 
 bottle now, he thinks. Last night only, after partaking, 
 under protest, of that rich French dish, or was it the duck ? 
 -. — Adrian advised him to throw the blame on that vulgar 
 bird. — Say the duck, then. Last night, he was no sooner 
 stretched in bed, than he seemed to be of an enormous size : 
 all his limbs — his nose, his mouth, his toes — were elephan- 
 tine ! An elephant was a pigmy to him. And his hugeous- 
 ness seemed to increase the instant he shut his eyes. He 
 turned on this side ; he turned on that. He lay on his back ; 
 he tried putting his face to the pillow ; and he continued to 
 swell. He wondered the room could hold him — he thought 
 
138 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FKVEEEL. 
 
 he must burst it — and absolutely lit a candle, and went to 
 the looking-glass to see -whether he was bearable. 
 
 By this time Adrian and Richard were laughing uncon- 
 trollably. He had, however, a genial auditor in the Eight- 
 eenth Century, who declared it to be a new disease, not 
 known in her day, and deserving investigation. She was 
 happy to compare sensations with him, but hers were not of 
 the complex order, and a potion soon righted her. In fact, 
 her system appeared to be a debatable ground for aliment 
 and medicine, on which the battle was fought, and, when 
 over, she was none the worse, as she joyfully told Hippias. 
 Never looked ploughman on prince, or village belle on Court 
 Beauty, with half the envy poor nineteenth-century Hippias 
 expended in his gaze on the Eighteenth. He was too serious 
 to note much the laughter of the young men. 
 
 " I fancy, uncle, you have swallowed a fairy," says 
 Richard. " Tou know what malicious things they are. Is 
 there a case in the mythology of anybody swallowing a- 
 fairy ? " 
 
 Hippias grimly considered, and thought there was not. 
 
 " Upon my honour," Adrian composes his features to 
 remark, " I think Ricky has hit the right nail. Tou have 
 not only swallowed one, you have swallowed the whole 
 mythology ! I'm not astonished you suffer so. I never 
 could, I confess, so they don't trouble me ; but, if I had, I 
 should pour a bottle of the best on them every night. I 
 should indeed." 
 
 " Can my uncle," Richard meditates, his eyes on Hippias's 
 wizened face, " ever have been, as my father says, happy^ 
 and like other men ? Was he ever in love ? " 
 
 Alas, and alack-a-day ! Tes ! Love had once piped even 
 to Hippias in dewy shade. He was once an ardent youth, 
 the genius of the family, master of his functions. " Which, 
 when one ceases to be," says the Pilgeim's Sceip, " one is no 
 longer man : " and appends that " it is the tendency of very 
 fast people to grow organically downward." Pity the sorrows 
 of a poor dyspepsy ! Like the Actinia, poor Hippias had 
 grown to be all stomach — -though not so pretty to look at. 
 
 " You will drink a bottle and drown the fairy on the day 
 Ricky's married," says Adrian, eyeing the traitor blush he 
 calls up on the ingenuous cheeks. 
 
 Hippias realizes distant consequences immediately, and 
 
TREATMENT OF A DEAGON, 139" 
 
 contracts his jaw to stipulate for it at night, then : not in. 
 the morning at the breakfast. He is capable of nothing but 
 very weak tea and dry toast, or gruel, in the morning. He 
 adds that, how people can drink wine at that early hour, 
 amazes him. " I should," he exclaims energetically, " I 
 shonld be afraid to go to bed that night, if I did such a 
 thing!" 
 
 Adrian leans to Richard, and bids the blush-mantled youth 
 mind he does not swallow his fairy, or he may have a similar 
 unbewitching fear upon him on the awful occasion. Richard 
 cocks his ear. His hour has struck. His heaven awaits him 
 in the wood, and he is off. 
 
 This ' Tragedy of a Cooking-Apparatus,' as Adrian 
 designated the malady of Hippias, was repeated regularly 
 every evening. It was natural for any youth to escape as 
 quick as he could from such a table of stomachs. 
 
 Adrian bore with his conduct considerately, until a letter 
 from the baronet, describing the house and maternal System 
 of Mrs. Caroline Grandison, and the rough grain of hope- 
 fulness in her youngest daughter, spurred him to think of 
 his duties, and see what was going on. He gave Richard 
 half an hour's start, and then put on his hat to follow his 
 own keen scent, leaving Hippias and the Eighteenth Century 
 to piquet. 
 
 In the lane near Belthorpe he met a maid of the farm not 
 unknown to him, one Molly Davenport by name, a buxom 
 lass, who, on seeing him, invoked her Good Gracious, the 
 generic maid's familiar, and was instructed by reminiscences 
 vivid, if ancient, to giggle. 
 
 " Are you looking for your young gentleman ? " Molly 
 presently asked. 
 
 Adrian glanced about the lane like a cool brigand, to see 
 if the coast was clear, and replied to her, " I am, miss. I 
 want you to tell me about him." 
 
 " Dear ! " said the buxom lass, " was you coming for me 
 to-night to know ? " 
 
 Adrian rebuked her: for her bad grammar, apparently. 
 
 " Cause I can't stop out long to-night," Molly explained, 
 taking the rebuke to refer altogether to her bad grammar. 
 
 " Tou may go in when you please, miss. Is that any one 
 coming ? Come here in the shade." 
 
 " Now, get along ! " said Miss Molly. 
 
140 THE ORDEAL OF RICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 It was hard, upon the wise youth, and he felt it so, that 
 she would not accept his impeccability. He said austerely : 
 " I desire you to know, miss, that, notwithstanding your un- 
 protected situation and the favouring darkness, a British 
 female, in all places and at all seasons, may coniidently 
 repose the precious jewel" 
 
 The buxom lass interrupted the harangue by an explosion 
 of giggles. " I declare," she cried, " I used for to believe 
 you at fust ; and when you begin you looks like it now. 
 You're al'ays as good as a play. I say — don't you remem- 
 ber" 
 
 Adrian spoke with resolution. " Will you listen to me, 
 Miss Davenport ! " He put a coin in her hand, which had a 
 medical effect in calming her to attention. " I want to know 
 whether yoa have seen him at all ? " 
 
 " Who ? Your young gentleman ? I sh'd think I did. I 
 seen him to-night only. Ain't he growed handsom.e. He's 
 al'ays about Beltharp now. It ain't to fire no more ricks. 
 He's afire 'unself . Ain't you seen 'em together ? He's after 
 the missis " 
 
 Adrian requested Miss Davenport to be respectful, and 
 confine herself to particulars. The buxom lass then told 
 him th,it her young missis and Adrian's young gentleman 
 were a pretty couple, and met one another every night. 
 The girl swore for their innocence. 
 
 " As for Miss Lucy, she haven't a bit of art in her, nor 
 have he." 
 
 " They're all nature, I suppose," said Adrian. " How is it 
 I don't see her at church ? " 
 
 " She's Catholic, or somethink,'' said Molly. " Her feyther 
 was, and a leftenant. She've a Cross in her bedroom. She 
 don't go to church. I see you there last Sunday a-lookin' so 
 solemn," and Molly stroked her hand down her chin to give 
 it length. 
 
 Adrian insisted on her keeping to facts. It was dark, and 
 in the dark he was indifferent to the striking contrasts sug- 
 gested by the buxom lass, but he wanted to hear facts, and 
 he again bribed her to distil nothing but facts. Upon which 
 she told him further, that her young lady was an innocent 
 artless creature who had been to school upwards of three 
 years with the nuns, and had a little money of her own, and 
 
TREATMENT OF A DEAGON. 1 4 1 
 
 was beautiful enough to be a lord's lady, and had been in 
 love with Master Richard ever since she was a little girl. 
 Molly had got from a friend of hers up at the Abbey, Mary 
 Gamer, the housemaid who cleaned Master Richard s room, 
 a bit of paper once with the young gentleman's handwriting, 
 and had given it to her Miss Lucy, and Miss Lucy had given 
 her a gold sovereign for it — just for his handwriting ! Miss 
 Lucy did not seem happy at the farm, because of that young 
 Tom, who was always leering at her, and to be sure she was 
 quite a lady, and could play, and sing, and dress with the 
 best. 
 
 " She looks like a angel in her nightgown ! " Molly 
 wound up. 
 
 The next moment she ran up close, and speaking for the 
 first time as if there were a distinction of position between 
 them, petitioned : " Mr. Harley ! you won't go for a-doin' any 
 harm to 'em 'cause of what I said, will you now ? Do say 
 you won't now, Mr. Harley ! She is good, though she's a 
 Catholic. She was kind to me when I was ill, and I 
 wouldn't have her crossed — I'd rather be showed up myself, 
 1 would ! " 
 
 The wise youth gave no positive promise to the buxom 
 lass, and she had to read his consent in a relaxation of his 
 austerity. The noise of a lumbering foot plodding down the 
 lane caused her to be abruptly dismissed. Molly took to flight, 
 the lumbering foot accelerated its pace, and the pastoral 
 appeal to her flying skirts was heard — " Moll ! yau, theyre ! 
 It be I — Bantam ! " But the sprightly Silvia would not 
 stop to his wooing, and Adrian turned away laughing at 
 these Arcadians. 
 
 Adrian was a lazy dragon. All he did for the present was 
 to hint and tease. " It's the Inevitable ! " he said, and asked 
 himself why he should seek to arrest it. He had no faith in 
 the System. Heavy Benson had. Benson of the slow thick- 
 lidded antediluvian eye and loose-crumpled skin; Benson, the 
 Saurian, the woman-hater. Benson was wide awake. A sort 
 of rivalry existed between the wise youth and Heavy Benson. 
 The fidelity of the latter dependant had moved the baronet to 
 commit to him a portion of the management of the Raynham 
 estate, and this Adrian did not like. No one who aspires to 
 the honourable ofl5.ce of leading another by the nose can 
 tolerate a party in his ambition, Benson's surly instinct told 
 
142 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 ■him he was in the wise youth's way, and he resolved to give 
 his master a striking proof of his superior faithfulness. For 
 some weeks the Saurian eye had been on the two secret 
 creatures. Heavy Benson saw letters come and go in the 
 day, and now the young gentleman was off and out every 
 night, and seemed to be on wings. Benson knew whither he 
 went, and the object he went for. It was a woman-^thafc 
 was enough. The Saurian eye had actually seen the sinful 
 thing lure the hope of Raynham into the shades. He com- 
 posed several epistles of warning to the baronet of the work 
 that was going on; but before sending one he wished to 
 record a little of their guilty conversation ; and for this pur- 
 pose the faithful fellow nightly trotted over the dews to eaves- 
 drop, and thereby aroused the good fairy, in the person of 
 Tom Bakewell, the sole confidant of Richard's state. 
 
 Tom said to his young master, " Do you know what, sir ? 
 Ton be watched ! " 
 
 Richard, in a fury, bade him name the wretch, and Tom 
 Lung his arms, and aped the respectable protrusion of the 
 butler's head. 
 
 " It's he, is it ? " cried Richard. " He shall rue it, Tom ! 
 If I find him near me when we're together he shall never 
 forget it." 
 
 "Don't hit too hard, sir," Tom suggested. "Ton hit 
 mortal hard when you're in earnest, you know." 
 
 Richard averred he would forgive anything but that, and 
 -told Tom to be within hail to-morrow night — he knew where. 
 By the hour of the appointment it was out of the lover's 
 mind. 
 
 Heavy Benson's epistle of warning, addressed to Sir Austin 
 Absworthy Bearne Feverel, Bart., and containing an extra- 
 ordinary travesty of the mutual converse of two love-sick 
 beings, specially calculated to alarm a moral parent, was 
 posted and travelling to town. His work was done. Un- 
 luckily for his bones, he had, in the process, acquired a 
 prurient taste for the service of spy upon Cupid ; and, after 
 doing duty at table, he was again out over the dews, hoping 
 to behold the extreme wickedness of the celestial culprit. 
 
 Lady Blandish dined that evening at Raynham, by Adrian's 
 pointed invitation. According to custom, Richard started up 
 and off, with few excuses. The lady exhibited no surprise. 
 She and Adrian likewise strolled forth to enjoy the air of the 
 
TEEATMENT OF A DEAGON. 143 
 
 Sinnmer niglit. They hm. no ifitentioii of spying. Still they 
 may have thought, by meeting Richard and his innamorata, 
 there was a chance of laying a foundation of ridicule to sap 
 the passion. They may have thought so — they were on no 
 spoken understanding. 
 
 " I have seen the little girl," said Lady Blandish. " She is 
 pretty — she would be telUng if she were well set up. She 
 speaks well. How absurd it is of that class to educate their 
 women above their station ! The child is really too good for 
 a. farmer. I noticed her before I knew of this ; she has 
 enviable hair. I suppose she doesn't paint her eyelids. Just 
 the sort of person to take a young man. I thought there was 
 something wrong. I received, the day before yesterday, an 
 impassioned poem evidently not intended for me. My hair 
 was gold. My meeting him was foretold. My eyes were 
 homes of light fringed with night. I sent it back, correcting 
 the colours." 
 
 " Which was death to the rhymes," said Adrian. " I saw 
 her this morning. The boy hasn't bad taste. As you say, 
 she is too good for a farmer. Such a spark would explode 
 any System. She slightly affected mine. The Huron is 
 stark mad about her." 
 
 " But we must positively write and tell his father," said 
 Lady Blandish. 
 
 The wise youth did not see why they should exaggerate a 
 trifle. The lady said she would have an interview with 
 Bichard, and then write, as it was her duty to do. Adrian 
 shrugged, and was for going into the scientific explanation 
 of Richard's conduct, in which the lady had to discourage 
 him. 
 
 " Poor boy ! " she sighed. " I am really sorry for him. I 
 hope he will not feel it too strongly. They feel strongly, 
 father and son." 
 
 " And select wisely ? " Adrian slyly appended. 
 
 " That's another thing," said Lady Blandish. " Tou have 
 heard about the Gtrandisons, I presume ? " 
 
 " Tes. A perfect woman, mirrored in her progeny." 
 
 " I detest a perfect woman," said Lady Blandish, 
 
 " I should like her better than her progeny." 
 
 " I pity her husband," said Lady Blandish. 
 
 " As the Pilgbim's Sceip would remark — ' There's hia 
 recompense.' " 
 
144 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 " I'm afraid some one is easily hoodwinked," said Lady 
 Blandish. 
 
 The wise youth smiled. 
 
 Their talk was then of the dnlness of neighbouring county 
 people, about whom, it seemed, there was little or no scandal 
 afloat: of the lady's loss of the season in town, which she 
 professed not to regret, though she complained of her general 
 ■weariness : of whether Mr. Morton of Poer Hall would pro- 
 pose to Mrs. Doria, and of the probable despair of the 
 hapless curate of Lobourne ; and other gossip, partly in 
 French. 
 
 They rounded the lake, and got upon the road through 
 the park to Lobourne. The moon had risen. The atmos- 
 phere was warm and pleasant. 
 
 " Quite a lover's night," said Lady Blandish. 
 
 " And I, who have none to love — pity me ! " The vnse 
 youth attempted a sigh. 
 
 "And never will have," said Lady Blandish, curtly. 
 "Tou buy your loves." 
 
 " Good heavens, madam ! " Adrian protested. This was 
 science with a vengeance. However, he did not plead 
 verbally against the impeachment, though the lady's decisive 
 insight astonished him. He began to respect her, scarce 
 relishing her exquisite contempt, and reflected that widows 
 ■were terrible creatares. 
 
 He had hoped to be a little sentimental with Lady 
 Blandish, knowing her romantic. This mixture of the 
 harshest common sense and an air of " I know you men," 
 with romance and refined temperament, subdued the vrise 
 youth more than a positive accusation supported by witnesses 
 "would have done. He looked at the lady. Her face was 
 raised to the moon. She knew nothing — she had simply 
 spoken from the fulness of her human knowledge, and had 
 forgotten her words. Perhaps, after all, her admiration, or 
 whatever feeling it was, for the baronet, was sincere, and 
 really the longing for a virtuous man. Perhaps she had 
 tried the opposite set pretty much. Adrian shrugged. 
 Whenever the wise youth encountered a m.ental difiiculty he 
 instinctively lifted his shoulders to equal altitudes, to show 
 that he had no doubt there was a balance in the case — 
 plenty to be said on both sides, which was the same to him 
 as a definite solution. 
 
 At their tryst in the wood, abutting on Raynham Park, 
 
TEEATMENT OF A DEAGON. 145 
 
 wrapped in. themselves, piped to by tireless Love, Richard 
 and Lucy sat, toying with eternal moments. How they seem 
 as if they would never end ! What mere sparks they are 
 when they have died out ! And how in the distance of time 
 they revive, and extend, and glow, and make as think them 
 full the half, and the best of the fire, of our lives ! 
 
 With the onward flow of intimacy, the two happy lovers 
 ceased to be so shy of common themes, and their speech did 
 not reject all as dross that was not pure gold of emotion. 
 
 Lucy was very inquisitive about everything and everybody 
 at Raynham. Whoever had been about Richard since his 
 birth, she must know the history of, and he for a kiss wUl do 
 her bidding. 
 
 Thus goes the tender duet — 
 
 " You should know my cousin Austin, Lucy. — Darling ! 
 Beloved ! " 
 
 " My own ! Richard ! " 
 
 " You should know my cousin Austin. You shall know 
 him. He would take to you best of them all, and you to 
 him. He is in the tropics now, looking out a place — it's a 
 secret — for poor English working-men to emigrate to and 
 found a colony in that part of the world — my white angel ! " 
 
 " Dear love ! " 
 
 " He is such a noble fellow ! Nobody here understands 
 him but me. Isn't it strange ? Since I met you I love him 
 better ! That's because I love all that's good and noble 
 better now — Beautiful ! I love — I love you ! " 
 
 " My Richard ! " 
 
 " What do you think I've determined, Lucy ? If my father 
 
 but no ! my father does love me. — No ! he will not ; and 
 
 we will be happy together here. And I will win my way 
 with you. And whatever I win will be yours ; for it will be 
 owing to you. I feel as if I had no strength but yours — 
 none ! and you make me — Lucy ! " 
 
 His voice ebbs. Presently Lucy murmurs — 
 
 " Your father, Richard." 
 
 " Yes, my father ? " 
 
 " Dearest Richard ! I feel so afraid of him." 
 
 " He loves me, and will love you, Lucy." 
 
 " But I am so poor and humble, Richard." 
 
 " No one I have ever seen is like you, Lucy." 
 
 " You think so, because you " 
 
 h 
 
146 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Love me," comes the blushing whisper, and the duefc 
 gives place to dumb variations, performed equally in concert. 
 
 It is resumed. 
 
 " Ton are fond of the knights, Lucy. Austin is as brave- 
 as any of them. — My own bride ! Oh, how I adore you ! 
 When you are gone, I could fall upon the grass you tread 
 upon, and kiss it. My breast feels empty of my heart — ■ 
 Lucy! if we lived in those days, I should have been a knight, 
 and have won honour and glory for you. Oh ! one can do 
 nothing now. My lady-love ! My lady-love ! — ^A tear ? — 
 Lucy ? " 
 
 " Dearest ! Ah, Richard ! I am not a lady." 
 
 " Who dares say that ? Not a lady— the angel I love ! " 
 
 " Think, Richard, who I am." 
 
 " My beautiful ! I think that God made you, and has 
 given you to me." 
 
 Her eyes fill with tears, and, as she lifts them heavenward 
 to thank her God, the light of heaven strikes on them, and 
 she is so radiant in her pure beauty that the limbs of the- 
 young man tremble. 
 
 "Lucy! O heavenly spirit ! Lucy!" 
 
 Tenderly her lips part — " T do not weep for sorrow." 
 
 The big bright drops lighten, and roll down, imaged in his 
 soul. 
 
 They lean together — shadows of ineffable tenderness play- 
 ing on their thrilled cheeks and brows. 
 
 He dares not touch her lips. He lifts her hand, and presses 
 his mouth to it. She has seen little of mankind, but her 
 soul tells her this one is different from others, and at the 
 thought, in her great joy, tears must come fast, or her heart 
 will break — tears of boundless thanksgiving. And he, gazing 
 on those soft, ray-illumined, dark-edged eyes, and the grace 
 of her loose falling tresses, feels a scarce-sufferable holy fire 
 streaming through his members. 
 
 It is long ere they speak in open tones. 
 
 " happy day when we met ! " 
 
 What says the voice of one, the soul of the other echoes. 
 
 " glorious heaven looking down on us ! " 
 
 Their souls are joined, are made one for evermore beneath. 
 that bending benediction. 
 
 " O eternity of bliss ! " 
 
 Then the diviner mood passes, and they drop to earth. 
 
TEEATMENT OF A DEAGON. 147 
 
 " Lucy ! come with me to-niglit, and look at. the place 
 ■where you are some day to live. Come, and I will row you 
 on the lake. Tou remember what you said in your letter 
 that you dreamt ? — that we were floating over the shadow of 
 the Abbey to the nuns at work by torchlight felling the 
 cypress, and they handed us each a sprig. Why, darling, 
 it was the best omen in the world, their felling the old trees. 
 And you write such lovely letters. So pure and sweet they 
 are. I love the nuns for having taught you." 
 
 "Ah, Richard ! See ! we forget ! Ah !" she lifts up her 
 face pleadingly, as to plead against herself, " even if your 
 father forgives my birth, he will not my religion. And, 
 dearest, though I would die for you I cannot change it. It 
 would seem that I was denying God ; and — oh ! it would 
 make me ashamed of my love." 
 
 " Fear nothing !" He winds her about with his arm. 
 " Come ! He will love us both, and love you the more for 
 being faithful to your father's creed. Tou don't know him, 
 Lucy. He seems harsh and stem- — he is full of kindness and 
 love. He isn't at all a bigot. And besides, when he hears 
 what the nuns have done for you, won't he thank them, as 
 I do ? And— oh ! I must speak to him soon, and you must 
 be prepared to see him soon, for I cannot bear your remain- 
 ing at Belthorpe, like a jewel in a sty. Mind ! I'm not 
 saying a word against your uncle. I declare I love every- 
 body and everything that sees you and touches you. Stay ! 
 it M a wonder how you could have grown there. But you 
 were not born there, and your father had good blood. Des- 
 borough ! — there was a Colonel Desborough — never mind ! 
 Come !" 
 
 She dreads to. She begs not to. She is drawn away. 
 
 The woods are silent, and then — 
 
 "What think you of that for a pretty pastoral ?" says a 
 very different voice. 
 
 Adrian reclined against a pine overlooking the fern-covert. 
 Lady Blandish was recumbent upon the brown pine-drop- 
 pings, gazing through a vista of the lower greenwood which 
 opened out upon the moon-lighted valley, her hands clasped 
 round one knee, her features almost stem in their set hard 
 expression. 
 
 She did not' answer. A movement among the ferns at- 
 tracted Adrian, and he stepped down the decline across the 
 
 l2 
 
148 THE OBDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 pine-roots to behold Heavy Benson below, staking fern-seed 
 and spidery substances oil bis cnimpled skin. 
 
 " Is that you, Mr. Hadrian ?" called Benson, starting, as 
 he puffed, and exercised bis bandkercbief . 
 
 "Is it you, Benson, who bave bad tbe audacity to spy upon 
 tbe Mysteries, and are not struck blind ?" Adrian called 
 back, and coming close to him, added, " You look as if you 
 had just been well thrashed." 
 
 " Isn't it dreadful, sir ?" snuffled Benson. " And bis father 
 in ignorance, Mr. Hadrian !" 
 
 " He shall know, Benson ! He shall know how you have 
 endangered your valuable skin in his service. If Mr. Richard 
 had found you there just now I wouldn't answer for the 
 consequences." 
 
 " Ha !" Benson spitefully retorted. " This won't go on, 
 Mr. Hadrian. It shan't, sir. It will be put a stop to to- 
 morrow, sir. I call it corruption of a young gentleman like 
 him, and harlotry, sir, I call it. I'd have every jade flogged 
 that made a young innocent gentleman go on like that, 
 sir." 
 
 " Then why didn't you stop it yourself, Benson ? Ah, I 
 see ! you waited — eh ? Hm !• — or what, Benson ? This is 
 not the the first time you bave been attendant on Mr. Apollo 
 and Miss Dryope ? You have written to headquarters, have 
 you? Nothing like zeal, Benson !" 
 
 " I did my duty, Mr. Hadrian." 
 
 " Don't let it rob you of your breath, Benson." 
 
 The wise youth returned to Lady Blandish, and informed 
 her of Benson's zeal. The lady's eyes flashed. " I hope 
 Richard will treat him as be deserves," she said. 
 
 " Shall we home ?" Adrian inquired. 
 
 " Do me a favour," the lady replied. " Get my carriage 
 sent round to meet me at the park-gates." 
 
 "Won't you?" 
 
 " I want to be alone." 
 
 Adrian bowed and left her. She was still sitting with her 
 hands clasped round one knee, gazing towards the dim ray- 
 strewn valley. 
 
 "An odd creature !" muttered tbe wise youth. " She's as 
 odd as any of them. She ought to be a Feverel. I suppose 
 she's graduating for it. Hang that confounded old ass of a 
 Benson ! He has bad tbe impudence to steal a march on 
 
TEEATMENT OF A DRAGON. 149 
 
 me ! Not a bad suggestion of the Blandish. We'll see 
 about it." 
 
 The shadow of the cypress was lessening on the lake. The 
 moon was climbing high. As Richard rowed the boat, Lucy 
 sang to him softly. She sang first a fresh little French 
 song, reminding him of a day when she had been asked to 
 sing to him before, and he did not care to hear. " Did I 
 live ? " he thinks. Then she sang to him a bit of one of 
 those majestic old Gregorian chants, that, wherever you may 
 hear them, seem to build up cathedral walls about you. The 
 young man dropped the sculls. The strange solemn notes 
 gave a religious tone to his love, and wafted him into the 
 knightly ages and the reverential heart of chivalry. 
 
 Hanging between two heavens on the lake : floating to her 
 voice : the moon stepping over and through white shoals of 
 soft high clouds above and below : floating to her voice — no 
 other breath abroad ! His soul went out of his body as he 
 listened. 
 
 They must part. He rows her gently shoreward. 
 
 " I never was so happy as to-night," she murmurs. 
 
 " Look, my Lucy. The lights of the old place are on the 
 lake. Look where you are to live." 
 
 " Which is your room, Richard ? " 
 
 He points it out to her. 
 
 " Richard ! that I were one of the women who wait on 
 you ! I should ask nothing more. How happy she must 
 be!" 
 
 " My darling angel-love. Tou shall be happy ; but all 
 shall wait on you, and I foremost, Lucy." 
 
 " Dearest ! may I hope for a letter ? " 
 
 " By eleven to-morrow. And I ? " 
 
 " Oh ! you will have mine, Richard." 
 
 " Tom shall wait for it. A long one, mind ! Did you like 
 my last song ? " 
 
 She puts her hand quietly against her bosom, and he 
 knows where it rests. O love ! O heaven ! 
 
 They are aroused by the harsh grating of the bow of 
 the boat against the shingle. He jumps out, and lifts her 
 ashore. 
 
 " See ! " she says, as the blush of his embrace subsides — 
 " See ! " and prettily she mimics awe and feels it a little, 
 " the cypress does point towards us. Richard ! it does ! " 
 
150 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 And he, looking at her rather than at the cypress, de- 
 lighting in her arch grave ways — 
 
 " Why, there's hardly any shadow at all, Lucy. She 
 mustn't dream, my darling ! or dream only of me." 
 
 " Dearest ! but I do." 
 
 " To-morrow, Lucy ! The letter in the morning, and yon 
 at night. happy to-morrow ! " 
 
 " Ton will be sure to be there, Richard ? " 
 
 " If I am not dead, Lucy." 
 
 " O Richard ! pray, pray do not speak of that. I shall not 
 survive you." 
 
 " Let us pray, Lucy, to die together, when we are to die. 
 Death or life, with you ! Who is it yonder ? I see some 
 one— is it Tom ? It's Adrian ! " 
 
 " Is it Mr. Harley ? " The fair girl shivered. 
 
 " How dares he come here ! " cried Richard. 
 
 The figure of Adrian, instead of advancing, discreetly 
 circled the lake. They were stealing away when he called. 
 His call was repeated. Lucy entreated Richard to go to 
 him ; but the young man preferred to summon his attendant, 
 Tom, from within hail, and send him to know what was 
 wanted. 
 
 " Will he have seen me ? Will he have known me ? " 
 whispered Lucy tremulously. 
 
 " And if he does, love ? " said Richard. 
 
 " Oh ! if he does, dearest — I don't know, but I feel such a 
 presentiment. Ton have not spoken of him to-night, Richard. 
 Is he good ? " 
 
 " Good ? " Richard clutched her hand for the innocent 
 maiden phrase. " He's very fond of eating ; that's all I 
 know of Adrian." 
 
 Her hand was at his lips when Tom returned. 
 
 " Well, Tom ? " 
 
 " Mr. Adrian wishes particular to speak to you, sir," said 
 Tom, emphasizing his achievement of a four-syllable word. 
 
 " Do go to him, dearest ! Do go ! " Lucy begs him. 
 
 " Oh, how I hate Adrian ! " The young man grinds his 
 teeth. 
 
 " Do go ! " Lucy re-urges him. " Tom — good Tom — will 
 see me home. To-morrow, dear love ! To-morrow ! " 
 
 " You wish to part from me ? " 
 
 " Oh, unkind 1 but you must not come with me now. It 
 may be news of importance, dearest. Think, Richard ! " 
 
TREATMENT OF A DRAGON. 151 
 
 •" Tom ! go back ! " 
 
 At the imperious command the well-drilled Tom strides ofE 
 a dozen paces, and sees nothing. Then the precious charge 
 is confided to him. A heart is cut in twain. 
 
 Richard made his way to Adrian. " What is it you want 
 with me, Adrian ? " 
 
 " Are we seconds, or principals, fiery one ? " was 
 Adrian's answer. " I want nothing with you, except to 
 know whether you have seen Benson." 
 
 " Where should I see Benson ? What do I know of Ben- 
 son's doings ? " 
 
 " Of course not — such a secret old fist as he is ! I want 
 some one to tell him to order Lady Blandish's carriage to be 
 sent round to the park-gates. I thought he might be round 
 your way over there — I came upon him accidentally just now 
 in Abbey-wood — Hey ! what's the matter, boy ? " 
 
 " Tou saw him there ? " 
 
 " Hunting Diana, I suppose. He thinks she's not so chaste 
 as they say," continued Adrian. " Are you going to knock 
 down that tree ? " 
 
 Richard had turned to the cypress, and was tugging at the 
 ^;ough wood. He left it and went to an ash. 
 
 "You'll spoil that weeper," Adrian cried. "Down she 
 comes ! — all ! But Good-night, Ricky. If you see Benson, 
 mind you tell him." 
 
 Doomed Benson following his burly shadow hove in sight 
 ■on the white road while Adrian spoke. The wise youth 
 chuckled and strolled round the lake, glancing over his 
 shoulder every now and then. 
 
 It was not long before he heard a bellow for help — the 
 Toar of a dragon in his throes. Adrian placidly sat down on 
 the grass, and fixed his eyes on the water. There, as the 
 roar was being repeated amid horrid resounding echoes, the 
 wise youth mused in this wise — 
 
 " ' The Fates are Jews with us when they delay a punish- 
 ment,' says the Pilgbim's Scrip, or words to that effect. Not 
 a bad idea, thai of the Fates being Jews — Jewesses more 
 classically speaking. The heavens evidently love Benson, 
 seeing that he gets his punishment on the spot. What a 
 lovely night ! Those two young ones do it well. Master 
 Ricky is a peppery young man. Love and war come as 
 natural to iim .as bread and butter. He gets it from the ap 
 
152 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 GrufEudh. I rather believe in race. What a noise that old 
 ruffian makes ! He'll require poulticing with the Pilgeim's 
 SCEIP. We shall have a message to-morrow, and a hubbub, 
 and perhaps all go to town, which won't be bad for one who's 
 been a prey to all the desires born of dnlness for a decade. 
 Benson howls : there's life in the old dog yet ! He bays the 
 moon. Look at her. She doesn't care. It's the same to her 
 whether we coo like turtle-doves or roar like twenty lions. 
 Most beauteous moon ! How complacent she looks ! How 
 admirably equable ! And yet she has just as nauch sympathy 
 for Benson as for Cupid. She would smile on if both wer& 
 being birched. She is Perfect Justice. Was that a raven or 
 Benson ? He howls no more. It sounds guttural : frog-like' 
 — something between the brek-kek-kek and the hoarse raven's 
 croak. The fellow'U be killing him. It's time to go to the 
 rescue. A deliverer gets more honour by coming in at th& 
 last gasp than if he forestalled catastrophe. — Ho, there, 
 what's the matter ? " 
 
 So saying, the wise youth rose, and leisurely trotted to the- 
 scene of battle, where stood St. George puffing over the 
 prostrate Dragon. 
 
 " Holloa, Ricky ! is it you ? " said Adrian. " What's this ? 
 Whom have we here ? — Benson, as I live ! " 
 
 " Make this beast get up," Richard returned, breathing 
 hard, and shaking his great ash-branch. "Make him get 
 up." 
 
 " He seems incapable, my dear boy. What have you been 
 up to ? — Benson ! Benson 1 — I say, Ricky, this looks bad." 
 
 '' He's shamming ! " Richard clamoured like a savage. 
 " Spy upon me, will he ? I tell you, he's shamming. He 
 hasn't had half enough. Nothing's too bad for a spy. Let 
 him get up ! Let him get up ! " 
 
 " Insatiate youth ! do throw away that enormous weapon."' 
 
 " He has written to my father," Richard shouted. " The 
 miserable spy ! Let him get up ! Let him get up 1 " 
 
 " Ooogh ! I won't ! " huskily groaned Benson. " Mr. 
 Hadrian, you're a witness he's murdered — my back I " — 
 Cavernous noise* took up the tale of his maltreatment. 
 
 " I daresay you love your back better than any part of 
 your body now," Adrian muttered. " Come, Benson ! be a 
 man. Mr. Richard has thrown away the stick. Come, and 
 get off home, and let's see the extent of the damage." 
 
TREATMENT OF A DRAGON. 153 
 
 " Ooogh ! he's a devil ! Mr. Hadrian, sir, he's a devil I " 
 groaned Benson, turning half over in the road to ease his 
 aches. 
 
 Adrian caught hold of Benson's collar and lifted him to a 
 sitting posture. He then had a glimpse of what his hopeful 
 pupil's hand could do in wrath. The wretched butler's coat 
 was slit and welted ; his hat knocked in ; the stain of a tre- 
 mendous blow across his nose, which made one of his eyes 
 seem gone ; his flabby spirit so broken that he started and 
 trembled if his pitiless executioner stirred a foot. Richard 
 stood over him with folded arms, grasping his great stick j 
 no dawn of mercy for Benson in any corner of his features. 
 
 Benson screwed his neck round to look up at him, and 
 immediately gasped, " I won't get up ! I won't get up ! He's 
 ready to murder me again ! — Mr. Hadrian ! if you stand by 
 and see it, you're liable to the law, sir — I won't get up while 
 he's near." No persuasion could induce Benson to try his 
 legs while his executioner stood by. 
 
 Adrian took Richard aside: "You've almost killed tho 
 poor devil, Ricky. Tou must be satisfied with that. Look 
 at his face." 
 
 " The coward bobbed while I struck," said Richard. " I 
 marked his back. He ducked. I told him he was getting it 
 worse." 
 
 At this civilized piece of savagery, Adrian opened his. 
 mouth to shake out a coil of laughter. 
 
 " Did you really ? I admire that. Tou told him he was 
 getting it worse ? I thought you were in a passion. Beau- 
 tifully cool ! Bravo ! — Tou are politely informed that if you 
 take that posture, in the nature of things and by reasonable 
 calculation, you will get it worse." 
 
 Adrian opened his mouth again to shake another roll of 
 laughter out. 
 
 " Come," he said, " Excalibur has done his work. Pitch 
 him into the lake. And see — here comes the Blandish. Tou 
 can't be at it again before a woman. Go and meet her, and 
 tell her the noise was an ox being slaughtered. Or say 
 Argus." * 
 
 With a whirr that made all Benson's bruises moan and 
 quiver, the great ash-branch shot aloft, and Richard swung 
 off to intercept Lady Blandish. 
 
 Adrian got Benson on his feet. The heavy butler was dis* 
 
154 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 posed to summon all tlie commiseration, he could feel for hia 
 bruised flesli. Every talf-step he attem.pted was like a dis- 
 location. His groans and grunts were frightful. 
 
 " How much did that hat cost, Benson ? " said Adrian, as 
 lie put it on his head. 
 
 " A five-and-twenty shilling beaver, Mr. Hadrian ! " 
 Benson caressed its injuries. 
 
 " The cheapest policy of insurance I remember to have 
 heard of ! " said Adrian. " Never part with that hat, 
 Benson. Love it as you love yourself." 
 
 Benson staggered, naoaning at intervals to his cruel com- 
 forter — 
 
 " He's a devil, Mr. Hadrian ! He's a devil, sir, I do 
 believe, sir. Ooogh ! he's a devil ! — -I can't move, Mr. 
 Hadrian. I must be fetched. And Dr. Clifford must be 
 sent for, sir. I shall never be fit for work again. I haven't 
 a sound bone in my body, Mr. Hadrian." 
 
 " Tou see, Benson, this comes of your declaring war upon 
 Venus. 'Twas Venus, Venus struck the deadly blow ! I 
 hope the maids will nurse you properly. Let me see : you 
 are friends with the housekeeper, aren't you ? All depends 
 upon that." 
 
 " I'm only a faithful servant, Mr. Hadrian," the miserable 
 butler snarled. 
 
 " So you've got no friend but your bed. Get to it as quick 
 as possible, Benson." 
 
 " I can't move." Benson made a resolute halt. " I must 
 be fetched," he whinnied. " It's a shame to ask me to move, 
 Mr. Hadrian." 
 
 " Tou will admit that you are heavy, Benson," said 
 Adrian, " so I can't carry you. However, I see Mr. Richard 
 is very kindly returning to help me." 
 
 At these words heavy Benson instantly found his legs, and 
 shambled on. 
 
 Lady Blandish met Richard in dismay. 
 
 " I have been horribly frightened," she said. " Tell me, 
 what was the meaning of those cries I heard ? " 
 
 " Only some one doing justice on a spy," said Richard, and 
 the lady smiled, and looked on him fondly, and put her hand 
 through his hair. 
 
 " Was that all ? I should have done it myself if I had 
 lieen a man. Kiss me." 
 
EIOHAED HEAHS A SEEMOIJ'. 155 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 EICHAED IS SUMMONED TO TOWN TO HEAE A SEEMON. 
 
 Bt twelve o'clock at noon next day the inhabitants of 
 Raynham Abbey knew that Berry, the baronet's -man, bad 
 arrived post-baste from town, with orders to conduct Mr. 
 Richard thither, and that Mr. Richard had refused to go, had 
 sworn he would not, defied his father, and despatched Berry 
 to the Shades. Berry was all that Benson was not. Whereas 
 Benson hated woman. Berry admired her warmly. Second 
 to bis own stately person, woman occupied his reflections, 
 and commanded his homage. Berry was of majestic port, 
 and used dictionary words. Among the maids of Raynham 
 bis conscious calves produced all the discord and the frenzy 
 those adornments seem destined to create in tender bosoms. 
 He had, moreover, the reputation of having suffered terribly 
 for the sex ; which assisted his object in inducing the sex to 
 suffer terribly for him. What with his calves, and his dic- 
 tionary words, and the attractive halo of the mysterious 
 vindiotiveness of Venus surrounding him, this Adonis of the 
 lower household was a mighty man below, and he moved as 
 one. 
 
 On hearing the tumult that followed Berry's arrival, 
 Adrian sent for him, and was informed of the nature of his 
 mission, and its result. 
 
 " You should come to me first," said Adrian. " I should 
 have imagined you were shrewd enough for that. Berry ? " 
 
 " Pardon me, Mr. Adrian," Berry doubled his elbow to 
 explain. "Pardon, me, sir. Acting recipient of special 
 injunctions I was not a free agent." 
 
 Adrian tacitly acknowledged the ohoiceness of the phrase- 
 ology, and asked if he had seen Benson. 
 
 " I have enjoyed an interview with Mr. Benson, sir." 
 
 " I daresay you did enjoy it. Berry ! " 
 
 Berry protested : " On my honour, sir ! From the pleni- 
 tude of health and spirits I regarded Mr. Benson with pro- 
 found — a — ^profound " a word fine enough for his emotion 
 
 seemed wanting. 
 
156 THE OKDEAL OF KICHAKD FEVEREL. 
 
 " Mr. Richard have shattered his ganglions, sir." 
 
 " His what ? " Adrian asked. 
 
 Berry corrected the casual error : " I should say, his idio- 
 shincrazy, sir." 
 
 " Accentuate the fourth, not the fifth syllable, Berry." 
 
 "Exactly, sir." 
 
 " And now go to Mr. Richard again. Berry. There will be 
 a little confusion if he holds bact. Just go to him, and per- 
 -■:;— -haps you had better throw out a hint or so of apoplexy. A 
 ^ slight hint will do. And here — Berry ! when you return to 
 town, you had better not mention anything — to quote John- 
 son — of Benson's spiflication." 
 
 " Certainly not, sir." 
 
 Berry retired, saying to himself, " What I like, is to con- 
 fabulate with educated people. Tou always learn something 
 new from them." And he drew forth his pocket- Johnson that 
 he might commit the new words he had learnt to memory. 
 
 The wise youth's hint had the desired effect on Richard. 
 
 He dashed off a hasty letter by Tom to Belthorpe, and, 
 mounting his horse, galloped to the Bellingham station. 
 
 Sir Austin was sitting down to a quiet early dinner at his 
 hotel, when the Hope of Raynham burst into his room. 
 
 The baronet was not angry with his son. On the contrary, 
 for he was singularly just and self -accusing while 'pride was 
 not up in arms, he had been thinking all day after the receipt 
 of Benson's letter that he was deficient in cordiality, and did 
 not, by reason of his excessive anxiety, make himself suffi- 
 ciently his son's companion : was not enough, as he strove to 
 be, mother and father to him; preceptor and friend; previsos 
 and associate. He had not to ask his conscience where he had 
 lately been to blame towards the System. He had slunk 
 away from Raynham in the very crisis of the Magnetic Age, 
 and this young woman of the parish (as Benson had termed 
 sweet Lucy in his letter) was the consequence. 
 
 Yes ! pride and sensitiveness were his chief foes, and he 
 would trample on them. Tobegin, he embraced his son: hard 
 upon an Englishman at any time — doubly so to one so shame- 
 faced at emotion in cool blood, as it were. It gave him a 
 strange pleasure, nevertheless. And the youth seemed to 
 answer to it ; he was excited. Was his love, then, commenc- 
 ing to correspond with his father's as in those intimate days 
 before the Blossoming Season ? 
 
EICHAED HEARS A SBEMON. 157 
 
 But when Richard, inarticulate at first in his haste, cried 
 out, " My dear, dear father ! You are safe ! I feared— You 
 are better, sir ? Thank God !" Sir Austin stood away from 
 him. 
 
 " Safe ?" he said. " What has alarmed you P" 
 
 Instead of replying, Richard dropped into a chair, and 
 seized his hand and kissed it, murmuring again that he 
 thanked God. 
 
 Sir Austin took a seat, and waited for his son to explain. 
 
 " Those doctors are such fools !" Richard broke out. " 1 
 was sure they were wrong. They don't know headache from 
 apoplexy. It's worth the ride, sir, to see you. You left 
 Raynham so suddenly — But you are well ! It was not an 
 attack of real apoplexy ?" 
 
 His father's brows contorted, and he said, No, it was not. 
 Richard pursued : 
 
 " If you were ill, I couldn't come too soon, though, if 
 coroner's inquests sat on horses, those doctors would be 
 found guilty of mare-slaughter. Cassandra '11 be knocked 
 up. I was too early for the train at Bellingham, and I 
 wouldn't wait. She did the distance in four hours and 
 three-quarters. Pretty good, sir, wasn't it ?" 
 
 " It has given you appetite for dinner, I hope," said the 
 baronet, not so well pleased to find that it was not simple 
 obedience that had brought the youth to him in such haste. 
 
 " I'm ready," replied Richard. " I shall be in time to 
 return by the last train to-night. I will leave Cassandra in 
 your charge for a rest." 
 
 His father quietly helped him to soup, which he com- 
 menced gobbling with an eagerness that might pass for 
 appetite. 
 
 " All well at Raynham ?" said the baronet. 
 
 " Quite, sir." 
 
 " Nothing new ?" 
 
 "Nothing, sir." 
 
 " The same as when I left ?" 
 
 " No change whatever !" 
 
 " I shall be glad to get back to the old place," said the 
 baronet. " My stay in town has certainly been profitable. 
 I have made some pleasant acquaintances who may probably 
 favour us with a visit there in the late autumn — people you 
 may be pleased to know. They are very anxious to see 
 Raynham." 
 
158 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 " I love tlie old place," cried Ricliard. " I never wish to 
 leave it." 
 
 "Why, hoy, hefore I left you 'were constantly hegging- tO' 
 see town." 
 
 " Was I, sir ? How odd ! Well ! I don't want to remain 
 here. I've seen enough of it." 
 
 " How did you find your way to me ?" 
 
 Richard laughed, and related his bewilderment at the 
 miles of brick, and the noise, and the troops of people, con- 
 cluding, " There's no place like home !" 
 
 The baronet watched his symptomatic brilliant eyes, and 
 favoured him with a double-dealing sentence — 
 
 " To anchor the heart by any object ere we have half tra- 
 versed the world, is youth's foolishness, my son. Reverence- 
 time ! A better maxim that than your Horatian." 
 
 " He knows all !" thought Richard, and instantly drew 
 away leagues from his father, and threw up fortifications 
 round his love and himself. 
 
 Dinner over, Richard looked hurriedly at his watch, and 
 said, with much briskness, " I shall just be in time, sir, if 
 we walk. Will you come with me to the station ?" 
 
 The baronet did not answer. 
 
 Richard was going to repeat the question, but found his 
 father's eyes fixed on him so meaningly that he wavered, 
 and played with his empty glass. 
 
 " I think we will have a little more claret," said the- 
 baronet. 
 
 Claret was brought, and they were left alone. 
 
 The baronet then drew within arm's-reach of his son, and 
 began : 
 
 " I am not aware what you may have thought of me,. 
 Richard, during the years we have lived together ; and in- 
 deed I have never been in a hurry to be known to you ; and, 
 if I had died before my work was done, I should not have 
 complained at losing half raj reward, in hearing you thank 
 me. Perhaps, as it is, I never may. Everything, save 
 selfishness, has its recompense. I shall be content if you 
 prosper." 
 
 He fetched a breath and continued : " Tou had in your 
 infancy a great loss." Father and son coloured simultane- 
 ously. " To make that good to you I chose to isolate myseK 
 from the world, and devote myself entirely to your welfare y. 
 
MCHAED HEAES A SEEMON. 159 
 
 and I ttink it is not vanity that tells me now tBat the son I 
 have reared is one of the most hopeful of God's creatures. 
 But for that very reason you are open to be tempted the 
 most, and to sink the deepest. It was the first of the angels 
 who made the road to hell." 
 
 He paused again. Richard fingered at his watch. 
 
 " In our House, my son, there is peculiar blood. "We go 
 to wreck very easily. It sounds like superstition ; I cannot 
 but think we are tried as most men are not. I see it in us 
 all. And you, my son, are compounded of two races. Tom- 
 passions are violent. You have had a taste of revenge. Tou 
 have seen, in a small way, that the pound of flesh draws 
 rivers of blood. But there is now in you another power. 
 Tou are mounting to the table-land of life, where mimia 
 battles are changed to real ones. And you come upon it 
 laden equally with force to create and to destroy." He de- 
 liberated to announce the intelligence, with deep meaning : 
 " There are women in the world, my son ! " 
 
 The yoimg man's heart galloped back to Raynham. 
 
 The baronet gravely repeated his last sentence. 
 
 " It is when you encounter them that you are thoroughly 
 on trial. It is when you know them that life is either a 
 mockery to you, or, as some find it, a gift of blessedness. 
 They are our ordeal. Love of any human object is the 
 Boul's ordeal; and they are ours, loving them, or not." 
 
 The young man heard the whistle of the train. He saw 
 the moon-lighted wood, and the vision of his beloved. He 
 could barely hold himself down and listen. 
 
 " I believe," the baronet spoke with little of the cheerful- 
 ness of belief, "good women exist." 
 
 Oh, if he knew Lucy ! 
 
 " But," and the baronet gazed on Richard intently, " it is 
 given to very few to meet them on the threshold — I may say, 
 to none. We find them after hard buffeting, and usually, 
 when we find the one fitted for us, our madness has mis- 
 shaped our destiny, our lot is cast. For women are not the 
 end, but the means, of life. In youth we think them the 
 former, and thousands, who have not even the excuse of 
 youth, select a mate — or worse — with that sole view. I 
 believe women punish us for so perverting their uses. They 
 punish Society." 
 
 The baronet put his hand to his brow as his mind travelled 
 into consequences. 
 
1 60 THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FBVERBL. 
 
 ' Our most diligent pupil learns not so mucli as an earnest 
 teacher,' says the Pilgrim's Scrip ; and Sir Austin, in 
 schooling himself to speak with moderation of women, was 
 beginning to get a glimpse of their side of the case. 
 
 Cold Blood now touched on love to Hot Blood. 
 
 Cold Blood said, " It is a passion coming in the order of 
 nature, the ripe fruit of our animal being." 
 
 Hot Blood felt : " It is a divinity ! All that is worth, 
 living for in the world." 
 
 Cold Blood said : " It is a fever which tests our strength, 
 and too often leads to perdition." 
 
 Hot Blood felt: " Lead whither it will, I follow it." 
 
 Cold Blood said: "It is a name men and women are much 
 in the habit of employing to sanctify their appetites." 
 
 Hot Blood felt : " It is worship ; religion ; life I " 
 
 And so the two parallel lines ran on. 
 
 The baronet became more personal : 
 
 " Tou know my love for you, my son. The extent of it you 
 cannot know ; but you must know that it is something very 
 deep, and — I do not wish to speak of it — but a father must 
 sometimes petition for gratitude, since the only true expres- 
 sion of it is his son's moral good. If you care for my love, 
 or love me in return, aid me with all your energies to keep 
 you what I have made you, and guard you from the snares 
 besetting you. It was in my hands once. It is cea.sing to 
 be so. Remember, my son, what my love is. It is different, 
 I fear, with most fathers : but I am bound up in your wel- 
 fare : what you do affects me vitally. Tou will take no 
 step that is not intimate with my happiness, or my misery. 
 And I have had great disappointments, my son." 
 
 So far it was well. Richard loved his father, and even in 
 his frenzied state be could not without emotion hear him 
 thus speak. 
 
 Unhappily, the baronet, who by some fatality never could 
 see when he was winning the battle, thought proper in his 
 wisdom to water the dryness of his sermon with a little 
 iocoseness, on the subject of young men fancying themselves 
 m love, and, when they were raw and green, absolutely 
 wanting to be — that most awful thing, which the wisest and 
 strongest of men undertake in hesitation and after self- 
 mortification and penance — married! He sketched the 
 Foolish Toung Fellow — the object of general ridicule and 
 
EICHAKD HBAES A SEKMON. 161 
 
 covert contempt. He sketched the Woman — tlie st]range 
 thing made in our image, and with all our faculties — passing 
 to the rule of one who in taking her proved that he could not 
 rule himself, and had no knowledge of her save as a choice 
 morsel which he would burn the whole world, and himself in 
 the bargain, to possess. He harped upon the Foolish Young 
 Fellow, till the foolish young fellow felt his skin tingle and 
 was half suffocated with shame and rage. 
 
 After this, the baronet might be as wise as he pleased : he 
 had quite undone his work. He might analyze Love and 
 anatomize Woman. He might accord to her her due position, 
 and paint her fair: he might be shrewd, jocose, gentle, 
 pathetic, wonderfully wise : he spoke to deaif ears. 
 
 Closing his sermon with the question, softly uttered: 
 " Have you anything to tell me, Richard ? " and hoping for 
 a confession, and a thorough re-establishment of confidence, 
 the callous answer struck him cold : " I have not." 
 
 The baronet relapsed in his chair, and made diagrams of 
 his fingers. 
 
 Richard turned his back on further dialogue by going to 
 the window. In the section of sky over the street twinkled 
 two or three stars ; shining faintly, feeling the moon. The 
 moon was rising : the woods were lifting up to her : his star 
 of the woods would be there. A bed of moss set about 
 flowers in a basket under him breathed to his nostril of the 
 woodland keenly, and filled him with delirious longing. 
 
 A succession of great sighs brought his father's hand on 
 his shoulder. 
 
 " You have nothing you could say to me, my son ? Tell 
 me, Richard ! Remember, there is no home for the soul 
 where dwells a shadow of untruth ! " 
 
 " Nothing at all, sir," the young man replied, meeting him 
 with the full orbs of his eyes. 
 
 The baronet withdrew his hand, and paced the room. 
 
 At last it grew impossible for Richard to control his 
 impatience, and he said : " Do you intend me to stay here, 
 sir ? Am I not to return to Raynham at all to-night ? " 
 
 The baronet was again falsely jocular : 
 
 " What ? and catch the train after giving it ten minutes' 
 start ? " 
 
 " Cassandra will take me," said the young man earnestly. 
 " I needn't ride her hard, sir. Or perhaps you would lend 
 
 M 
 
162 THE OBDEAL OF RICHARD FEVERBL. 
 
 me your Winkelried ? I should be down with him in little 
 better than three hours." 
 
 " Even then, you know, the park-gates would be looked." 
 
 " Well, I could stable him in the village. Dowling knows 
 the horse, and would treat him properly. May I have him, 
 sir ? " 
 
 The cloud cleared off Richard's face as he asked. At least, 
 if he missed his love that night he would be near her, 
 breathing the same air, marking what star was above her 
 bed-chamber, hearing the hushed night-talk of the trees 
 about her dwelling : looking on the distances that were like 
 hope half fulfilled and a bodily presence bright as Hesper, 
 since he knew her. There were two swallows under the 
 eaves shadowing Lucy's chamber- windows : two swallows, 
 mates in one nest, blissful birds, who twittered and cheep- 
 cheeped to the sole-lying beauty in her bed. Around these 
 birds the lover's heart revolved, he knew not why. He asso- 
 ciated them with all his close- veiled dreams of happiness. 
 Seldom a morning passed when he did not watch them leave 
 the nest on their breakfast-flight, busy in the happy stillness 
 of dawn. It seemed to him now that if he could be at Rayn- 
 ham to see them in to-morrow's dawn he would be compen- 
 sated for his incalculable loss of to-night : he would forgive 
 and love his father, London, the life, the world. Just to see 
 those purple backs and white breasts flash out into the quiet 
 morning air ! He wanted no more. 
 
 The baronet's trifling had placed this enormous boon 
 within the young man's visionary grasp. 
 
 He still went on trying the temper of poor Tantalus — 
 
 " Ton know there would be nobody ready for you at Rayn- 
 ham. It is unfair to disturb the maids." 
 
 Richard overrode every objection. 
 
 " Well, then, my son," said the baronet, preserving his 
 half -jocular air, " I must tell you that it is my wish to have 
 you in town." 
 
 " Then you have not been ill at all, sir ! " cried Richard, 
 as in his despair he seized the whole plot. 
 
 " I have been as well as you could have desired me to be," 
 said his father. 
 
 " Why did they lie to me P " the young man wrathfully 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "I think, Richard, you can best answer that," rejoined 
 Sir Austin, kindly severe. 
 
THE APPROACHES OF FEVER. 163 
 
 Dread of being signalized as the FoolisH roung Tello-w 
 prevented Richard from expostulating further. Sir Austin 
 saw him grinding his passion into powder for future 
 explosion, and thought it best to leave him for awhile. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 INDICATES THE APPEOACHES OP FEVEE. 
 
 Foe three weeks Richard had to remain in town and 
 endure the teachings of the System in a new atmosphere. 
 He had to sit and listen to men of science who came to 
 renew their intimacy with his father, and whom of all men. 
 his father wished him to respect and study; practically 
 scientific men being, in the baronet's estimation, the only 
 minds thoroughly mated and enviable. He had to endure 
 an introduction to the Grandisons, and meet the eyes of 
 his kind, haunted as he was by the Foolish Toung Fellow. 
 The idea that he might by any chance be identified with 
 him held the poor youth in silent subjection. And it was 
 horrible. For it was a continued outrage on the fair image 
 he had in his heart. The notion of the world laughing at 
 him because he loved sweet Lucy stung him to momentary 
 frenzies, and developed premature misanthropy in his spirit. 
 Also the System desired to show him whither young women 
 of the parish lead us, and he was dragged about at night- 
 time to see the sons and daughters of darkness, after the 
 fashion prescribed to Mr. Thompson ; how they danced and 
 ogled down the high road of perdition. But from this sight 
 possibly the teacher learnt more than his pupil, since we find 
 him seriously asking his meditative hours, in the Note-book : 
 "Wherefore Wild Oats are only of one gender? " a question 
 certainly not suggested to him at Raynham ; and again — 
 " Whether men might not be attaching too rigid an import- 
 ance ? . . ." to a subject with a dotted tail apparently, for 
 he gives it no other in the Note-book. But, as I apprehend, 
 he had come to plead in behalf of women here, and had 
 deduced something from positive observation. To Richard 
 the scenes he witnessed were strange wild pictures, likely if 
 
 m2 
 
164 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAKD FEVEEEL. 
 
 anything to have increased his misanthropy, but for his 
 love. 
 
 Mrs. Grrandison appeared to be in raptures with the son of 
 a System. What her daughters thought of a young gentle- 
 man who did nothing but frown and bite his lips in their 
 company may be imagined. With Carola, however, he got 
 on better. 
 
 Riding in the park one morning, Carola beheld her 
 intended galloping furiously down the Row, and left her 
 sister Clementina's side to waylay him. He pulled up 
 smartly, and this young person's frank accost was — 
 
 " I say ! are you afraid of girls ? " 
 
 He stared at her and did his salute laughing, upon which 
 she said — 
 
 " No, I see you're not. My sisters all say you are. I 
 should think you were not afraid of anything. A man 
 afraid of girls ! I never heard the like ! " 
 
 " Well ! " said Richard, " at all events I'm not afraid of 
 you. Are you a girl ?■ " 
 
 Carola immediately became pensive. 
 
 " Tes," she sighed, striping her pony's ears with her whip, 
 " I'm afraid I am ! I used to keep hoping once that I wasn't. 
 I'm afraid it's no use." She seriously shook her curls, and 
 looked up at him. Richard shouted with laughter. 
 
 " But what do you want to be ? " he asked, scrutinizing 
 the comical young person. 
 
 "A boy, to be sure ! " said Carola, and pouted proudly, as 
 if the wish had raised her out of her sex. At this Richard 
 laughed again and took to the young woman. They trotted 
 on in company. Within five minutes he had all the secrets 
 of the family. 
 
 " When I like anybody," said Carola, " I always speak out 
 everything I know." 
 
 " And you like me ? " 
 
 " Tes, I do. What do you think they call your father ? — 
 The Griffin ! That's what they call him. I don't know why. 
 I like him. Do you know who gave me this pony ? He did, 
 to be sure ! He bought it the day after my birthday. He's 
 fonder of me than you are. I like fathers better than 
 mothers. My pa and ma don't agree. I say 1 what may I 
 call you ? " 
 
 Richard gave her permission to call him what sha 
 pleased. 
 
THE APPEOACHES OF FEVER. 165 
 
 " Well, then, Richard — if you don't really mind. What a 
 nice fellow you are, and we all thought you so nasty ! I 
 was going to say, I wish they'd let us ride our ponies stride- 
 ways ? " 
 
 Richard, with all the muscles of his face in play, lamented 
 the severe restriction. 
 
 " It's so much handier," Carola continued. " Look at 
 this ! all one side ! — I used to when I was little, though. 
 Not here, you know, — in the country. And ma knew of it. 
 She didn't interfere. She wanted me to be a hoy. If I call 
 you Richard, you'll call me Carl, won't you ? That's the 
 German for Charles. In the country the boys call me 
 Charley. Can't I ride slapping ? " 
 
 " Capital ! " said Richard. " Let's have a gallop." 
 
 After a short heat, Carola slackened her pace to re- 
 commence : 
 
 " Do you know why none of my sisters'U have you ? 
 Because they've all got lovers themselves — all but me. 
 And they have letters from them, too, and write back. I 
 shouldn't know what to say. Ma would let us have you, 
 but she wouldn't let us have anybody else." 
 
 " Really ? " said Richard. 
 
 "Yes," Carola nodded. "Ma says you are going to be a 
 hero. One of us is to be married to you. Do you call me 
 good-looking ? " 
 
 Richard complimented her by saying he thought she 
 would grow to be a very handsome chap. 
 
 Carola assured him she could not think it. " My nose 
 turns up, and my cheeks are so red. Pa calls them cabbage- 
 roses. I don't mind the ' roses,' but I can't bear the ' cab- 
 bage ' ! Why is it you laugh so ? " 
 
 " Because you're such a funny fellow, Carl." 
 
 " Am I ? Do you like funny fellows ? " 
 
 " Of course I do. The funny fellows are always my best 
 friends." 
 
 " Why, now, that's just like me," exclaimed Carola. 
 "We're just alike. I hate people who mope. I thought 
 you moped at first. I suppose you were only a little put 
 out — weren't you ? " 
 
 " Only a little," sighed poor Richard. 
 
 " I declare if you don't talk exactly like my sister Clem ! 
 —She's moping in love you know, — Richard ! " 
 
166 THE OKDEAL OF EICHAKD FEVEEEL. 
 
 "Well, old friend?" 
 
 " Tou don't hear me. Why are you so sad in a minute ? 
 Why do you call me ' old friend ' ? " 
 
 " Because " — he bent down and put his hand on her neck 
 — "because, because — well ! why ? — I suppose it's because I 
 like you better than any of my new friends." 
 
 " Do you ? " cried the joyful Carola, clapping her hands 
 " That's right ! I'm so glad. Mind you always do, 
 Richard !— won't you ? And I will you. Are you fond of 
 theatres ? " 
 
 Richard informed her he had never been to one in his 
 life, which caused lively astonishment to Miss Carl. 
 
 " Then you don't know what a beautiful lady is if you've 
 never been to a theatre," she said authoritatively. 
 
 " I'm afraid I do ! " replied the lover. 
 
 " There you are again — just like Olem ! — Are you in love, 
 too ? Oh, I hope it isn't with Clem ! She'll never have 
 you. I heard her say she'd die first. I did indeed ! — It's a 
 secret — his name's Walter. I've seen her letters : Lieutenant 
 Papworth, in the Hussars. She begins them — ' Dearest, 
 dearest Walter ! ' — and they take her hours to write — I 
 shouldn't write like that. I should say, ' Dear Richard ! I 
 love you. I hope we shall be married soon. Your faithful 
 Carl.' That would do— wouldn't it ? " 
 
 Richard looked down upon her with something like veri- 
 table affection. Almost every turn in the artless little maid's 
 prattle touched a new mood in him, and beguiled away his 
 melancholy. 
 
 " That would just do," he said. " All we want is to be 
 married soon I " 
 
 Carola flushed up and was quiet. Clementina cantered to 
 join them, bowing distantly to Richard, as if anything like 
 familiarity involved the fate of her adored hussar. 
 
 After this conversation with the daughter of a System, 
 Richard informed his father that he thought girls were very 
 like boys. 
 
 " I think they are," said his father. " I am beginning to 
 think that the subsequent immense distinction is less one 
 of sex than of education. They are drilled into hypo- 
 crites.'' 
 
 " When they much prefer riding strideways," said Richard, 
 and repeated some of his young friend's remarks, which his 
 
THE APPEOACHES OF FEVEE. 167 
 
 father evidently thought charming, and chuckled over fre- 
 quently. A girl so like a hoy was quite his ideal of a girl. 
 
 Certain sweet little notes from Lucy sustained the lover 
 during the first two weeks of exile. Suddenly they ceased ; 
 and now Richard fell into such despondency that his father 
 in alarm had to take measures to hasten their return to 
 Raynham. At the close of the third week Berry laid a pair 
 of letters, bearing the Raynham post-mark, on the break- 
 fast-table, and, after reading one attentively, the baronet 
 asked his son if he was inclined to quit the metropolis. 
 
 " For Raynham, sir ? " cried Richard, and relapsed, say- 
 ing, " As you will ! " aware that he had given a glimpse of 
 the Foolish Young Fellow. 
 
 Berry accordingly received orders to make arrangements 
 for their instant return to Raynham. 
 
 The letter Sir Austin lifted his head from to bespeak his 
 son's wishes was a composition of the wise youth Adrian's, 
 and ran thus : 
 
 " Benson is doggedly recovering. He requires great in- 
 demnities. Happy when a faithful fool is the maia sufferer 
 in a household ! I qtiite agree with you that a faithful fool 
 is the best servant of great schemes. Benson is now a piece 
 of history. I tell him that this is indemnity enough, and 
 that the sweet Muse usually insists upon gentlemen being 
 half- flayed before she will condescend to notice them ; but 
 Benson, I regret to say, ignobly rejects the comfort so fine a 
 reflection should offer, and had rather keep his skin and live 
 opaque. Heroism seems partly a matter of training. Faith- 
 ful folly is Benson's nature : the rest has been thrust upon 
 him. 
 
 " The young person has resigned the neighbourhood. 1 
 had an interview with the fair Papist myself, and also with 
 the man Blaize. They were both very sensible, though one 
 swore and the other sighed. She is pretty. I hope she 
 does not paint. As to her appearance she would affect 
 Adam more than me ; but, as I did not see her as Eve was 
 seen, I cannot tell how the likeness may be. I can afiirm 
 that her legs are strong, for she walks to Bellingham twice 
 a week to take her Scarlet bath, when, having confessed and 
 been made clean by the Romish unction, she walks back 
 the brisker, of which my Protestant muscular system is yet 
 
168 THE ORDEAL OF BICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 ■aware. It was on tlie road to Bellingliam I engaged her. 
 Slie is well in tlie matter of tair. Madam Godiva might 
 'cliaUenge ter, it would be a fair matcli. Has it never struck 
 jou • that Woman is nearer the vegetable than Man ? — 
 Mr. Blaize intends her for his son — a junction that every 
 lover of fairy mythology must desire to see consummated. 
 Young Tom is heir to all the agre'mens of the Beast. The 
 maids of Lobonme say (I hear) that he is a very Proculus 
 among them. Possibly the envious men say it for the 
 maids. Beauty does not speak bad grammar — and alto- 
 gether she is better out of the way. Allow me to congratu- 
 late you on having found B,ichard's unripe half in good con- 
 dition, and rosy. I shall be glad to see the original man 
 again, to whom his Tutor's salute and benediction." 
 
 The other letter was from Lady Blandish, a lady's letter, 
 and said : 
 
 " I have fulfilled your commission to the best of my ability, 
 and heartily sad it has made me. She is indeed very much 
 above her station — pity that it is so ! She is almost beauti- 
 ful — quite beautiful at times, and not in any way what you 
 have been led to fancy. The poor child had no story to tell. 
 I have again seen her, and talked with her for an hour as 
 kindly as I could. I could gather nothing more than we 
 know. It is just a woman's history as it invariably com- 
 mences (not with all — Is it fortunate for us, or the reverse ?) 
 Richard is the god of her idolatry. She will renounce him, 
 and sacrifice herself for his sake. Are we so bad ? She 
 asked me what she was to do. She would do whatever was 
 imposed upon her — all but pretend to love another, and that 
 she never would, and, I believe, never will. Ton know I am 
 sentimental, and I confess we dropped a few tears together. 
 Her uncle has sent her for the winter to the institution 
 where it appears she was educated, and where they are very 
 fond of her and want to keep her, which it would be a good 
 thing if they were to do. The man is a good sort of man. 
 She was entrusted to him by her father, and he never inter- 
 feres with her religion, and is very scrupulous about all that 
 pertains to it, though, as he says, he is a Christian himself. 
 In the Spring (but the poor child does not know this) she is 
 to come back, and be married to his lout of a son. I am 
 
THE APPKOACHES OF FEVEE. 169 
 
 determined to prevent that. May I not reckon on your pro- 
 mise to aid me ? When you see her, I am sure you will. 
 It would be sacrilege to look on and permit sucli a thing. 
 Tou know, they are cousins. She asked me, where in the 
 world was there one like Richard ? What could I answer ? 
 They were your own words, and spoken with a depth of 
 conviction ! I hope he is really calm. I shudder to think 
 of him when he comes, and discovers what I have heen 
 doing. I hope I have been really doing right ! A good 
 deed, you say, never dies ; hut we cannot always know — I 
 must rely on you. Tes, it is, I should think, easy to suffer 
 martyrdom when one is sure of one's cause ! but then one 
 musi be sure of it. I have done nothing lately but to repeat 
 to myself that saying of yours, No. 54, C. 7, P.S. ; and it has 
 consoled me, I cannot say why, except that all wisdom con- 
 soles, whether it applies directly or not : 
 
 " ' For this reason so many fall from Ood, who have attained 
 to Him ; that they cling to Him, with their Weakness, not with 
 their Strength.' 
 
 "I like to know of what you were thinking when you 
 composed this or that saying — what suggested it. May not 
 one be admitted to inspect the machinery of wisdom ? I 
 feel curious to know how thoughts — real thoughts — are bom. 
 Not that I hope to win the secret. Here is the beginning 
 of one (but we poor women can never put together even two 
 of the three ideas which you say go to form a thought) : 
 ' When a wise man makes a false step, will he not go farther 
 than a fool ?' It has just flitted through me. 
 
 " I cannot get on with Gibbon, so wait your return to 
 recommence the readings. I dislike the sneering essence of 
 his writings. I keep referring to his face, until the dislike 
 seems to become personal. How different is it with Words- 
 worth ! And yet I cannot escape from the thought that he 
 is always solemnly thinking of himself (but I do reverence 
 him) . But this is curious ; Byron was a greater egoist, and 
 yet I do not feel the same with him. He reminds me of a 
 beast of the desert, savage and beautiful ; and the former is 
 what one would imagine a superior donkey reclaimed from 
 the heathen to be — a very superior donkey, I mean, with 
 great power of speech and great natural complacency, and 
 
170 THE OEDEAL OF KICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 "whose stubbornness you must admire as part of bis mission. 
 The worst is that no one will imagine anything sublime in 
 a superior donkey, so my simile is ujifair and false. Is it 
 not strange ? I love Wordsworth best, and yet Byron has 
 the greater power over me. How is that ?" 
 
 (" Because," Sir Austin wrote beside the query in pencil, 
 " women are cowards, and succumb to Irony and Passion, 
 rather than yield their hearts to Excellence and Nature's 
 Inspiration.") 
 
 The letter pursued : 
 
 " I have finished Boiardo and have taken up Bemi. The 
 latter olf ends me. I suppose we women do not really care for 
 humour. You are right in saying we have none ourselves, and 
 ' cackle' instead of laugh. It is true (of me, at least) that 
 ' Falstaff is only to us an incorrigible fat man.' I want to 
 know what he illustrates. And Don Quixote — what end can 
 be served in making a noble mind ridiculous ? — I hear you 
 say — practical ! So it is. We are very narrow, I know. 
 But we like wit — practical again ! Or in your words (when 
 I really think they generally come to my aid — perhaps it is 
 that it is often all your thought) ; we ' prefer the rapier 
 thrust, to the broad embrace, of Intelligence.' By the way, 
 is there a characteristic in Mrs. Grandison ? Or is she only 
 good ? If so, how tired you must be ! I hope Richard really is 
 beginning to take an interest in the child. I sincerely trust 
 that this young creature is not so good as her mother. I wish 
 indeed the experiment were well ' launched through the 
 surf,' as you do us the honour to term it. 
 
 " Heigho ! I have given up a season to you. What is to 
 be my reward ? " 
 
 Something, no doubt, the baronet had in store for her, and 
 possibly the lady's instinct made her meditate on the day 
 when Richard should be "launched through the surf" in 
 earnest. 
 
 He trifled with the letter for some time, re-reading chosen 
 passages as he walked about the room, and considering he 
 scarce knew what. There are ideas language is too gross 
 for, and shape too arbitrary, which come to us and have 
 a definite influence upon us, and yet we cannot fasten on the 
 filmy things and make them visible and distinct to ourselves, 
 much less to others. Why did he twice throw a look into 
 
THE APPEOACHES OF FEVER. 171 
 
 the glass in the act of passing it? Why did he for a 
 moment stand with erect head facing it ? His eyes for the 
 nonce seemed little to peruse his outer features ; the grey- 
 gathered brows, and the wrinkles much action of them had 
 traced over the circles half up his high straight forehead ; 
 the iron-grey hair that rose over his forehead and fell away 
 in the fashion oE Richard's plume. His general appearance 
 showed the tints of years ; hut none of their weight, and 
 nothing of the dignity of his youth, was gone. It was so far 
 satisfactory, but his eyes were wide, as one who looks at his 
 essential self through the mask we wear. Perhaps he was 
 speculating as he looked on the sort of aspect he presented 
 to the lady's discriminative regard. Of her feelings he had 
 not a suspicion. But he knew with what extsaordinary 
 lucidity women can, when it pleases them, and when their 
 feelings are not quite boiling under the noonday sun, seize 
 all the sides of a character, and put their fingers on its weak 
 point. He was cognizant of the total absence of the humor- 
 ous in himself (the want that most shut him out from his 
 fellows), and perhaps the clear- thoughted intensely self- 
 examining gentleman filmily conceived. Me also, in common 
 with the poet, she gazes on as one of the superior — grey 
 beasts ! 
 
 He may have so conceived the case ; he was capable of that 
 great-mindedness, and could at times snatch very luminous 
 glances at the broad reflector which the world of fact lying 
 outside our narrow compass holds up for us to see ourselves 
 in when we will. Unhappily, the faculty of laughter, which 
 is due to this gift, was denied him ; and having once seen, 
 he, like the companion of friend Balaam, could go no farther. 
 For a good wind of laughter had relieved him of much of the 
 blight of self-deception, and oddness, and extravagance ; had 
 given a healthier view of our atmosphere of life ; but he had 
 it not. 
 
 Journeying back to Bellingham in the train, with the 
 heated brain and brilliant eye of his son beside him. Sir 
 Austin tried hard to feel infallible, as a man with a System 
 should feel ; and because he could not do so, after much 
 mental conflict, he descended to entertain a personal antagon- 
 ism to the young woman who had stepped in between his 
 experiment and success. He did not think kindly of her. 
 Lady Blandish's encomiums of her behaviour and her beauty 
 
172 THE OEDEAL OP RICHARD I'EVEEEL. 
 
 annoyed him. Forgetful that he had in a measure forfeited 
 his rights to it,, he took the common ground of fathers, and 
 demanded, " Why he was not justified in doing all that lay 
 in his power to prevent his son from casting himself away 
 upon the first creature with a pretty face he encountered ? " 
 Deliberating thus, he lost the tenderness he should have had 
 for his experiment — the living, burning youth at his elbow, 
 and his excessive love for him took a rigorous tone. It 
 appeared to him politic, reasonable, and just, that the uncle 
 of this young woman, who had so long nursed the prudent 
 scheme of marrying her to his son, should not only not be 
 thwarted in his object but encouraged and even assisted. 
 At least, not thwarted. Sir Austin had no glass before him 
 while these ideas hardened in his mind, and he had rather 
 forgotten the letter of Lady Blandish. 
 
 Father and son were alone in the railway carriage. Both 
 were too pre-occupied to speak. As they neared Bellingham, 
 the dark was filling the hollows of the country. Over the 
 pine-hills beyond the station a last rosy streak lingered 
 across a green sky. Richard eyed t while they flew along. 
 It caught him forward : it seemed full of the spirit of his 
 love, and brought tears of mournful longing to his eyelids. 
 The sad beauty of that one spot in the heavens seemed to 
 call out to his soul to swear to his Lucy's truth to him : was 
 like the sorrowful visage of his fleur-de-luce, as he called her, 
 appealing to him for faith. That tremulous tender way she 
 had of half-closing and catching light on the nether-lids, 
 when sometimes she looked up in her lover's face — a look so 
 mystic-sweet it had grown to be the fountain of his dreams : 
 he saw it yonder, and his blood thrilled. 
 
 Know you those wand-like touches of I know not what, 
 before which our grosser being melts, and we, ranch as we 
 hope to be in the Awaking, stand etherealized, trembling 
 with new joy ? They come but rarely ; rarely even in love, 
 when we fondly think them revelations. Mere sensations 
 they are, doubtless : and we rank for them no higher in the 
 spiritual scale than so many translucent glorious polypi that 
 quiver on the shores, the hues of heaven running through 
 them. Tet in the harvest of our days it is something for 
 the animal to have had such mere fleshly polypian experi- 
 ences to look back upon, and they give him an horizon — pale 
 seas of luring splendour. One who has had them (when they 
 
THE APPKO ACHES OF FEVBE. 173 
 
 do not bound him) may find tlie Isles of Bliss sooner than 
 another. Sensual faith in the upper glories is something. 
 " Let us remember," says The Pilgeim's Scrip, " that JSTature, 
 though heathenish, reaches at her best to the footstool of the 
 Highest. She is not all dust, but a living portion of the 
 spheres. In aspiration it is our error to despise her, forget- 
 ting that through Nature only can we ascend. Cherished, 
 trained, and purified, she is then partly worthy the divine 
 mate who is to make her wholly so. St. Simeon saw the 
 Hog in Nature, and took Nature for the Hog." 
 
 It was one of these strange bodily exaltations which thrilled 
 the young man, he knew not how it was, for his sadness and 
 his forebodings vanished. The soft wand touched him. At 
 that moment, had Sir Austin spoken openly, Richard might 
 have fallen upon his heart. He could not. He chose to feel 
 injured on the common ground of fathers, and to pursue his 
 System by plotting. Lady Blandish had revived his jealousy 
 of the creature who menaced it, and jealousy of a System is 
 unreflecting and vindictive as jealousy of woman. 
 
 Heath-roots and pines breathed sharp in the cool autumn 
 evening about the Bellingham station. Richard stood a 
 moment as he stepped from the train, and drew the country 
 air into his lungs with large heaves of the chest. Leaving 
 his father to the felicitations of the station-master, he went 
 into the Loboume road to look for his faithful Tom, who had 
 received private orders through Berry to be in attendance 
 with his young master's mare, Cassandra, and was lurking in 
 a plantation of firs uninclosed on the borders of the road, 
 where Richard, knowing his retainer's zest for conspiracy 
 too well to seek him anywhere but in the part most favoured 
 with shelter and concealment, found him furtively whiffing 
 tobacco. 
 
 " What news, Tom ? — Is she well ? Is she ill ? Is she 
 safe ? " 
 
 Tom smuggled his pipe into his pocket. He sent his un- 
 dress cap on one side to scratch at dilemma, an old agricul- 
 ural habit to wh ich he was still a slave in m.oments of 
 abstract thought or sudden difficulty. 
 
 " No, I don't want the rake, Mr. Richard," he whinnied 
 wdth a deprecating false grin, as he beheld his master's eye 
 vacantly following the action. " You're looking uncommon 
 well, sir." 
 
1 74 THE OEDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 " D'you hear, Tom ? " cried Richard imperatively". " I 
 haven't had a letter for a week ! How is she ? Where is 
 she ? " 
 
 Tom. stepped back to Cassandra's hind- quarters, and round 
 to her fore-feet, pretending to be spying after furze-thorns. 
 Between anger and alarm at Tom's hesitation to answer 
 honestly, a quality that served for patience restrained his 
 master ; but Tom saw that this trifling would not do, and he 
 got up from the mare's loins, and said, holding forth both 
 hands open, " There, sir ! I don't mind saying it. I know I 
 ought for to have powsted a letter, tell'n you all of it as much 
 as I'd come to hear — but there, Mr. Richard, I do writ so 
 shocken bad, and that's the truth, I wasn't the man for't. 
 Well, sir," Tom warmed to speak out now he had begun, " I 
 should a' stopped her. I know that, sir. I know'd how it'd 
 knock you down. But I ain't a scholar ! I ain't what you 
 thinks or hopes for — hain't a bit of a hero. I never can do 
 anything 'less it's in company. I can't do't by myself. I'm 
 no hero. I know very well Lord Nelson 'd a done it," con- 
 tinued Tom, remembering, doubtless, many a lecture on the 
 darling hero of Britain. " He^d 'a done it. So'd the Duke o' 
 Wellington, or any o' them Peninsular War chaps. But I 
 hadn't the spirit to step in and say — Tou shan't take her 
 away. I thought about 't, but there — I couldn't ! There's 
 no more mistakes between us now, Mr. Richard. Tou see, I 
 ain't a bit better than any other chap." 
 
 Thus Richard leamt the news. He took it with surprising 
 outward calm, only getting a little closer to Cassandra's neck, 
 and looking very hard at Tom without seeing a speck of him, 
 which had the effect on Tom of making him. sincerely wish 
 his master would punch his head at once rather than fix him. 
 in that owl-like way. 
 
 " Go on, Tom ! '^' said Richard huskily. " Tes ? She's 
 gone ! Well ? " 
 
 Tom was brought to understand he must make the most of 
 trifles, and recited how he had heard from a female domestic 
 at Belthorpe of the name of Davenport, formerly known to 
 him, that the young lady never slept a wink from the hour 
 she knew she was going, but sat up in her bed till morning 
 crying most pitifully, though she never complained. Hereat 
 the tears unconsciously streamed down Richard's cheeks. 
 Tom said he had tried to see her, but Mr. Adrian kept him 
 
THE APPEO ACHES OF FEVER. 175 
 
 at work, ciptering at a terrible sum — that and nothing else 
 all day ! saying, it was to please his young master on his 
 return. " Likewise something in Lat'n," added Tom. 
 " Nom'tive Mouser ! — 'nough to make ye mad, sir ! " he 
 exclaimed with pathos. The wretch had been put to acquire 
 a Latin declension. 
 
 Tom saw her on the morning she went away, he said : she 
 was very sorrowful-looking, and nodded kindly to him as 
 she passed in the fly along with young Tom Blaize. " She 
 have got uncommon kind eyes, sir," said Tom, " and cryin' 
 don't spoil them." For which his hand was violently 
 wrenched. 
 
 Tom had no more to tell, save that, in rounding the road, 
 the young lady had hung out her hand, and seemed to move 
 it forward and back, as much as to say, Good-bye, Tom ! 
 " And though she couldn't see me," said Tom, " I took off ray 
 hat. I did take it so kind of her to think of a chap like me." 
 Tom was at high-pressure sentiment — what with his education 
 for a hero and his master's love-stricken state. 
 
 " Tou saw no more of her, Tom ? " 
 
 " No, sir. That was the last ! " said Tom, imitating the 
 forlornness of his master's voice. 
 
 " That was the last you saw of her, Tom ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, I saw nothin' more." 
 
 " Tou didn't go to the comer of the road to see ? " 
 
 " Dash'd if I thought o' doing that, sir 1 
 
 " And so she went out of sight, Tom ? " 
 
 " Clean gone, that she were, sir ! " 
 
 " Why did they take her away ? what have they done with 
 her ? where have they taken her to ? 
 
 These red-hot questionings were addressed to the universal 
 heaven rather than to Tom. 
 
 " Why didn't she write ? " they were resumed. " Why did 
 ehe leave ? She's mine. She belongs to me ! Who dared 
 
 take her way ? Why did she leave without writing ? 
 
 Tom ! " 
 
 " Tes, sir," said the well-drilled recruit, dressing himself 
 up to the word of command. He expected a variation of the 
 theme from the change of tone with which his name had been 
 pronounced, but it was again, " Where have they taken her 
 to ? " and this was even more perplexing to Tom than his 
 
1 76 THE ORDEAL OP EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 hard sum in arithmetic had been. He could only draw down 
 the comers of his mouth hard, and glance up queerly. 
 
 " She had been crying — you saw that, Tom ? " 
 
 " No mistake about that, Mr. Richard. Cryiti' all night 
 and all day, I sh'd say." 
 
 " And she was crying when you saw her ? " 
 
 " She look'd as if she'd just done for a moment, sir," Tom 
 insinuated. 
 
 " But her face was white ? " 
 
 " White as a sheet." 
 
 Richard paused to discover whether his instinct had 
 caught a new view from these facts. He was in a cage, 
 always knocking against the same bars, fly as he might. 
 Her tears were the stars in his black night. He clung to 
 them as golden orbs. Inexplicable as they were, they were 
 at least pledges of love. She could not have been too 
 miserable to please him. 
 
 " Tom ! " he said, " I'll follow her at once." 
 
 " Better wait," Tom advised, " till I search out where the 
 young lady is — hadn't you, sir ? " 
 
 The hues of sunset had left the West. No light was 
 there but the steadfast pale eye of twilight. Thither he was 
 drawn : thither he must go. He had not listened to Tom's 
 sound sense, but it appeared to guide him, for he mounted 
 Cassandra, saying : " Tell them something, Tom. I shan't be 
 home to dinner," and rode off toward the forsaken home of 
 light over Belthorpe, wherein he saw the wan hand of his 
 Lucy, waving farewell, receding as he advanced. His jewel 
 was stolen, — he must gaze upon the empty box. 
 
 CHAPTER XXrV. 
 
 CRISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE. 
 
 Night had come on as Richard entered the old elm- 
 shaded, grass-bordered lane leading down from Raynham to 
 Belthorpe. The pale eye of twilight was shut. The wind 
 had tossed up the bank of Western cloud, which was now 
 
CRISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE. 177 
 
 flying broad and nnlighted across the sky, broad and balmy 
 — the charioted South-west at full charge behind his panting 
 coursers. As he neared the farm his heart fluttered and 
 leapt up. He was sure she must be there. She must have 
 returned. Why should she have left for good without 
 writing? He caught suspicion by the throat, making it 
 voiceless, if it lived: he silenced reason. Her not writing 
 was now a proof she had returned. He listened to nothing 
 but his imperious passion, and murmured sweet words for 
 her, as if she were by : tender cherishing epithets of love in 
 the nest. She was there — she moved somewhere about like 
 a silver flame in the dear old house doing her sweet house- 
 hold duties. His blood began to sing: happy those 
 within, to see her, and be about her ! By some extra- 
 ordinary process he contrived to cast a sort of glory round 
 the burly person of Farmer Blaize himself. And oh ! to 
 have companionship with a seraph one must know a seraph's 
 bliss, and was not young Tom to be envied ? The smell of 
 late clematis brought on the wind enwrapped him, and went 
 to his brain, and threw a light over the old red-brick house, 
 for he remembered where it grew, and the winter rose-tree, 
 and the jessamine, and the passion-flower: the garden in 
 front with the standard roses tended by her hands ; the long 
 wall to the left striped by the branches of the cherry, the 
 peep of a further garden through the wall, and then the 
 orchard, and the fields beyond — the happy circle of her 
 dwelling ! it flashed before his eyes while he looked on the 
 darkness. And yet it was the reverse of hope which kindled 
 this light and inspired the momentary calm he experienced : 
 it was despair exaggerating delusion, wilfully building up 
 on a groundless basis. " For the tenacity of true passion is 
 terrible," says The Pilgrim's Scrip : " it will stand against 
 the hosts of heaven, God's great array of Facts, rather than 
 surrender its aim, and must be crushed before it will suc- 
 sumb — sent to the lowest pit ! " He knew she was not 
 there; she was gone. But the power of a will strained 
 to madness fought at it, kept it down, conjured forth her 
 ghost, and would have it as he dictated. Poor youth ! the 
 great array of facts was in due order of march. 
 
 He had breathed her name many times, and once over- 
 loud ; almost a cry for her escaped him. He had not noticed 
 the opening of a door and the noise of a foot along the 
 
 N 
 
178 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 gravel-walk. He was leaning over Cassandra's uneasy neck 
 watching the one window intently, when a voice addressed 
 him out of the darkness. 
 
 " Be that you, young gentleman ? — Mr. Fev'rel ? " 
 
 Eichard's trance was broken. " Mr. Blaize ! " he said, 
 recognizing the farmer's voice. 
 
 " Good even'n t' you, sir," returned the farmer. " I knew 
 the mare though I didn't know you. Eather bluff to-night 
 it be. Will ye step in, Mr. Fev'rel ? it's beginnin' to spit — 
 going to be a wildish night, I reckon." 
 
 Eichard dismounted. The farmer called one of his men 
 to hold the mare, and ushered the young man in. Once there 
 Eichard's conjurations ceased. There was a deadness about 
 the rooms and passages that told of her absence. The walls 
 he touched — these were the vacant shell of his divinity. He 
 had never been in the house since he knew her, and now what 
 strange sweetness, and what pangs ! 
 
 Young Tom Blaize was in the parlour, squared over the 
 table in open-mouthed examination of an ancient book of the 
 fashions for a summer month which had elapsed during his 
 mother's minority. Toung Tom was respectfully studying 
 the aspects of the radiant beauties of the polite work. He 
 also was a thrall of woman, newly enrolled, and full of 
 wonder. 
 
 " What, Tom !" the farmer sang out as soon as he had 
 opened the door ; " there ye be ! at yer Folly agin, are ye ? 
 What good'll them fashens do to you, I'd like t' know ? 
 Come, shut up, and go and see to Mr. Fev'rel's mare. He's 
 al'ays at that ther' Folly now. I say there never were a 
 better name for a book than that ther' Folly ! Talk about 
 attitudes ! 
 
 The farmer laughed his fat sides into a chair, and motioned 
 his visitor to do likewise. 
 
 " It's a comfort they're most on'em females,'' he pursued, 
 sounding a thwack on his knee as he settled himself agree- 
 ably in his seat. " It don't matter much what they does, 
 except pinchin' in — waspin' it — at the waist. Give me 
 nature, I say — woman as she's made ! eh, young gentle- 
 man ?" 
 
 A blush went over Eichard ; he was thinking, " Is this the 
 chair she sat in ?" She seemed to put her arms about him, 
 and say, " Suppose I have gone ? Shall I not soon be back 
 <o you ? Why are you so downcast ?" 
 
OEISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE. 179 
 
 It seems Folly's a new name for them fastens. So they 
 tells me," said the farmer, " not a bad 'un, I think ! Hope 
 yer father's well, Mr. Fev'rel ? Ah ! if he'd been the man 
 he bid fair to be — though we was opp 'site politics — well I 
 it's a loss anyhow ! Not the first time you've bin in this 
 apartment, young gentleman ?" 
 
 " No, Mr Blaize ! it is not," Richard now spoke. " I think 
 I ought to have— you see, that was my book of Folly, and 
 I shall be glad to think it's closed." 
 
 To this proper speech, the farmer replied drily, " Well ! 
 so long as that sort of Folly don't grow to be the f ashen ! 
 Howsomever that's over and past — no more said about 't !" 
 
 A rather embarrassing silence ensued, broken by a move- 
 ment of legs changing places, like evolutions of infantry 
 before the dread artillery opens. 
 
 "Ton seem very lonely here," said Richard, glancing 
 round, and at the ceiling. 
 
 " Lonely ?" quoth the farmer. " Well, for the matter o' 
 that, we be ! — jest now, so 't happens ; I've got my pipe, 
 and Tom 've got his Folly. He's on one side the taable, 
 and I'm on t'other. He gaapes, and I gazes. We are a bit 
 lonesome. But there — it's /or the best ! " 
 
 Richard resumed, " I hardly expected to see you to-night, 
 Mr. Blaize." 
 
 " Y' acted like a m.an in coming, young gentleman, and I 
 does ye honour for it !" said Farmer Blaize with sudden 
 energy and directness. 
 
 The thing implied by the farmer's words caused Richard 
 to take a quick breath. They looked at each other, and 
 then looked away, the farmer thrumming on the arm of his 
 chair. 
 
 Above the mantel-piece, surrounded by tarnished indiffe- 
 rent miniatures of high-collared, well-to-do yeomen of the 
 anterior generation, trying their best not to grin, and high- 
 waisted old ladies smiling an encouraging smile through 
 plentiful cap-puckers, there hung a passably executed half- 
 figure of a naval officer in uniform, grasping a telescope 
 under his left arm, who stood forth clearly as not of their 
 Mth and kin. His eyes were blue, his hair light, his bearing 
 that of a man who knows how to carry his head and shoulders. 
 The artist, while giving him an epaulette to indicate his 
 rank, had also recorded the juvenility which a lieutenant in. 
 
 n2 
 
180 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVBEEL. 
 
 the naval service can retain after arriving at tliat position, 
 by painting him with smooth cheeks and fresh ruddy lips. 
 To this portrait Richard's eyes were directed. Farmer 
 Blaize observed it, and said — 
 
 " Her father, sir ! " 
 
 Richard moderated his voice to praise the likeness. 
 
 " Tes," said the farmer, " pretty well. Next best to havin' 
 lier, though it's a long way off that ! " 
 
 " An old family, Mr. Blaize — is it not ? " Richard asked in 
 as careless a tone as he could assume. 
 
 " Gentlefolks — what's left of 'em," replied the farmer with 
 an equally affected indifference. 
 
 " And that's her father ? " said Richard, growing bolder 
 to speak of her. 
 
 " That's her father, young gentleman ! " 
 
 " Mr. Blaize," Richard turned to face him, and burst out, 
 " where is she ? " 
 
 " Gone, sir ! packed off ! — Can't have her here now." The 
 farmer thrummed a step brisker, and eyed the young man's 
 wild face resolutely. 
 
 " Mr. Blaize," Richard leaned forward to get closer to him. 
 He was stunned, and hardly aware of what he was saying or 
 doing : " Where has she gone ? "Why did she leave ? " 
 
 " Tou needn't to ask, sir — ye know," said the farmer, with 
 a side shot of his head. 
 
 " But she did not — it was not her wish to go ? " 
 
 " No ! I think she likes the place. Mayhap she likes 't 
 too well ? " 
 
 " Why did you send her away to make her unhappy, Mr. 
 Blaize ? " 
 
 The farmer bluntly denied it was he was the party who 
 made her unhappy. " Nobody can't accuse me. Tell ye 
 what, sir. I wunt have the busybodies set to work about 
 her, and there's all the matter. So let you and I come to an 
 understandin'." 
 
 A blind inclination to take offence made Richard sit up- 
 right. He forgot it the next minute, and said humbly : " Am 
 I the cause of her going ? " 
 
 " Well ! " returned the farmer, " to speak straight — ye 
 be ! " 
 
 "What can I do, Mr. Blaize, that she may come back 
 again ? " the young hypocrite asked. 
 
CKISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE. 181 
 
 " Now," said the farmer, " you're coining to business. Glad 
 to hear ye talk in that sensible way Mr. Fev'rel. You may 
 guess I wants her bad enough. The house ain't itself now 
 she's away, and I ain't myself. Well, sir ! This ye can do. 
 If you gives me your promise not meddle with her at all — 
 I can't mat' out how you come to be acquainted ; not to try 
 to get her to be meetin' yoa — and if you'd 'a seen her when 
 she left, you would — when did ye meet ? — last grass, wasn't 
 it ? — your word as a gentleman not to be writing letters, and 
 spyin' after her — I'll have her back at once. Back she shall 
 
 come 
 
 t " 
 
 " Give her up ! " cried Richard. 
 
 " Ay, that's it ! " said the farmer. " Give her up." 
 
 The young man checked the annihilation of time that was 
 on his mouth. 
 
 " You sent her away to protect her from me, then ? " he 
 said savagely. 
 
 " That's not quite it, but that'll do," rejoined the farmer. 
 
 " Do you think I shall harm her, sir ? " 
 
 " People seem to think she'll harm you, young gentle- 
 man," the farmer said with some irony. 
 
 " Harm me — she? What people?" 
 
 " People pretty intimate with you, sir." 
 
 " What people ? Who spoke of us ? " Richard began to 
 scent a plot, and would not be baulked. 
 
 " Well, sir, look here," said the farmer. " It ain't no 
 secret, and if it be, I don't see why I'm to keep it. It 
 appears your education's peculiar ! ' The farmer drawled 
 out the word as if he were describing the figure of a snake. 
 " You ain't to be as other young gentlemen. All the better I 
 You're a fine bold young gentleman, and your father's a right 
 to be proud of ye. Well, sir — I'm sure I thank him for't — 
 he comes to hear of you and Luce, and of course he don't 
 want nothin' o' that — more do I. I meets him there ! 
 What's more I won't have nothin' of it. She be my gal. 
 She were left to my protection. And she's a lady, sir. Let 
 me tell ye, ye won't find many on 'em so well looked to as 
 she be — my Luce ! Well, Mr. Fev'rel, it's you, or it's her — 
 one of ye must be out o' the way. So we're told. And Luce 
 —I do believe she's just as anxious about yer education as 
 yer father— she says she'll go, and wouldn't write, and 'd 
 brake it off for the sake o' your education. And she've kep 
 
182 THE OKDEAL OF EICHAED FEYEHEL. 
 
 her word, haven't she ? — And she's a true 'n. What she 
 says she'll do ! — True blue she be, my Luce ! So now, sir, 
 you do the same, and I'll thank ye." 
 
 Any one who has tossed a sheet of paper into the fire, and 
 seen it gradually brown with heat, and strike to flame, may 
 conceive the mind of the lover as he listened to this speech. 
 
 His anger did not evaporate in words, but condensed and 
 sank deep. " Mr. Blaize," he said between his set teeth, 
 " this is very kind of the people you allude to, but I am of an 
 age now to think and act for myself — I love her, sir ! " His 
 whole countenance changed, and the muscles of his face 
 quivered. 
 
 " Well ! " said the farmer appeasingly, " we all do at your 
 age — somebody or other. It's natural ! " 
 
 " I love her ! " the young man thundered afresh, too much 
 possessed by his passion to have a sense of shame in the con- 
 fession. " Farmer ! " his voice fell to supplication, " will 
 you bring her back ? " 
 
 Parmer Blaize made a queer face. He asked — what for ? 
 and where was the promise required ? But was not the 
 lover's argument conclusive ? He said he loved her ! and 
 he could not see why her uncle should not in consequence 
 immediately send for her, that they might be together. All 
 very well, quoth the farmer, but what's to come of it ? — 
 What was to come of it ? Why, love, and more love 1 And 
 a bit too much ! the farmer added grimly. 
 
 " Then you refuse me, farmer," said Hichard. " I must 
 look to you for keeping her away from me, not to — to — these 
 people. Ton will not have her back, though I tell you I 
 love her better than my life ? " 
 
 Farmer Blaize now had to answer him plainly, he had a 
 reason and an objection of his own. And it was, that her 
 character was at stake, and God knew whether she herself 
 might not be in danger. He spoke with a kindly candour, 
 not without dignity. He complimented Richard personally, 
 but young people were young people ; baronets' sons were not 
 in the habit of marrying farmers' nieces. 
 
 At first the son of a System did not comprehend him. 
 When he did, he said : " Farmer I if I give you my word of 
 honour, as I hope for heaven, to marry her when I am of 
 age, will you have her back ? " 
 
 He was so fervid that, to quiet him, the farmer only shook 
 
CRISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE. 183 
 
 his head doubtfully at the bars of the grate, and let his chest 
 fall slowly. Richard caught what seemed to him a glimpse 
 of encouragement in these signs, and observed : " It's not 
 because you object to me, Mr. Blaize ? " 
 
 The farmer signified it was not that. 
 
 " It's because my father is against me," Richard went on, 
 and undertook to show that love was so sacred a matter that 
 no father could entirely and for ever resist his son's inclina- 
 tions. Argument being a cool field where the farmer could 
 meet and match him, the young man got on the tramroad of 
 his passion, and went ahead. He drew pictures of Lucy, of 
 her truth, and his own. He took leaps from life to death, 
 from death to life, mixing imprecations and prayers in a 
 torrent. Perhaps he did move the stolid old Englishman a 
 little, he was so vehement, and made so visible a sacrifice of 
 his pride. 
 
 Farmer Blaize tried to pacify him, but it was useless. His 
 jewel he must have. 
 
 The farmer stretched out his hand for the pipe that 
 allayeth botheration. " May smoke heer now," he said. 
 "Not when — somebody's present. Smoke in the kitchen 
 then. Don't mind smell ? " 
 
 Richard nodded, and watched the operations while the 
 farmer filled, and lighted and began to puff, as if his fate 
 hung on them. 
 
 " Who'd a' thought, when yoa sat over there once, of it's 
 comin' to this ? " ejaculated the farmer, drawing ease and 
 reflection from tobacco. "You didn't think much of her 
 that day, young gentleman ! I introduced ye. Well ! things 
 comes about. Can't you wait till she returns in due course, 
 now?" 
 
 This suggestion, the work of the pipe, did but bring on 
 him another torrent. 
 
 " It's queer," said the farmer, putting the month of the 
 pipe to his wrinkled-up temples. 
 
 Richard waited for him, and then he laid down the pipe 
 altogether, as no aid in perplexity, and said, after leaning his 
 arm on the table and staring at Richard an instant : 
 
 " Look, young gentleman ! My word's gone. I've spoke 
 it. I've given 'em the 'surance she shan't be back till the 
 Spring, and then I'll have her, and then — well ! I do hope, 
 for more reasons than one, ye'U both on ye be wiser — I've 
 
184 THE OBDEAL OF MCHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 got my own notions about her. But I an't the man to force- 
 a gal to marry 'gainst lier inclines. Depend upon it I'm not 
 your enemy, Mr. Pev'rel. You're jest the one to mak' a 
 young gal proud. So wait, — and see. That's inj 'dvice.. 
 Jest tak' and wait. I've no more to say." 
 
 Richard's impetuosity had made him really afraid of 
 speaking his notions concerning the projected felicity of 
 young Tom, if indeed they were serious. 
 
 The farmer repeated that he had no more to say ; and 
 Richard, with " Wait till the Spring ! Wait till the Spring! " 
 dinning despair in his ears, stood up to depart. Fanner 
 Blaize shook his slack hand in a friendly way, and called out 
 at the door for young Tom, who, dreading allusions to his 
 Folly, did not appear. A maid rushed by Richard in th& 
 passage, and slipped something into his grasp, which fixed 
 on it without further consciousness than that of touch. Th& 
 mare was led forth by the Bantam. A light rain was falling 
 down strong warm gusts, and the trees were noisy in the 
 night. Farmer Blaize requested Richard at the gate to give 
 him his hand, and say all was well. He liked the young 
 man for his earnestness and honest outspeaking. Richard 
 could not say all was well, but he gave his hand, and knitted it 
 to the farmer's in a sharp squeeze, when he got upon Cassan- 
 dra, and rode into the tumult. 
 
 A calm, clear dawn succeeded the roaring West, and threw 
 its glowing grey image on the waters of the Abbey-lake. 
 Before sunrise Tom Bakewell was abroad, and met the 
 missing youth, his master, jogging Cassandra leisurely along 
 the Lobourne park-road, a sorry couple to look at. Cassan- 
 dra's flanks were caked with mud, her head drooped : all 
 that was in her had been taken out by that wild night. On 
 what heaths and heavy fallows had she not spent her noble 
 strength, recklessly fretting through the darkness ! 
 
 " Take the mare," said Richard, dismounting and patting 
 her between the eyes. " She's done up, poor old gal ! Look 
 to her, Tom, and then come to me in my room." 
 
 Tom asked no questions. He saw that he was in for the 
 first act of the new comedy. 
 
 Three days would bring the anniversary of Richard's 
 birth, and though Tom was close, the condition of the mare, 
 and the young gentleman's strange freak in riding her out 
 al] night becoming known, prejjared everybody at Raynham 
 
CKISIS IN THE AFFIiE-DlSEASB. 185 
 
 for the usual bad-luck birthday, the prophets of which were 
 full of sad gratification. Sir Austin had an unpleasant office 
 to require of his son ; no other than that of humbly begging 
 Benson's pardon, and washing out the undue blood he had 
 spilt in taking his Pound of Flesh. Heavy Benson was told 
 to anticipate the demand for pardon, and practised in his 
 mind the most melancholy Christian deportment he could 
 assume on the occasion. But while his son was in this state. 
 Sir Austin considered that he would hardly be brought to 
 see the virtues of the act, and did not make the requisition 
 of him, and heavy Benson remained drawn up solemnly 
 expectant at doorways, and at the foot of the staircase, a 
 Saurian Caryatid, wherever he could get a step in advance 
 of the young man, while Richard heedlessly passed him, as 
 he passed everybody else, his head bent to the ground, and 
 his legs bearing him like random instruments of whose 
 service he was unconscious. It was a shock to Benson's 
 implicit belief in his patron ; and he was not consoled by the 
 philosophic explanation, " That Good in a strong many-com- 
 pounded nature is of slower growth than any other mortal 
 thing, and must not be forced." Damnatory doctrines 
 best pleased Benson. Benson was ready to pardon, as a 
 Christian should, but he did want his enemy before him on 
 his knees. And now, though the Saurian Eye saw more than 
 all the other eyes in the house, and saw that there was 
 matter in hand between Tom and his master to breed exceed- 
 ing discomposure to the System, Benson, as he had not 
 received his indemnity, and did not wish to encounter fresh 
 perils for nothing, held his peace. 
 
 Sir Austin partly divined what was going on in the breast 
 of his son, without conceiving the depths of distrust his son 
 cherished towards him, and all, or quite measuring the in- 
 tensity of the passion that consumed him. He was very 
 kind and tender with him. Like a cunning physician who 
 has, nevertheless, overlooked the change in the disease super- 
 induced by one false dose, he meditated his prescriptions 
 carefully and confidently, sure that he knew the case, and 
 was a match for it. He decreed that Richard's erratic 
 behaviour should pass unnoticed. Two days before the 
 birthday, he asked him whether he would object to the 
 Grandisons coming, and having company ? To which 
 Richard said: "Have whom you will, sir." The prepara- 
 tion for festivity commenced accordingly. 
 
186 THE OEDEAL OF EICHABD FEVEEEL. 
 
 On the birthday eve he dined with the rest. Lady Blandish 
 was there, and sat penitently at his right. Hippiaa prognos- 
 ticated certain indigestion for himself on the morrow. The 
 Eighteenth Century wondered whether she should live to see 
 another birthday. Adrian drank the two-years' distant term 
 of his tutorship, and Algernon went over the list of the 
 Lobourne men who would cope with Bursley on the morrow. 
 Sir Austin gave ear and a word to all, keeping his mental 
 eye for his son. To please Lady Blandish also, Adrian ven- 
 tured to make trifling jokes about Mrs. Grandison; jokes 
 delicately not decent, but so delicately so, that it was not 
 decent to perceive it. He desired to know whether Berry 
 was in sufficient muscular condition to transport the lady 
 upstairs and down; and being told that no doubt Berry 
 would be, were the service required of him, Adrian appeared 
 to reflect profoundly, and thought that on no account must 
 the precious freight be consigned to the inflammable Berry ; 
 in support of which Adrian mildly cited certain grievous in- 
 stances in the Pagan mythology of breach of trust even when 
 the offenders were Gods, which Berry had no pretence to be, 
 utter animal man that he was. 
 
 " Then you must do it," said Richard, just waking up, and 
 for want of something to say. 
 
 " Even I dare not ! Such an ordeal as that ! " — Adrian 
 gravely replied, shaking a meek sinner's head, and it was 
 impossible to help laughing at his solemn manner. Algernon, 
 knowing him better than the others, laughed aloud. 
 
 " I suppose I must be the man ! " he said. 
 
 " Remember," said Adrian, " that you have already had 
 your ordeal." 
 
 "Well, then, Hip!" Algernon turned to his melancholy 
 brother, " Hip will do for it exactly." 
 
 " Happy one ! " Adrian apostrophized Hippias reverently, 
 " behold in his arms the fruit of a thousand indigestions ! " 
 
 And at this picture of the virtuous lady borne as a prize 
 by the dyspepsy, there was laughter all round the board. Sir 
 Austin himself reticently joining in. 
 
 AJter dinner Richard left them. Nothing more than com- 
 monly peculiar was observed about him, beyond the excessive 
 glitter of his eyes, but the baronet said, " Tes, yes ! that 
 will pass." He and Adrian, and Lady Blandish, took tea in 
 the library, and sat till a late hour discussing casuistries 
 
CBISIS IN THE APPLE DISEASE. 187 
 
 relating mostly to the Apple-disease. Converse very amusing 
 to the wise youth, who could suggest to the two chaste 
 minds situations of the shadiest character, with the air of a 
 seeker after truth, and lead them, unsuspecting, where they 
 dare not look about them. The Aphorist had elated the 
 heart of his constant fair worshipper with a newly rounded, 
 if not newly-conceived sentence, when they became aware 
 that they were four. Heavy Benson stood among them. 
 He said he had knocked, but received no answer. There 
 was, however, a vestige of surprise and dissatisfaction on his 
 face beholding Adrian of the company, which had not quite 
 worn away, and gave place, when it did vanish, to an aspect 
 of flabby severity. 
 
 " Well, Benson ? well ?" said the baronet, not understand- 
 ing the interruption, and impatient at Benson's presence. 
 
 Benson persisted in the flabby-severe without speaking, 
 and the appearance of this strange owl presiding stupidly 
 over them, was so astonishing as to keep them all looking 
 at him. They had disconcerted Benson, who was of slow 
 wit, by being three instead of two, and he was troubled what 
 to say for himself. At last he said the thing he would have 
 said had they been but two. 
 
 " If you please, Sir Austin ! it's very late." 
 
 Benson regarded the impression he had made. It was not 
 a very distinct one. Lady Blandish laughed and said : " I 
 see. Benson wishes to have us up early in the morning. 
 Hasn't my maid gone to bed ? " 
 
 " She has gone, my lady." 
 
 " Are you sure ? " said Adrian. 
 
 " To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Hadrian, she has gone 
 to her bed." Benson's tone defied misconstruction or impu- 
 tation. 
 
 " Then I will follow soon to mine, Benson," said Lady 
 Blandish. 
 
 This should have satisfied Benson, but still he did not go. 
 
 " Well, Benson ? well ? " said the baronet. 
 
 The unmoving man replied : " If you please, Sir Austin — 
 Mr. Eichard ! " 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 "He's out 1" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "WithBakewell!" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
188 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVBEEL. 
 
 " And a carpet-bag ! " 
 
 Benson had judged his climax properly. And a carpet- 
 bag ! The baronet looked blank. Adrian raised his brows. 
 Lady Blandish glanced at one, and at the other. 
 
 Out he was, and with a carpet-hag, which Tom Bakewell 
 carried. He was on the road to Bellingham, under heavy 
 rain, hasting like an escaped captive, wild with joy, while 
 Tom shook his skin, and grunted at his discomforts. The 
 mail train was to be caught at Bellingham. He knew where 
 to find her now, through the intervention of Miss Davenport, 
 and thither he was flying, an arrow loosed from the bow : 
 thither, in spite of fathers and friends and plotters, to claim 
 her, and take her, and stand with her against the world. 
 
 They were both thoroughly wet when they entered Bel- 
 lingham, and Tom's visions were of hot drinks. He hinted 
 the necessity for inward consolation to his master, who could 
 answer nothing but " Tom ! Tom ! I shall see her to-morrow !" 
 It was bad — travelling in the wet, Tom hinted again, to pro- 
 voke the same insane outcry, and have his arm seized and 
 furiously shaken into the bargain. Passing the principal inn 
 of the place, Tom spoke plainly for brandy. 
 
 " No ! " cried Richard, " there's not a moment to be lost !" 
 and as he said it, he reeled, and fell against Tom, muttering 
 indistinctly of faintness, and that there was no time to lose. 
 Tom lifted him in his arms, and got admission to the inn. 
 Brandy, the country's specific, was advised by host and 
 hostess, and forced into his mouth, reviving him sufficiently 
 to cry out, " Tom ! the bell's ringing : we shall be late," after 
 which he fell back insensible on the sofa where they had 
 stretched him. Excitement of blood and brain had done its 
 work upon him. The poor youth suffered them to undress 
 him and put him to bed, and there he lay, forgetful even of 
 love ; a drowned weed born onward by the tide of the hours. 
 There his father found him. 
 
 Was the Scientific Humanist remorseful ? He had looked 
 forward to such a crisis as that point in the disease his son 
 was the victim of, when the body would fail and give the 
 spirit calm to conquer the malady, knowing very well that 
 the seeds of the evil were not of the spirit. Moreover, to see 
 him and have him was a repose after the alarm Benson had 
 sounded. Anxious he was, and prayerful ; but with faith in 
 the physical energy he attributed to his System. This pro- 
 
CEISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE. 189 
 
 vidential stroke had saved the youth from heaven knew 
 what ! " Mark ! " said the baronet to Lady Blandish, 
 " when he recovers he will not care for her." 
 
 The lady had accompanied him to the BelHngham inn on 
 first hearing of Richard's seizure. 
 
 " Oh ! what an iron man you can be," she exclaimed, 
 smothering her intuitions. She was for giving the boy his 
 bauble ; promising it him, at least, if he would only get well 
 and be the bright flower of promise he once was. 
 
 " Can you look on him," she pleaded, " can you look on 
 him, and persevere ? " 
 
 It was a hard sight for this man who loved his son so 
 deeply. The youth lay in his strange bed, straight and 
 motionless, with fever on his cheeks and altered eyes. 
 
 " See what you do to us ! " said the baronet, sorrowfully 
 eyeing the bed. 
 
 " But if you lose him ? " Lady Blandish whispered. 
 
 Sir Austin walked away from her, and probed the depths 
 of his love. " The stroke will not be dealt by me," he said. 
 
 His patient serenity was a wonder to all who knew him. 
 Indeed, to have doubted and faltered now was to have sub- 
 verted the glorious fabric just on the verge of completion. 
 He believed that his son's pure strength was fitted to cope 
 with any natural evil : that such was God's law. To him 
 Richard's passion was an ill incident to the ripeness of his 
 years and his perfect innocence ; and this crisis the struggle 
 of the poison passing out of him— not to be deplored. He 
 was so confident that he did not even send for Dr. Bairam. 
 Old Dr. Clifford of Lobourne was the medical attendant, 
 who, with head-shaking, and gathering of lips, and reminis- 
 cences of ancient arguments, guaranteed to do all that leech 
 could do in the matter. The old doctor did admit that 
 Richard's constitution was admirable, and answered to his 
 prescriptions like a piano to the musician. " But," he 
 said at a family consultation, for Sir Austin had told him 
 how it stood with the young man, " drugs are not much in 
 cases of this sort. Change ! That's what's wanted, and as 
 soon as may be. Distraction ! He ought to see the world, 
 and know what he is made of. It's no use my talking, I 
 know," added the doctor. 
 
 " On the contrary," said Sir Austin, " I am quite of your 
 persuasion. And the world he shall see — now." 
 
190 THE ORDEAL OF EIOHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 " We have dipped him. in Styx, you know, doctor," Adrian 
 remarked. 
 
 " But, doctor," said Lady Blandish, " have you known a 
 case of this sort before ? " 
 
 " Never, my lady," said the doctor, " they're not common 
 in these parts. Country people are tolerably healthy- 
 minded." 
 
 " But people — and country people — have died for love, 
 doctor ? " 
 
 The doctor had not met any of them. 
 
 " Men, or women ? " inquired the baronet. 
 
 Lady Blandish believed mostly women. 
 
 " Ask the doctor whether they were healthy-minded 
 women," said the baronet. " No ! you are both looking at the 
 wrong end. Between a highly-cultured being, and an emo- 
 tionless animal, there is all the difference in the world. But 
 of the two, the doctor is nearer the truth. The healthy 
 nature is pretty safe. If he allowed for organization he 
 would be right altogether. To feel, but not to feel to excess, 
 that is the problem." 
 
 " If I can't have the one I chose, 
 To some fresh maid I will propose." 
 
 Adrian hummed a country ballad. 
 
 " That couplet," said Sir Austin, " exactly typifies the doc- 
 tor's hero. I think he must admire Agamemnon — eh, doctor ? 
 Chryse'is taken from us, let us seize Bryseis ! — Children cry, 
 but don't die, for their lumps of sugar. When they grow 
 older, they " 
 
 " Simply have a stronger appreciation of the sugar, and 
 make a greater noise to obtain it," Adrian took him up, and 
 elicited the smile which usually terminated any dispute he 
 joined. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 OF THE SPRING PEIMEOSE AND THE AUTUMNAL. 
 
 ^ When the young Experiment again knew the hours that 
 rolled him onward, he was in his own room at Raynham. 
 Nothing had changed : only a strong fist had knocked him 
 
THE SPRING AND AUTUMN PEIMEOSE. 191 
 
 down and stunned him, and he opened his eyes to a grey- 
 world : he had forgotten what he lived for. He was weak 
 and thin, and with a pale memory of things. His functions 
 were the same, everything surrounding him was the same : 
 he looked upon the old blue hills, the far-lying fallows, the 
 river, and the woods : he knew them, and they seemed to have 
 lost recollection of him. Nor could he find in familiar human 
 faces the secret of intimacy of heretofore. They were the same 
 faces : they nodded and smiled to him. What was lost he 
 could not tell. Something had been knocked out of him ! 
 He was sensible of his father's sweetness of manner, and he 
 was grieved that he could not reply to it, for every sense of 
 shame and reproach had strangely gone. He felt very use- 
 less. In place of the fiery love for one, he now bore about a 
 cold charity to all. 
 
 Thus in the heart of the young man died the Spring Prim- 
 rose, and while it died another heart was pushing forth the 
 Primrose of Autumn. 
 
 The wonderful change in Richard, and the wisdom of her 
 admirer, now positively proved, were exciting matters to 
 Lady Blandish. She was rebuked for certain little rebellious 
 fancies concerning him that had come across hei enslaved 
 mind from time to time. For was he not almost a prophet r 
 It distressed the sentimental lady that a love like Richard's 
 could pass ofE in mere smoke, and words such as she had 
 heard him speak in Abbey-wood resolve to emptiness. Nay, 
 it humiliated her personally, and the baronet's shrewd prog- 
 nosticatioD humilitated her. For how should he know, and 
 dare to say, that love was a thing of the dust that could be 
 trodden out under the heel of science ? But he had said so, 
 and he had proved himself right. She heard with wonder- 
 ment that Richard of his own accord had spoken to his 
 father of the folly he had been guilty of, and had begged his 
 pardon. The baronet told her this, adding that the youth 
 had done it in a cold unwavering way, without a movement 
 of his features : had evidently done it to throw off the 
 burden of the duty he had conceived. He had thought him- 
 self bound to acknowledge that he had been the Foolish 
 Young Fellow, wishing, possibly, to abjure the fact by an 
 act of penance. He had also given satisfaction to Benson, 
 and was become a renovated peaceful spirit, whose main 
 object appeared to be to getuphis physical strength by exercise 
 
192 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 and no expenditure of speech. In her company he was com- 
 posed and courteous ; even when they were alone together, 
 he did not exhibit a trace of melancholy. Sober he seemed, 
 as one who has recovered from a drunkenness and has 
 determined to drink no more. The idea struck her that he 
 might be playing a part, but Tom Bakewell, in a private con- 
 versation they had, informed her that he had received an 
 order from his young master, one day while boxing with 
 him, not to mention the young lady's name to him so long as 
 he lived ; and Tom could only suppose that she had ofiended 
 him. Theoretically wise Lady Blandish had always thought 
 the baronet ; she was unprepared to find him thus prac- 
 tically sagacious. She fell many degrees ; she wanted some- 
 thing to cling to ; so she clung to the man who struck her 
 low. Love, then, was earthly ; its depth could be probed 
 by science ! A man lived who could measure it from end to 
 end ; foretell its term ; handle the young cherub as were he 
 a shot owl ! We who have flown into cousinship with the 
 empyrean, and disported among inmiortal hosts, our base 
 birth as a child of Time is made bare to us ! — our wings are 
 cut ! Oh, then, if science is this victorious enemy of love, 
 let us love science ! was the logic of the lady's heart ; and 
 secretly cherishing the assurance that she should confute 
 him yet, and prove him utterly wrong, she gave him the 
 fruits of present success, as it is a habit of women to do ; 
 involuntarily partly. The fires took hold of her. She felt 
 soft emotions such as a girl feels, and they flattered her. It 
 was like youth coming back. Pure women have a second 
 youth. The Autumn primrose flourished. 
 
 We are advised by The Pilgeim's Scrip that — 
 
 " The ways of women, which are Involution, and their 
 practices, which are Opposition, are generally best hit upon 
 by guess work, and a bold word ; " — it being impossible to 
 track them and hunt them down in the ordinary style. 
 
 So that we may not ourselves become involved and opposed, 
 let us each of us venture a guess and say a bold word as to 
 how it came that the lady, who trusted love to be eternal, 
 grovelled to him that shattered her tender faith, and loved 
 him. 
 
 Hitherto it had been simply a sentimental dalliance, and 
 gossips had maligned the lady. Just when the gossips grew 
 tired of their slander, and inclined to look upon her charita- 
 
THE SPRING AND AUTUMN PEIMEOSE. 193 
 
 bly, she set about to deserve every word they had said of her , 
 •which may instruct ns, if you please, that gossips have only 
 to persist in lying to be crowned with verity, or that one has 
 only to endure evil moaths for a period to gain impunity. 
 She was always at the Abbey now. She was much closeted 
 with the baronet. It seemed to be understood that she had 
 taken Mrs. Doria's place. Benson in his misogynic soul per- 
 ceived that she was taking Lady Peverel's : but any report 
 circulated by Benson was sure to meet discredit, and drew 
 the gossips upon himself ; which made his meditations tragic. 
 No sooner was one woman defeated than another took the 
 field ! The object of the System was no sooner safe than its 
 great author was in danger 1 
 
 " I can't think what has come to Benson," he said to 
 Adrian. 
 
 " He seems to have received a fresh legacy of several 
 pounds of lead," returned the wise youth, and imitating Dr. 
 ClifEord's manner. " Change is what he wants ! distraction ! 
 Bend him to Wales, sir, for a month, and let Richard go with 
 him. The two victims of womaa may do each other good." 
 
 " Unfortunately I can't do without him," said the baronet. 
 
 " Then we must continue to have him on our shoulders all 
 day, and on our chests all night !" Adrian ejaculated. 
 
 " I think while he preserves this aspect we won't have 
 him at the dinner-table," said the baronet. 
 
 Adrian thought that would be a relief to their digestions ; 
 and added : You know, sir, what he says ? " 
 
 Receiving a negative, Adrian delicately explained to him 
 that Benson's excessive ponderosity of demeanour was caused 
 by anxiety for the safety of his master. 
 
 " Tou must pardon a faithful fool, sir," he continued, for 
 the baronet became red, and exclaimed : 
 
 " His stupidity is past belief I I have absolutely to bolt 
 my study-door against him." 
 
 " Have you, indeed, sir ! " said Adrian, and at once beheld 
 a charming scene in the interior of the study, not unlike one 
 that Benson had visually witnessed. For, like a wary 
 prophet, Benson, that he might have warrant for what he 
 foretold of the future, had a care to spy upon the present : 
 warned haply by The Pilgrim's Sckip, of which he was a 
 diligent reader, and which says, rather emphatically : 
 " Could we see "Time's full face, we were wise of him." Now 
 
 
 
194 THE OEDEAL OF RICHAED FEVSRBL. 
 
 to see Time's full face, it is sometimes necessary to look 
 through keyholes, the veteran having a trick of smiling 
 peace to you on one cheek and grimacing confusion on the 
 other behind the curtain. Decency and a sense of honour 
 restrain most of us from being thus wise and miserable for 
 ever. Benson's excuse was that he believed in his master, 
 who was menaced. And moreover, notwithstanding his 
 previous tribulation, to spy upon Cupid was sweet to him. So 
 he peeped, and he saw a sight. He saw Time's full face; or, 
 in other words, he saw the wiles of woman and the weakness 
 of man : which is our history, as Benson would have written 
 it, and a great many poets and philosophers have written it. 
 Yet it was but the plucking of the Autumn primrose that 
 Benson had seen : a somewhat different operation from the 
 plucking of the Spring one : very innocent ! Our staid 
 elderly sister has paler blood, and has, or thinks she has, a 
 reason or two about the roots. She is not all instinct. " For 
 this high cause, and for that I know men, and know him to 
 be the flower of men, I give myself to him ! " She makes 
 that lofty inward exclamation while the hand is detaching 
 her from the roots. Even so strong a self -justification she 
 requires. She has not that blind glory in excess which her 
 younger sister can gild the longest leap with. And if, moth- 
 like, she desires the star, she is nervously cautious of candles. 
 Hence her circles about the dangerous human flame are wide 
 and shy. She must be drawn nearer and nearer by a fresh 
 reason. She loves to sentimentalize. Lady Blandish had 
 been sentimentalizing for ten years. She would have pre- 
 ferred to pursue the game. The dark-eyed dame was pleased 
 with her smooth life and the soft excitement that did not 
 rufile it. Not willingly did she let herself be won. 
 
 " Sentimentalists," says The Pilgrim's Scrip, " are they 
 who seek to enjoy without incurring the Immense Debtor- 
 ship for a thing done." 
 
 " It is," the writer says of Sentimentalism elsewhere, " a 
 happy pastime and an important science to the timid, the 
 idle, and the heartless ; but a danining one to them who 
 have anything to forfeit." 
 
 However, one who could set down the dying for love, as 
 a sentimentalism, can hardly be accepted as a clear autho- 
 rity. Assuredly he was not one to avoid the incurring of the 
 immense debtorship in any way: but b-* was a bondman 
 
THE HEEO TAKES A STEP. 195 
 
 ■still to tte woman who had forsaken him, and a spoken 
 word would have made it seem his duty to face that 
 public scandal which was the last evil to him. What had 
 so horrified the virtuous Benson, Richard had already beheld 
 in Daphne's Bower ; a simple kissing of the fair white hand ! 
 Doubtless the keyhole somehow added to Benson's horror. 
 The two similar performances, so very innocent, had won- 
 drous opposite consequences. The first kindled Richard to 
 adore Woman; the second destroyed Benson's faith in Man. 
 But Lady Blandish knew the difference between the two. 
 She understood why the baronet did not speak ; excused, 
 and respected him for it. She was content, since she must 
 love, to love humbly, and she had, besides, her pity for his 
 sorrows to comfort her. A hundred fresh reasons for 
 loving him arose and multiplied every day. He read to her 
 the secret book in his own handwriting, composed for 
 Richard's Marriage Guide : containing Advice and Directions 
 i» a Young Husband, full of the most tender wisdom and 
 delicacy; so she thought; nay, not wanting in poetry, 
 though neither rhymed nor measured. He expounded to her 
 the distinctive character of the divers ages of love, giving 
 -the palm to the flower she put forth, over that of Spring, or 
 the Summer rose. And while they sat and talked, " My 
 ■wound was healed," he said. " How ? " she asked. " At 
 the fountain of your eyes," he replied, and drew the joy of 
 new life from her blushes, without incurring further debtor- 
 ■■ship for a thing done. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 IN WHICH THE HEKO TAKES A STEP. 
 
 Let it t)e some apology for the damage caused by the 
 -careering hero, and a consolation to the quiet wretches, 
 dragged along with him at his chariot- wheels, that he is 
 generally the last to know when he has made an actual start ; 
 such a mere creature is he, like the rest of us, albeit the head 
 of our fates. By this you perceive the true hero, whether 
 he be a priace or a potboy, that he does not plot ; Fortune 
 does all for him. He may be compared to one to whom, in an 
 ■electric circle, it is given to carry the lattery. We caper and 
 
 o2 
 
196 THE OEDEAL 01'" RICHAKD FEVEEEL. 
 
 grimace at his will ; yet not his the will, not his the power. 
 'Tis all Fortune's, whose puppet he is. She deals her dis- 
 pensations through him. Tea, though our capers be never 
 so comical, he laughs not. Intent upon his own business, the 
 true hero asks little services of us here and there ; thinks it 
 quite natural that they should be acceded to, and sees 
 nothing ridiculous in the lamentable contortions we must go 
 through to fulfil them. Probably he is the elect of Fortune, 
 because of that notable faculty of being intent upon his own 
 business : " Which is," says The Pilgrim's Scrip, " with men 
 to be valued equal to that force which in water makes a 
 stream." This prelude was necessary to the present chapter 
 of Richard's history. 
 
 It happened that in the turn of the year, and while old 
 earth was busy with her flowers, the fresh wind blew, the 
 little bird sang, and Hippias Feverel, the Dyspepsy, amazed, 
 felt the Spring move within him. He communicated his 
 delightful new sensations to the baronet, his brother, whose 
 constant exclamation with regard to him, was : " Poor Hip- 
 pias 1 All his machinery is bare ! " and had no hope that he 
 would ever be in a condition to defend it from view. Never- 
 theless Hippias had that hope, and so he told his brother, 
 making great exposure of his machinery to effect the expla- 
 nation. He spoke of all his physical experiences exultingly, 
 and with wonder. The achievement of common efforts, not 
 usually blazoned, he celebrated as mighty triumphs, and, 
 of course, had Adrian on his back very quickly. But he 
 could bear him, or anything, now. It was such ineffable 
 relief to find himself looking out upon the world of mortals 
 instead of into the black phantasmal abysses of his own com- 
 plicated frightful structure. "My mind doesn't so much 
 seem to haunt itself, now," said Hippias, nodding shortly 
 and peering out of intense puckers to convey a glimpse of 
 what hellish sufferings his had been : " I feel as if I had 
 come aboveground." 
 
 A poor Dyspepsy may talk as he vrill, but he is the one 
 who never gets sympathy, or experiences compassion : and it 
 is he whose groaning petitions for charity do at last rout 
 that Christian virtue. Lady Blandish, a charitable soul, 
 could not listen to Hippias, though she had a heart for little 
 mice and flies, and Sir Austin had also small patience with 
 
THE HERO TAKES A STEP. 197 
 
 his brother's gleam of health, which was just enough to make 
 his disease visible. He remembered his early follies and 
 excesses, and bent his ear to him as one man does to another 
 who complains of having to pay a debt legally incurred. 
 
 " I think," said Adrian, seeing how the communications 
 of Hippias were received, "that when our Nemesis takes 
 lodgings in the stomach, it's best to act the Spartan, smile 
 hard, and be silent." 
 
 " Exactly," replied the baronet. " Mankind has an 
 instinctive disgust for the victims of those appetites. We 
 pity any other functional derangement than that." 
 
 Richard alone was decently kind to Hippias ; whether 
 from opposition, or real affection, could not be said, as the 
 young man was mysterious. He advised his uncle to take 
 exercise, walked with him, cultivated cheerful impressions 
 in him, and pointed out innocent pursuits. He made Hip- 
 pias visit with him some of the poor old folk of the village, 
 who bewailed the loss of his cousin Austin Wentworth, and 
 did his best to waken him up, and give the outer world a 
 stronger hold on him. He succeeded in nothing but in win- 
 ning his uncle's gratitude. The season bloomed scarce longer 
 than a week for Hippias, and then began to languish. The 
 poor Dyspepsy's eager grasp at beatification relaxed: he 
 went underground again. He announced that he felt " spongy 
 things " — one of the more constant miseries of his malady. 
 His bitter face recurred : he chewed the cud of horrid hallu- 
 cinations. He told Richard he must give up going about with 
 him : people telling of their ailments made him so uncom- 
 fortable — the birds were so noisy, pairing — the rude bare 
 soil sickened him. 
 
 " IJesides," said Hippias, "it's singular, but at this time of 
 the year, Richard, I always have the same idea. I can't go 
 out and see a garden without thinking I ought to be upside 
 down, and have the bulbous part underneath me, like those 
 — what do you call those flowers ? — yes, like those crocuses. 
 And you cant imagine how distressing it really is when you 
 think those things in earnest." 
 
 Richard treated him with a gravity equal to his father's. 
 He asked what the doctors said. 
 
 " Oh ! the doctors ! " cried Hippias with vehement scepti- 
 cism. " No man of sense believes in medicine for chronic 
 disorder. Do you happen to have heard of any new remedy 
 
1&8 THE OEDEAL OF KICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 then, Eicliard ? No? They advertize a great many cures 
 for indigestion, I assure you, my dear boy. I wonder 
 ■whether one can rely upon the authenticity of those signa- 
 tures ? I see no reason why there should be no cure for 
 such a disease ? — Eh ? And it's just one of the things a 
 quack, as they call them, would hit npon sooner than one 
 who is in the Iseaten track. Do you know, Richard, my dear 
 boy, I've often thought that if we could by any means appro- 
 priate to our use some of the extraordinary digestive power 
 that a boa constrictor has in his gastric juices, there is really 
 no manner of reason why we should not comfortably dispose- 
 of as much of an ox as our stomachs will hold, and one 
 . might eat French dishes without the wretchedness of think- 
 ing what's to follow. And this makes me think that those 
 fellows may, after all, have got some truth in them : some 
 prodigious secret that, of course, they require to be paid for. 
 We distrust each other in this world too much, Richard. 
 I've felt inclined once or twice — but it's absurd ! — If it only 
 alleviated a few of my sufEerings I should be satisfied. I've- 
 no hesitation in saying that I should be quite satisfied if it 
 only did away with one or two, and left me free to eat and 
 drink as other people do. Not that I mean to try them. It's 
 only a fancy — Eh ? What a thing health is, my dear boy ! 
 Ah ! if I were like you ! I was in love once ! " 
 
 " Were you ! " said Richard, coolly regarding him. 
 
 " I've forgotten what I felt ! " Hippias sighed. " Tou've- 
 very much improved, my dear boy." 
 
 " So people say," quoth Richard. 
 
 Hippias looked at him anxiously : " If I go to town and 
 get the doctor's opinion about trying a new course— Eh, 
 Richard ? will you come with me ? I should like your com- 
 pany. We could see London together, you know. Enjoy 
 ourselves," and Hippias rubbed his hands. 
 
 Richard smiled at the feeble glimmer of enjoyment pro- 
 mised by his uncle's eyes, and said he thought it better they 
 should stay where they were — an answer that might mean 
 anything. Hippias immediately became possessed by the 
 beguiling project. He went to the baronet, and put the matter 
 before him, instancing doctors as the object of his journey, 
 not quacks, of course : and requesting leave to take Richard. 
 Sir Austin was getting uneasy about his son's manner. It 
 was not natural. His heart seemed to be frozen : he had no- 
 
THE HEEO TAKES A STEP. 199 
 
 confidences : he appeared to have no ambition — to have lost 
 the virtues of youth with the poison that had passed out of 
 him. He was disposed to try what effect a little travelling 
 might have on him, and had himself once or twice hinted to 
 Richard that it would be good for him to move about, the 
 young man quietly replying that he did not wish to quit 
 Raynham at all, which was too strict a fulfilment of his 
 father's original views in educating him there entirely. On 
 the day that Hippias made his proposal, Adrian, seconded by 
 Lady Blandish, also made one. The sweet Spring season 
 stirred in Adrian as well as in others : not to pastoral mea- 
 sures : to the joys of the operatic world and bravura glories. 
 He also suggested that it would be adviseable to carry Richard 
 to town for a term, and let him know his position, and some 
 freedom.' Sir Austin weighed the two proposals. He was 
 pretty certain that Richard's passion was consumed, and that 
 he was now only under the burden of its ashes. He had 
 found against his heart, at the Bellingham inn, a great lock 
 of golden hair. He had taken it, and the lover, after feeling 
 about for it with faint hands, never asked for it. This pre- 
 cious lock (Miss Davenport had thrust it into his hand at 
 Belthorpe as Lucy's last gift), what sighs and tears it had 
 weathered I The baronet laid it in Richard's sight one day, 
 and beheld him take it up, turn it over, and drop it down 
 again calmly, as if he were handling any common curiosity. 
 It pacified him on that score. The young man's love was 
 dead. Dr. Clifford said rightly : he wanted distractions. 
 The baronet determined that Richard should go. Hippias 
 and Adrian then pressed their several suits as to which 
 should have him. Hippias, when he could forget himself, 
 did not lack sense. He observed that Adrian was not at 
 present a proper companion for Richard, and would teach 
 him to look on life from the false point. 
 
 "You don't understand a young philosopher," said the 
 baronet. 
 
 " A young philosopher's an old fool 1 " returned Hippias, 
 not thinking that his growl had begotten a phrase. 
 
 His brother smiled with gratification, and applauded him 
 loudly : " Excellent ! worthy of your best days 1 That is as 
 good a thing as I have heard, Hippias. You're wrong, 
 though, in applying it to Adrian. He has never been pre- 
 cocious. All he has done has been to bring sound common 
 
200 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 sense to bear upon what he hears and sees. I think, how- 
 ever," the baronet added, " he may want faith in the better 
 qualities of men." And this reflection inclined him not to 
 let his son be alone with Adrian. He gave Richard his 
 choice, who saw which way his father's wishes tended, and 
 decided so to please him. Naturally it annoyed Adrian ex- 
 tremely. He said to his chief : 
 
 " I suppose you know what you are doing, sir. I don't 
 see that we derive any advantage from the family name 
 being made notorious for twenty years of obscene suffering, 
 and becoming a byword for our constitutional tendency 
 to stomachic distension before we fortunately encountered 
 Quackem's Pill. My uncle's tortures have been huge, but I 
 would rather society were not intiiuate with them under their 
 several headings." Adrian enumerated some of the most 
 abhorrent. " You know him, sir. If he conceives a duty, he 
 will do it in the face of every decency — all the more 
 obstinate because the conception is rare. If he feels a little 
 brisk, , the morning after the pill, he sends the letter that 
 makes us famous ! We go down to posterity with height- 
 ened characteristics, to say nothing of a contemporary 
 celebrity nothing less than our being turned inside-out to 
 the rabble. I confess I don't desire to have my machinery 
 made bare to them." 
 
 Sir Austin assured the wise youth that Hippias had 
 arranged to go to Dr. Bairam. He softened Adrian's chagrin 
 by telling him that in about two weeks they would follow to 
 London: hinting also at a prospective Summer campaign. 
 The day was fixed for Richard to depart, and the day came. 
 Madame the Eighteenth Century called him to her chamber 
 and put into his hand a fifty-pound note, as her contribution 
 toward his pocket-expenses. He did not want it, he said, 
 but she told him he was a young man, and would soon make 
 that fly when he stood on his own feet. The old lady did 
 not at all approve of the System in her heart, and she gave 
 her grand-nephew to understand that, should he require 
 more, he knew where to apply, and secrets would be kept. 
 His father presented him with a hundred pounds — which 
 also Richard said he did not want — he did not care for 
 money. " Spend it or not," said the baronet, perfectly secure 
 in him. All he desired of him was to go and see the Grandi- 
 Bons, and give his love to little Carola. 
 
THE HERO TAKES A STEP. 201 
 
 "I wonder how my cabbage-rose is looking," Richard 
 remarked. " She was disappointed at not seeing me when 
 she came, wasn't she, sir ? " 
 
 " Well, she cried about yon," said the baronet, content to 
 hear his son add : " Poor little thing !" however coldly. 
 
 Hippias had few injunctions to observe, beyond that of 
 going to the Grandisons. They were to take up quarters at 
 the hotel, Algernon's general run of company at the house 
 not being altogether wholesome. The baronet particularly 
 forewarned Hippias of the imprudence of attempting to 
 restrict the young man's movements, and letting him imagine 
 he was under surveillance. Richard having been, as it were, 
 pollarded by despotism, was now to grow up straight, and 
 bloom again, in complete independence, as far as he could 
 feel. So did the sage decree ; and we may pause a moment 
 to reflect how wise were his previsions, and how successful 
 they must have been, had not Fortune, the great foe to human 
 cleverness, turned against him. 
 
 The departure took place on a fine March morning. The 
 bird of Winter sang from the budding tree ; in the blue sky 
 sang the bird of Summer. Adrian rode between Richard and 
 Hippias to the Bellingham station, and vented his disgust 
 on them after his own humorous fashion, because it did not 
 rain and damp their ardour. In the rear came Lady Blandish 
 and the baronet, conversing on the calm summit of success. 
 
 " You have shaped him exactly to resemble yourself," she 
 said, pointing with her riding- whip to the grave stately figure 
 of the young man. 
 
 " Outwardly, perhaps," he answered, and led to a discussion 
 on Purity and Strength, the lady saying that she preferred 
 Purity. 
 
 " But you do not," said the baronet. " And there I admire 
 the always true instinct of woman, that they all worship 
 Strength in whatever form, and seem to know it to be the 
 child of heaven ; whereas Purity is but a characteristic, a 
 garment, and can be spotted — how soon ! For there are 
 questions in this life with which we must grapple or be lost, 
 and when, hunted by that cold eye of intense inner-con- 
 sciousness, the clearest soul becomes a cunning fox, if it have 
 not courage to stand and do battle. Strength indicates a 
 boundless nature — like the Maker. Strength is a God to 
 you — Purity a toy. A pretty one, and you seem to be 
 
202 THE OBDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 fond of playing with it," lie added, ■with unaccustomed' 
 slyness. 
 
 The lady listened, pleased at the sportiTe malice which 
 showed that the constraint on his mind had left him. It was 
 for women to fight their fight now ; she only took part in it 
 for amusement. This is how the ranks of our enemies are- 
 thinned ; no sooner do poor women put up a champion in 
 their midst than she betrays them. 
 
 " I see," she said archly, " we are the lovelier vessels ; you 
 claim the more direct descent. Men are seedlings : Women 
 — slips ! Nay, you have said so," she cried out at his 
 gestured protestation, laughing. 
 
 "But I never printed it." 
 
 " Oh ! what you speak answers for print with me." 
 
 Exquisite Blandish! He could not choose but love- 
 her. 
 
 " Tell me what are your plans ?" she asked. " May a 
 woman know ?" 
 
 He replied, " I have none or you would share them. I 
 shall study him in the world. This indifference must wear 
 off. I shall mark his inclinations now, and he shall be what 
 he inclines to. Occupation will be his prime safety. That, 
 and the feeling of guardianship to this child. His cousin 
 Austin's plan of life appears most to his taste, and he can 
 serve the people that way as well as in Parliament, should 
 he have no stronger ambition. The clear duty of a man of 
 any wealth is to serve the people as he best can. He shall 
 go among Austin's set, if he wishes it, though personally I 
 find no pleasure in rash imaginations, and undigested schemes 
 built upon the mere instinct of principles." 
 
 " Look at him now," said the lady. " He seems to care 
 for nothing ; not even for the beauty of the day." 
 
 " Or Adrian's jokes," added the baronet. 
 
 Adrian could be seen to be trying zealously to torment a 
 laugh, or a confession of irritation, out of his hearers, stretch- 
 ing out his chin to one, and to the other, with audible asides. 
 Richard he treated as a new instrument of destruction about 
 to be let loose on the slumbering metropolis ; Hippias as one 
 in an interesting condition ; and he got so much fun out of 
 the notion of these two journeying together, and the mishaps 
 that might occur to them, that he esteemed it almost a per- 
 sonal insult for his hearers not to laugh. The wise youth's, 
 
THE HEEO TAKES A STEP. 20S 
 
 dull life at Raynham had afflicted him with many peculiarities 
 of the professional joker. 
 
 " Oh ! the Spring ! the Spring ! " he cried, as in scorn of 
 his sallies they exchanged their unmeaning remarks on the 
 sweet weather across him. " You seem both to be uncom- 
 monly excited by the operations of turtles, rooks, and daws. 
 "Why can't you let them alone ? 
 
 • Wind bloweth, 
 Cock croweth, 
 
 Doodle-doo ; 
 Hippy verteth, 
 Eicky sterteth, 
 
 Sing Cuckoo I 
 
 There's an old native pastoral ! — Why don't you write a 
 Spring sonnet, Ricky ? The asparagTis-beds are full of pro- 
 mise, I hear, and eke the strawberry. No lack of inspiration 
 for you. Berries I fancy your Pegasus has a taste for. 
 What kind of berry was that I saw some verses of yours 
 about once ? — amatory verses to some kind of berry — yew- 
 berry, blueberry, glueberry ! I can't remember rightly. 
 Pretty verses, though decidedly warm. Lips, eyes, bosom, 
 legs — legs ? I don't think you gave her any legs. No legs 
 and no nose. That appears to be the poetic taste of the day. 
 It shall be admitted that you create the very beauties for a 
 chaste people. 
 
 ' might I lie where leans her lute 1 ' 
 
 and offend no moral community. I say, that's not a bad 
 image of yours, my dear boy : 
 
 ' Her shape is like an antelope 
 Upon the Eastern hills.' 
 
 But as a candid critic, I would ask you if the likeness can 
 be considered correct when she has no legs ? Tou will see 
 at the ballet that you are quite in error about women at 
 present, Richard. That admirable institution which our 
 venerable elders have imported from Gallia for the instruc- 
 tion of our gaping youth, will edify and astonish you. I 
 assure you I used, from reading The Pilgeim's Scrip, to 
 imagine all sorts of things about them, till I was taken 
 there, and learnt that they are very like us after all, and 
 then they ceased to trouble me. Mystery is the great danger 
 
204 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVBEEL. 
 
 to youth, my son ! Mystery is -woman's redoubtable weapon, 
 Richard of the Ordeal ! I'm aware that you've had your 
 lessons in anatomy, but nothing will persuade you that an 
 anatomical figure means flesh and blood. Ton can't realize 
 the fact. Do you intend to publish when you're in town ? 
 It'll be better not to put your name. Having one's name 
 to a volume of poems is as bad as to an advertizing pill. 
 My uncle, I dread, is madly bent upon returning thanks 
 publicly for the pill, so you must be content to let Ignotus 
 wear your laurels, or the critics will confound you together. 
 ' Notwithstanding the deplorable state of this gentleman's 
 stomach,' they will say, ' the Muse and Oupid have taken so 
 strong a hold on him, that he is evidently one of those who, 
 to avoid more punishable transgressions, must commit verse, 
 and we prefer to attribute any shortcomings which it may 
 be our duty to indicate, rather to the utter distraction of his 
 internal economy than to a want of natural propensity.' " 
 
 " I will send you an early copy, Adrian, when I pL;blish," 
 quoth Richard. " Hark at that old blackbird, uncle." 
 
 " Yes ! " Hippias quavered, looking up from the usual sub- 
 ject of his contemplation, and trying to take an interest in 
 him, " fine old fellow ! " 
 
 " What a chuckle he gives out before he flies ! Not unlike 
 July nightingales. Ton know that bird I told you of — the 
 blackbird that had its mate shot, and used to come to sing to 
 old dame Bakewell's bird from the tree opposite. A rascal 
 knocked it over the day before yesterday, and the dame says 
 her bird hasn't sung a note since." 
 
 " Extraordinary ! " Hippias muttered abstractedly. " I 
 remember the verses." 
 
 " But where's your moral ? " interposed the wrathful 
 Adrian. " Where's constancy rewarded ? 
 
 ' The ouzel-cock so black of hue, 
 With orange-tawny bill ; 
 The rascal with his aim so true ; 
 The Poet's little quill ! ' 
 
 Where's the moral of that ? except that all's game to the 
 poet ! Certainly we have a noble example of the devoted- 
 ness of the female, who for three fentire days refuses to make 
 herself heard, on account of a defunct male. I suppose 
 that's what Ricky dwells on." 
 
THE HERO TAKES A STEP. 205 
 
 " As you please, my dear Adrian," says Rictard, and 
 points out larch-buds to his uncle, as they ride by the young 
 green wood. 
 
 The wise youth was driven to extremity. Such a lapse 
 from his pupil's heroics to this last verge of Arcadian cool- 
 ness, Adrian could not believe in. " Hark at this old black- 
 bird ! " he cried, in his turn, and pretending to interpret his 
 fits of song : 
 
 " O what a pretty comedy ! — Don't we wear the mask well, 
 my Fiesco ? — Genoa will be our own to-morrow ! — Only wait 
 until the train has started — jolly ! jolly ! jolly ! We'll be 
 winners yet ! 
 
 " Not a bad verse — eh, Ricky ? my Lucius Junius ! " 
 
 " Tou do the blackbird well," said Richard, and looked at 
 him in a manner mildly affable. 
 
 Adrian shrugged. " You're a young man of wonderful 
 powers," he emphatically observed; meaning to say that 
 Richard quite beat him ; for which opinion Richard gravely 
 thanked him, and with this they rode into BeUingham. 
 
 There was young Tom Blaize at the station, in his Sunday 
 beaver and gala waistcoat and neckcloth, coming the lord 
 over Tom Bakewell, who had preceded his master in charge 
 of the baggage. He likewise was bound for London. 
 Richard, as he was dismounting, heard Adrian say to the 
 baronet : " The Beast, sir, appears to be going to fetch 
 Beauty;" but he paid no heed to the words. Whether 
 young Tom heard them or not, Adrian's look took the lord 
 out of him, and he shrunk away into obscxirity, where the 
 nearest approach to the fashions which the tailors of BeUing- 
 ham could supply to him, sat upon him more easily, and he 
 was not unaccountably stiffened by the eyes of the superiors 
 whom he sought to rival. The baronet. Lady Blandish, and 
 Adrian remained on horseback, and received Richard's adieux 
 across the palings. He shook hands with each of them in 
 the same kindly cold way, eliciting from Adrian a marked 
 encomium on his style of doing it. The train came up, and 
 Richard stepped after his uncle into one of the carriages. 
 
 Now surely there will come an age when the presentation 
 of science at war with Fortune and the Fates, will be deemed 
 the true epic of modem life ; and the aspect of a scientific 
 humanist who, by dint of incessant watcMulness, has main- 
 tained a System against those active forces, cannot be 
 
206 THE OEDEAL OF RICHAKD FEVEEEL. 
 
 reckoned less than, sublime, even though at the moment he 
 but sit upon his horse, on a fine March morning such as this, 
 ^nd smile wistfully to behold the son of his heart, his System 
 incarnate, wave a serene adieu to tutelage, neither too eager 
 nor morbidly unwilling to try his luck alone for a term of 
 two weeks. At present, I am aware, an audience impatient 
 for blood and glory scorns the stress I am putting on inci- 
 dents so minute, a picture so little imposing. An audience 
 will come to whom it will be given to see the elementary 
 machinery at work : who, as it were, from some slight hint 
 of the straws, will feel the winds of March when they do not 
 blow. To them will nothing be trivial, seeing that they will 
 have in their eyes the invisible conflict going on around us, 
 whose features a nod, a smile, a laugh of ours perpetually 
 changes. And they will perceive, moreover, that in real life 
 all hangs together : the train is laid in the lifting of an eye- 
 ;brow, that bursts upon the field of thousands. They will see 
 the links of things as they pass, and wonder not, as foolish 
 people now do, that this great matter came out of that small 
 one. 
 
 Such an audience, then, will participate in the baronet's 
 gratification at his son's demeanour, wherein he noted the 
 calm bearing of experience not gained in the usual wanton 
 jway : and will not be without some excited apprehension at 
 his twinge of astonishment, when, just as the train went 
 ; sliding into swiftness, he beheld the grave, cold, self-pos- 
 'sessed young man throw himself back in the carriage 
 violently laughing. Science was at a loss to account for that. 
 Sir Austin checked his mind from inquiring, that he might 
 keep suspicion at a distance, but he thought it odd, and the 
 jarring sensation that ran along his nerves at the sight, 
 remained with him as he rode home. 
 
 Lady Blandish's tender womanly intuition bade her say : 
 " Ton see it was the very thing he wanted. He has got his 
 natural spirits already." 
 
 " It was," Adrian put in his word, " the exact thing he 
 wanted. His spirits have returned miraculously." 
 
 " Something amused him," said the baronet, with an eye 
 ■on the pufiing train. 
 
 " Probably something his uncle said or did," Lady Blandish 
 suggested, and led ofE at a gallop. 
 
THE HEEO TAKES A STEP. 207 
 
 Her conjecture chanced to he quite con-ect. Tte cause for 
 Hicliard's laughter was simple enough. Hippias, on finding 
 the carriage-door closed on him, became all at once aware of 
 the bright-haired hope which dwells in. Change, for one who 
 does not woo her too frequently ; and to express his sudden 
 relief from mental despondency at the amorous prospect, the 
 Dyspepsy bent and gave his hands a sharp rub between his 
 legs : which unlucky action brought Adrian's pastoral, 
 
 " Hippy verteth, 
 Sing cuckoo 1 " 
 
 in such comic colours before Richard, that a demon of 
 laughter seized him. 
 
 "Hippy verteth 1" 
 
 Every time he glanced at his uncle the song sprang up, and 
 he laughed so immoderately that it looked like madness 
 come upon him. 
 
 " Why, why, why, what are you laughing at, my dear 
 boy," said Hippias, and was provoked by the contagious 
 «xercise to a modest " ha ! ha ! " 
 
 " Why, what are you laughing at, uncle ? " cried Richard. 
 
 " I really don't know," Hippias chuckled. 
 
 " Nor I, uncle ! Sing, cuckoo ! " 
 
 They laughed themselves into the pleasantest mood 
 imaginable. Hippias not only came aboveground, he flew 
 about in the very skies, verting like any blithe creature of 
 the season. He remembered old legal jokes, and anecdotes 
 ■of Circuit; and Richard laughed at them all, but more at 
 him — he was so genial, and childishly fresh, and innocently 
 joyful at his own transformation, while a lurking doubt in 
 the bottom of his eyes, now and then, that it might not last, 
 and that he must go underground again, lent him a look of 
 pathos and humour which tickled his youthful companion 
 irresistibly, and made his heart warm to him. 
 
 " I tell you what, uncle," said Richard, " I think travel- 
 ling's a capital thing." 
 
 " The best thing in the world, my dear boy," Hippias 
 returned. " It makes me wish I had given up that Work of 
 mine, and tried it before, instead of chaining myseK to a 
 task. We're quite different beings in a minute. I am. 
 Hem ! what shall we have for dinner ? " 
 
208 THE OEDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEEEL. 
 
 " Leave that to me, -uncle. I shall order for yon. Ton 
 know, I intend to make you well. How gloriously we go 
 along ! I should like to ride on a railway every day." 
 
 Hippias assunaed a mysterious sadness, and remarked — 
 
 " They say, I've heard, Richard, that it rather injures tha 
 digestion." 
 
 " Nonsense ! see how you'll digest to-night and to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " Perhaps I shall do something yet," sighed Hippias, 
 alluding to the vast literary fame he had aforetime dreamed 
 of. " I hope I shall have a good night to-night." 
 
 " Of course you will ! What ! after laughing like that ? " 
 
 " TJgh ! " Hippias grunted, " I dare say, Richard, you sleep 
 the moment you get into bed ! " 
 
 " The instant my head's on my pillow, and up the moment 
 I wake. Health's everything ! " 
 
 " Health's everything ! " echoed Hippias, from an immense 
 distance. 
 
 "And if you'll put yourself in my hands," Richard con- 
 tiuued, " you shall do just as I do. Ton shall be well and 
 strong, and sing ' Jolly ! ' like Adrian's blackbird. Tou 
 shall, upon my honour, uncle! " 
 
 He specified the hours of devotion to his uncle's recovery 
 — no less than twelve a day — that he intended to expend, 
 and his cheery robustness almost won his uncle to leap up 
 recklessly and clutch health as his own. 
 
 "Mind," quoth Hippias, with a half-seduced smile, "mind 
 your dishes are not too savoury ! " 
 
 " Light food and claret ! Regular meals and amusement ! 
 Lend your heart to all, but give it to none ! " exclaims young 
 Wisdom, and Hippias mutters, " Yes ! yes ! " and intimates 
 that the origin of his malady lay in his not following that 
 maxim earlier. 
 
 " Love ruins us, my dear boy," he said, thinking to preach 
 Richard a lesson, and Richard boisterously broke out — 
 
 " The love of Monsieur Erancatelli, 
 It was the ruin of — et ccetera" 
 
 Hippias bliuked, exclaiming, " Really, my dear boy ! I 
 never saw you so excited." 
 
 " It's the railway ! It's the fun, ancle !" 
 
 "Ah!" Hippias wagged a melancholy head, "you've got 
 
THE HERO TAKES A STEP. 209 
 
 the Golden Bride ! Keep her if you can. That's a pretty- 
 fable of your father's. I gave him the idea, though. Austin 
 filches a great many of my ideas !" 
 " Here's the idea in verse, uncle— 
 
 ' O sunless walkers by the tide ! 
 O have you seen the Golden Bride I 
 They say that she is fair beyond 
 All women ; faithful, and more fond I' 
 
 Tou know, the young inquirer comes to a group of penitent 
 sinners by the brink of a stream. They howl, and answer : 
 
 ' Faithful she is, but she forsakes : 
 And fond, yet endless woe she makes : 
 And fair 1 but with this curse she's cross'd ; 
 To know her not till she is lost !' 
 
 Then the doleful party march off in single file solemnly, and 
 the fabulist pursues — 
 
 ' She hath a palace in the West : 
 Bright Hesper lights her to her rest : 
 And him the Morning Star awakes 
 Whom to her charmed arms she takes. 
 
 ' So lives he till he sees, alas I 
 The maids of baser metal pass.' 
 
 And prodigal of the happiness she lends him, he asks to 
 share it with one of them. There is the Silver Maid, and 
 the Copper, and the Brassy Maid, and others of them. First, 
 you know, he tries Argentine, and finds her only twenty to 
 the pound, and has a worse experience with Copperina, till 
 he descends to the scullery ; and the lower he goes, the less 
 obscure become the features of his Bride of Gold, and all 
 her radiance shines forth, my uncle !" 
 
 " Verse rather blunts the point. Well, keep to her, now 
 you've got her," says Hippias. 
 
 " We will, uncle ! Look how the farms fly past ! Look 
 at the cattle in the fields ! And how the lines duck, and 
 swim up ! 
 
 ' She claims the whole, and not the part — 
 The coin of an unused heart 1 
 To gain his Golden Bride again. 
 He hunts with melancholy men,' 
 
 — and is waked no longer by the Morning Star!" 
 
 p 
 
210 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVBEEL. 
 
 "Not if lie doesn't sleep till an hour before it rises!" 
 Hippias interjected. "You don't rhyme badly. But stick 
 to prose. Poetry's a Base-metal maid. I'm not sure tliat 
 any writing's good for tlie digestion. I'm almost afraid it 
 has spoilt mine." Hippias did look doubtful. 
 
 "Fear nothing, uncle!" laughed Richard. "Tou shall 
 ride in the park with me every day to get an appetite. Tou, 
 and I, and little Oarola — a splendid little girl. I shall call 
 her my Golden Bride. Tou know that little poem of 
 Sandoe's ? 
 
 ' She rides in the park on a prancing bay, 
 
 She and her squires together j 
 Her dark locks gleam from a bonnet of gray. 
 And toss with the tossing feather. 
 
 ' Too calmly proud for a glance of pride 
 Is the beautiful face as it passes ; 
 The cockneys nod to each other aside, 
 The coxcombs lift their glasses. 
 
 " And throng to her, sigh to her, you that can breach 
 The ice-wall that guards her securely ; 
 You have not such bliss, though she smile on you each, 
 As the heart that can image her purely.' 
 
 Wasn't Sandoe once a friend of my father's ? I suppose they 
 quarrelled. He understands the heart. What does he make 
 his ' Humble Lover ' say ? 
 
 ' True, Madam, you may think to part 
 Conditions by a glacier-ridge. 
 But Beauty's for the largest heart, 
 And all abysses Lore can bridge !' " 
 
 Hippias now laughed ; grimly, as men laugh at the empti- 
 ness of words. 
 
 " Largest heart ! " he sneered. " What's a ' glacier-ridge ? ' 
 I've never seen one. I can't deny it rhymes with ' bridge.' 
 But don't go parading your admiration of that person, 
 Richard. Tour father will speak to you on the subject when 
 he thinks fit." 
 
 " I thought they had quarrelled," said Richard. " What 
 a pity ! " and he murmured to a pleased ear : 
 
 " Beauty's for the largest heart ! " 
 
 The flow of their conversation was interrupted by the 
 
THE HERO TAKES A STEP. 211 
 
 entrance of passengers at a station. Rioliard. examined their 
 faces with, pleasure. All faces pleased him. Human nature 
 sat tributary at the feet of him and his Golden Bride. As 
 he could not well talk his thoughts before them, he looked 
 out at the windows, and enjoyed the changeing landscape, 
 projecticLg all sorts of delights for his old friend Ripton, and 
 little Carola, and m.using hazily on the wondrous things he 
 was to do in the world ; of the great service he was to be to 
 his fellow-creatures. In the midst of his reveries he was 
 landed ui London. Tom Bakewell stood at the carriage 
 door. A glance told Richard that his squire had something 
 curious on his mind, and he gave Tom the word to speak out. 
 Tom edged his master out of hearing, and began sputtering 
 a laugh. 
 
 " Dash'd if I can help it, sir ! " he said. " That young 
 Tom ! HeVe come to town dressed that spicy ! and he don't 
 know his way about no more than a stag. He's come to 
 fetch somebody from another rail, and he don't know how to 
 get there, and he ain't sure about which rail 'tis. Look at 
 him, Mr. Richard ! There he goes." 
 
 Young Tom appeared to have the weight of all London on 
 his beaver. 
 
 " Who has he come for ? " Richard asked. 
 
 " Don't you know, sir ? Ton don't like me to mention the 
 name," miunbled Tom bursting to be perfectly intelligible. 
 
 " Is it for her, Tom ? " 
 
 " Miss Lucy, sir." 
 
 Richard turned away, and was seized by Hippias, who 
 begged him to get out of the noise and pother, and caught 
 hold of his slack arm to bear him into a conveyance ; but 
 Richard, by wheeling half to the right, or left, always got 
 his face round to the point where young Tom was manoeuvr- 
 ing to appear at his ease. Even when they were seated in 
 the conveyance, Hippias could not persuade him to drive off. 
 He made the excuse that he did not wish to start till there 
 was a clear road. At last young Tom cast anchor by a 
 policeman, and, doubtless at the official's suggestion, bash- 
 fully took seat in a cab, and was shot into the whirlpool of 
 London. Richard then angrily asked his driver what he was 
 waiting for. 
 
 " Are you ill, my boy ? " said Hippias. " Where's youi- 
 colour." 
 
 p2 
 
212 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEYEEEL. 
 
 He lauglied oddly, and made a random answer that he 
 hoped the fellow would drive fast. 
 
 " I hate slow motion after being in the railway," he said. 
 
 Hippias assured him there was something the matter with 
 him. 
 
 " Nothing, uncle ! nothing ! " said Richard, looking fiercely 
 candid. 
 
 They say, that when the skill and care of men rescue a 
 drowned wretch from extinction, and warm the flickering 
 spirit into steady flame, such pain it is, the blood forcing its 
 way along the dry channels, and the heavily-ticking nerves, 
 and the sullen heart — the struggle of life and death in him 
 — grim death relaxing his gripe ; such pain it is, he cries out 
 no thanks to them that pull him by inches from the depths 
 of the dead river. And he who has thought a love extinct, 
 and is surprised by the old fires, and the old tyranny, he 
 rebels, and strives to fight clear of the cloud of forgotten 
 sensations that settle on him ; such pain it is, the old sweet 
 music reviving through his frame, and the charm of his pas- 
 sion fixing him afresh. Still was fair Lucy the one woman 
 to Richard. He had forbidden her name but from an instinct 
 of self-defence. Must the maids of baser metal dominate him 
 anew, it is in Lucy's shape. Thinking of her now so near 
 him — his darling ! all her graces, her sweetness, her truth ; 
 for, despite his bitter blame of her, he knew her true — swam 
 in a thousand visions before his eyes ; visions pathetic, and 
 full of glory, that now wrung his heart, and now elated it. 
 As well might a ship attempt to calm the sea, as this young 
 man the violent emotion that began to rage in his breast. 
 " I shall not see her! " he said to himself exultingly, and at 
 the same instant thought, how black was every corner of the 
 earth but that one spot where Lucy stood ! how utterly cheer- 
 less the place he was going to ! Then he determined to bear 
 it ; to live in darkness ; there was a refuge in the idea of a 
 voluntary martyrdom. " For if I chose I coaid see her — 
 this day within an hour ! — I could see her, and touch her 
 hand, and, oh, heaven ! — But I do not choose." And a great 
 wave swelled through him, and was crushed down only to 
 swell again more stormily. 
 
 Then Tom Bakewell's words recurred to him, that young 
 Tom Blaize was uncertain where to go for her, and that she 
 might be thrown on this Babylon alone. And flying from 
 
THE HEEO TAKES A STEP. 213 
 
 point to point, it struck him that they had known at Rayn- 
 hani of her return, and had sent him to town to be out of the 
 way — they had been miserably plotting against him once 
 more. " They shall see what right they have to fear me. 
 I'll shame them ! " was the first turn taken by his wrathful 
 feelings, as he resolved to go, and see her safe, and calmly 
 return to his uncle, whom he sincerely believed not to be one 
 of the conspirators. Nevertheless, after forming that resolve, 
 he sat still, as if there were something fatal in the wheels 
 that bore him away from it — perhaps because he knew, as 
 some do when passion is lord, that his intelligence juggled 
 with him ; though none the less keenly did he feel his wrongs 
 and suspicions. His Golden Bride was waning fast. But 
 when Hippias ejaculated to cheer him : " We shall soon be 
 there ! " the spell broke. Richard stopped the cab, saying 
 he wanted to speak to Tom, and would ride with him the 
 rest of the journey. He knew well enough which line of 
 railway his Lucy must come by. He had studied every 
 town and station on the line. Before his uncle could express 
 more than a mute remonstrance, he jumped out and hailed 
 Tom Bakewell, who came behind with the boxes and baggage 
 in a companion cab, his head a yard beyond the window to 
 make sure of his ark of safety, the vehicle preceding. 
 
 " What an extraordinary, impetuous boy it is," said 
 Hippias. " We're in the very street ! " 
 
 Within a minute the stalwart Berry, despatched by the 
 baronet to arrange everything for their comfort, had opened 
 the door, and made his bow. 
 
 "Mr. Richard, sir? — evaporated?" was Berry's modu- 
 lated inquiry. 
 
 " Behind— among the boxes, fool!" Hippias growled, as 
 he received Berry's muscular assistance to alight. " Lunch 
 ready — eh ! " 
 
 " Luncheon was ordered precise at two o'clock, sir — been 
 in attendance one quarter of an hour. Heah ! " Berry sang 
 out to the second cab, which, with its pyramid of luggage, 
 remained stationary some thirty paces distant. At his voice 
 the majestic pile deliberately turned its back on them, and 
 went off in a contrary direction. 
 
214 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 EECOEDS THE RAPID DETELOPMBNT OP THE HEEO. 
 
 On the stroke of the hour when Riptort Thompson was 
 accustomed to consult his gold watch for practical purposes, 
 and snifi freedom and the forthcoming dinner, a burglarious 
 foot entered the clerk's ofE.ce where he sat, and a man of a 
 scowling countenance, who looked a villain, and whom he 
 was afraid he knew, slid a letter into his hands, nodding 
 that it would be prudent for him to read, and be silent. 
 Rpiton obeyed in alarm. Apparently the contents of the 
 letter relieved his conscience ; for he reached down his hat, 
 and told Mr. Beazley to inform his father that he had busi- 
 ness of pressing importance in the "West, and should meet 
 him at the station. Mr. Beazley zealously waited upon the 
 paternal Thompson without delay, and together making their 
 observations from the window, they beheld a cab of many 
 boxes, into which Ripton darted and was followed by one in 
 groom's dress. It was Saturday, the day when Ripton gave 
 up his law-readings, magnanimously to bestow himself upon 
 his family, and Mr. Thompson liked to have his son's arm as 
 he walked down to the station ; but that third glass of Port 
 which always stood for his second, and the groom's sugges- 
 tion of aristocratic acquaintances, prevented Mr. Thompson 
 from interfering : so Ripton was permitted to depart. 
 
 In the cab Ripton made a study of the letter he held. It 
 had the preciseness of an imperial mandate. 
 
 " Deab Ripton, — Tou are to get lodgings for a lady imme- 
 diately. Not a word to a soul. Then come along with Tom. 
 
 "R. D. F." 
 
 " Lodgings for a lady ! " Ripton meditated aloud : " What 
 sort of lodgings ? Where am I to get lodgings ? Who's the 
 lady ? — I say ! " he addressed the mysterious messenger. 
 " So you're Tom Bakewell, are you, Tom ? " 
 
 Tom grinned his identity. 
 
 "Do you remember the rick, Tom? Ha! ha! We got 
 out of that neatly, didn't we, Tom ? We might all have been 
 transported, though. I could have convicted you, Tom ! 
 
EAPID DEVELOPMENT OP THE HEEO. 215 
 
 ■safe ! It's no use coming across a practiced lawyer. Now 
 tell me." Ripton having flourislied his powers, commenced 
 his examination : " Who's this lady ? " 
 
 _ " Better wait till you see Mr. Richard, sir," Tom resumed 
 his scowl to reply. 
 
 " Ah ! " Ripton acquiesced. " Is she young, Tom ? " 
 
 Tom said she was not old. 
 
 " Handsome, Tom P " 
 
 " Some might think one thing, some another," Tom said. 
 
 "And where does she come from now?" asked Ripton, 
 ■with the friendly cheerfulness of a baffled counsellor. 
 
 " Comes from the country, sir." 
 
 " A friend of the family, I suppose ? a relation ? " 
 
 Ripton left this insinuating query to be answered by a 
 look. Tom's face was a dead blank. 
 
 " Ah ! " Ripton took a breath, and eyed the mask opposite 
 him. " Why, you're quite a scholar, Tom ! Mr. Richard is 
 quite well ? Father's quite well ? All right at home ? — eh, 
 Tom ? " 
 
 " Come to town this momin' with his uncle," said Tom. 
 "All quite well, thank ye, sir." 
 
 " Ha ! " cried Ripton, more than ever puzzled, " now I see. 
 Tou all came to town to-day, and these are your boxes out- 
 side. So, so ! But Mr. Richard writes for me to get lodgings 
 for a lady. There must be some mistake — he vwote in a 
 hurry. He wants lodgings for you all — eh ? " 
 
 " 'M sure I d'n know what he wants," said Tom. " You'd 
 better go by the letter, sir." 
 
 Ripton re-consulted that document. " ' Lodgings for a lady, 
 ^nd then come along with Tom. Not a word to a soul.' I 
 say ! that looks like — but he never cared for them. Tou 
 don't mean to say, Tom, he's been running away with any- 
 body ? " 
 
 Tom fell back upon his first reply : " Better wait till ye 
 see Mr. Richard, sir," and Ripton exclaimed: "Hanged if 
 you ain't the tightest witness I ever saw ! I shouldn't like 
 io have you in a box. Some of you country fellows beat any 
 number of cockneys. Tou do ! " 
 
 Tom received the compliment stubbornly on his guard, and 
 Ripton, as nothing was to be got out of him, set about con- 
 sidering how to perform his friend's injunctions ; deciding 
 firstly, that a lady fresh from the country ought to lodge 
 
2 1 6 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 near the parks, in -wliich direction lie told the cabman to 
 drive. Thus, unaware of his high destiny, Eipton joined 
 the hero, and accepted his character in the New Comedy. 
 
 It is, nevertheless, true that certain favoured people d& 
 have beneficent omens to prepare them for their parts whea 
 the hero is in full career, so that they really may be nerved 
 to meet him; ay, and to check him in his course, had they 
 that signal courage. For instance, Mrs. Elizabeth Berry, a 
 ripe and wholesome landlady of advertized lodgings, on the 
 borders of Kensington, noted, as she sat rocking her contem 
 plative person before the parlour fire this very March after- 
 noon, a supernatural tendency in that fire to burn all on one 
 side : which signifies that a wedding approaches the house. 
 Why — who shall say ? Omens are as impassable as heroes. 
 It may be because in these affairs the fire is thought to b& 
 all on one side. Enough that the omen exists, and spoke its 
 solemn warning to the devout woman. Mrs. Berry, in her 
 circle, was known as a certificated lecturer against the snares 
 of matrimony. Still that was no reason why she should not 
 like a wedding. Expectant, therefore, she watched the one 
 glowing cheek of Hymen, and with pleasing tremours beheld 
 a cab of many boxes draw up by her bit of garden, and a 
 gentleman emerge from it in the act of consulting an adver- 
 tizement paper. The gentlem.an required lodgings for a lady. 
 Lodgings for a lady Mrs. Berry could produce, and a very 
 roseate smile for a gentleman ; so much so that Ripton forgot 
 to ask about the terms, which made the landlady in Mrs. 
 Berry leap up to embrace him as the happy man. But her 
 experienced woman's eye checked her enthusiasm. He had 
 not the air of a bridegroom : he did not seem to have a 
 weight on his chest, or an itch to twiddle everything with 
 his fingers. At any rate, he was not the bridegroom for 
 whom omens fly abroad. Promising to have all ready for 
 the lady within an hour, Mrs. Berry fortified him with her 
 card, curtsied him back to his cab, and floated him off on her 
 smiles. 
 
 The remarkable vehicle which had woven this thread of 
 intrigue through London streets, now proceeded sedately to 
 finish its operations. Eipton was landed at an hotel in 
 "Westminster. Ere he was halfway up the stairs, a door 
 opened, and his old comrade in adventure rushed down. 
 Richard allowed no time for salutations. " Have you done 
 
EAPID DEVELOPMENT OP THE HERO. 217 
 
 it ?" was all Le asked. For answer Ripton handed him Mrs. 
 Berry's card. Richard took it, and left him standing there. 
 Five minutes elapsed, and then Ripton heard the gracious 
 rustle of feminine garments above. Richard came a little 
 in advance, leading and half-supporting a figure in a black- 
 silk mantle and small black straw bonnet; young — that was 
 certain, though she held her veil so close he could hardly 
 catch the outlines of her face ; girlishly slender, and sweet 
 and simple in appearance. The hush that came with her, 
 and her soft manner of moving, stirred the silly youth to 
 some of those ardours that awake the Knight of Dames in 
 our bosoms. He felt that he would have given considerable 
 sums for her to lift her veil. He could see that she was 
 trembling — perhaps weeping. It was the master of her 
 fate she clung to. They passed him without speaking. As 
 she went by, her head passively bent, Ripton had a glimpse 
 of noble tresses and a lovely neck ; great golden curls hung 
 loosely behind, pouring from tinder her bonnet. She looked 
 a captive borne to the sacrifice. What Ripton, after a sight 
 of those curls, would have given for her just to lift her veil 
 an instant and strike him blind with beauty, was, fortunately 
 for his exchequer, never demanded of him. And he had 
 absolutely been composing speeches as he came along in the 
 cab ! gallant speeches for the lady, and sly congratulatory 
 ones for his friend, to be delivered as occasion should serve, 
 that both might know him a man of the world, and be at 
 their ease. He forgot the smirking immoralities he had 
 revelled in. This was clearly serious. Ripton did not require 
 to be told that his friend was in love, and meant that life 
 and death business called marriage, parents and guardians 
 consenting or not. 
 
 Presently Richard returned to him, and said hurriedly, 
 " I want you now to go to my uncle at our hotel. Keep him 
 quiet till I come. Say I had to see you — say anything. I 
 shall be there by the dinner hour. Rip ! I must talk to 
 you alone after dinner." 
 
 Ripton feebly attempted to reply that he was due athome. 
 He was very curious to hear the plot of the New Comedy ; 
 and besides, there was Richard's face questioning him sternly 
 and confidently for signs of unhesitating obedience. He 
 finished his grimaces by asking the name and direction of 
 the hotel. Richard pressed his hand. It is much to obtain 
 even that recognition of our devotion from the hero. 
 
218 THE ORDEAL OP EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 Tom Bakewell also received tis priming, and, to judge by 
 his chuckles and grins, rather appeared to enjoy the work 
 cut out for him.. In a few m.inutes they had driven to their 
 separate destinations ; Ripton was left to the unusual exer- 
 cise of his fancy. Such is the nature of youth and its thirst 
 for romance, that only to act as a subordinate is pleasant. 
 When one unfurls the standard of defiance to parents and 
 guardians, he may be sure of raising a lawless troop of 
 adolescent ruffians, born rebels, to any amount. The beard- 
 less crew know that they have not a chance of pay ; but what 
 of that when the rosy prospect of thwarting their elders is 
 in view ? Though it is to see another eat the Forbidden 
 Fruit, they will run all his risks with him. Gaily Bipton 
 took rank as lieutenant in the enterprise, and the moment 
 his heart had sworn the oaths, he was rewarded by an ex- 
 quisite sense of the charms of existence. London streets 
 wore a sly laugh to him. He walked with a dandified heel. 
 The generous youth ogled aristocratic carriages, and glanced 
 intimately at the ladies, overflowingly happy. The crossing- 
 sweepers blessed him. He hummed lively tunes, he turned 
 over old jokes in his mouth unctuously, he hugged himself, he 
 had a mind to dance down Piccadilly, and all because a friend 
 of his was running away with a pretty girl, and he was in the 
 secret. 
 
 It was only when he stood on the doorstep of Richard's 
 hotel, that his jocund mood was a little dashed by remember- 
 ing that he had then to commence the duties of his office, and 
 must fabricate a plausible story to account for what he knew 
 nothing about — a part that the greatest of sages would find 
 it difficult to perform. The young, however, whom sages 
 well may envy, seldom fail in lifting their inventive faculties 
 to the level of their spirits, and two minutes of Hippias's 
 angry complaints against the friend he serenely inquired for, 
 gave Ripton his cue. 
 
 " We're in the very street — within a stone's-throw of the 
 house, and he jumps like a harlequin out of my cab into 
 another ; he must be mad — that boy's got madness in him ! 
 — and carries ofi all the boxes — my dinner-pills, too ! and 
 keeps away the whole of the day, though he promised to go 
 to the doctor, and had a dozen engagements with me," said 
 Hippias, venting an enraged snarl to sum up his grievances. 
 
 Ripton at once told him that the doctor was not at home. 
 
EAriD DEVELOPMENT OP THE HEEO. 219 
 
 " Why, you don't mean to say he's been to the doctor ? " 
 Hippias cried out. 
 
 " He has called on him twice, sir," said Eipton expres- 
 sively. " On leaving me he was going a third time. I 
 shouldn't wonder that's what detains him — he's so deter- 
 mined." 
 
 By fine degrees, beyond the reach of art, Eipton ventured 
 to grow circumstantial, saying that Richaj-d's case was urgent 
 and required immediate medical advice ; and that both he 
 and his father were of opinion Richard should not lose an 
 hour in obtaining it. 
 
 " He's dreadfully alarmed about himself," said Ripton, and 
 ■tapped his chest, and threw up his lips and brows. 
 
 Hippias protested he had never heard a word from his 
 nephew of any physical affliction. 
 
 " No," groaned Ripton, " he was afraid of making you 
 anxious." 
 
 Algernon Peverel and Richard came in while he was ham- 
 mering at the alphabet to recollect the first letter of the 
 elector's name. They had met in the hall below, and were 
 laughing heartily as they entered the room. Ripton jumped 
 Tip to get the initiative. 
 
 "Have yon seen the doctor?" he asked, significantly 
 plucking at Richard's fingers. 
 
 Richard was all abroad at the question. 
 
 " Why, the doctor you were going to for the third time 
 when you left me," said Ripton, in a manner not to be mis- 
 -taken. " What does he say ? " 
 
 Richard sought in turn the countenances of all present, and 
 settled upon Ripton's with a ludicrous stare. 
 
 Algernon clapped him on the back. " What the deuce do 
 you want with doctors, boy ? " 
 
 The solid thump awakened him to see matters as they 
 •were. " Oh, ay 1 the doctor ! " he said, smiling frankly at 
 his lieutenant. " Why, he tells me he'd back me to do Milo's 
 trick in a week from the present day. — Uncle," he came for- 
 ward to Hippias, " I hope you'll excuse me for running ofi as 
 I did. I was in a hurry. I left something at the railway. 
 This stupid Rip thinks I went to the doctor about myself. 
 The fact was, I wanted to fetch the doctor to see you here 
 —so that you might have no trouble, you know. You can't 
 ibear the sight of his instruments and skeletons — I've heard 
 
220 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 you say so. Ton said it set all your marro-w in revolt — 
 ' fried your marrow,' I think were the words, and made you 
 see twenty thousand different ways of sliding down to the 
 chambers of the Grim Bang. Don't you remember ? " 
 
 Hippias emphatically did not remember, and he did not 
 believe the story. Irritation at the mad ravishment of his 
 pill-box rendered him incredulous. As he had no means of 
 confuting his nephew, all he could do safely to express his 
 disbelief in him, was to utter petulant remarks on his power- 
 lessness to appear at the dinner-table that day : upon which 
 — Berry just then trumpeting dinner — Algernon seized one 
 arm of the Dyspepsy, and Richard another, and the laughing 
 couple bore him into the room where dinner was laid, Ripton 
 sniggering in the rear, the really happy man of the party. 
 
 They had fun at the dinner-table. Richard would have 
 it ; and his gaiety, his by -play, his princely superiority to 
 truth and heroic promise of overriding all our laws, his 
 handsome face, the lord and possessor of beauty that he 
 looked, as it were a star shining on his forehead, gained the 
 old complete mastery over Ripton, who had been, mentally 
 at least, half patronizing him till then, because he knew 
 more of London and life, and was aware that his friend now 
 depended upon him almost entirely. 
 
 After a second circle of the claret, the hero caught his 
 lieutenant's eye across the table, and said : 
 
 " We must go out and talk over that law-business. Rip, 
 before you go. Do you think the old lady has any chance ? " 
 
 " Not a bit ! " said Ripton authoritatively. 
 
 " But it's worth iighting — eh. Rip ? " 
 
 " Oh, certainly ! " was Ripton's mature opinion. 
 
 Richard observed that Ripton's father seemed doubtful. 
 Ripton cited his father's habitual caution. Richard made a 
 playful remark on the necessity of sometimes acting in oppo- 
 sition to fathers. Ripton agreed to it — in certain cases. 
 
 "Yes, yes ! in certain cases," said Richard. 
 
 "Pretty legal morality, gentlemen!" Algernon inter- 
 jected ; Hippias adding : " And lay, too ! " 
 
 The pair of uncles listened further to the fictitious 
 dialogue, well kept up on both sides, and in the end desired 
 a statement of the old lady's garrulous case ; Hippias ofEering 
 to decide what her chances were in law, and Algernon to 
 give a common-sense judgement. 
 
EAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HEKO. 221 
 
 " Rip ■will tell you," said Richard, deferentially signalling 
 the lawyer. " I'm a bad hand at these matters. Tell them 
 how it stands. Rip." 
 
 Ripton disguised his excessive uneasiness under endeavours 
 to right his position on his chair, and, inwardly praying 
 speed to the claret jug to come and strengthen his wits, 
 began with a careless aspect : " Oh, nothing ! She — very 
 curious old character ! She — a — wears a wig. She — a — 
 very curious old character indeed ! She — a — quite the old 
 style. There's no doing anything with her ! " and Ripton 
 took a long breath to relieve himself after his elaborate 
 fiction. 
 
 " So it appears," Hippias commented, and Algernon 
 asked : " Well ? and about her wig ? Somebody stole it ? " 
 while Richard, whose features were grim with suppressed 
 laughter, bade the narrator continue. 
 
 Ripton lunged for the claret jug. He had got an old lady 
 like an oppressive bundle on his brain, and he was as help- 
 less as she was. In the pangs of ineffectual authorship his 
 ideas shot at her wig, and then at her one characteristic of 
 extreme obstinacy, and tore back again at her wig, but she 
 would not be animated. The obstinate old thing would 
 remain a bundle. Law studies seemed light in comparison 
 with this tremendous task of changeing an old lady from a 
 doll to a human creature. He flung off some claret, 
 perspired freely, and, with a mental tribute to the cleverness 
 of those author fellows, recommenced : " Oh, nothing ! She 
 —a — wore a wig for a long time. She — Richard knows her 
 better than I do — an old lady — somewhere down in Suffolk. 
 I think we had better advise her not to proceed. The 
 expenses of litigation are enormous ! She — I think we had 
 better advise her to stop short, and not make any scandal." 
 
 " And not make any scandal!" Algernon took him up. 
 " Come, come ! there's something more than a wig, then ? " 
 
 Ripton was commanded to proceed, whether she did or no. 
 The luckless fictionist looked straight at his pitiless leader, 
 and blurted out dubiously, " She — there's a daughter." 
 
 " Bom with effort ! " ejaculated Hippias. " Must give her 
 pause after that ! and I'll take the opportunity to stretch my 
 length on the sofa. Heigho ! that's true what Austin says : 
 ' The general prayer should be for a full stomach, and the 
 individual for one that works well ; for on that basis only 
 
222 THE OEDIAL OF RICHAED FBVEEEL. 
 
 are we a matcli for temporal matters, and able to con- 
 template eternal.' Sententious, but true. I gave him tie- 
 idea, tbough ! Take care of your stomacbs, boys ! and if 
 ever you bear of a monument proposed to a scientific cook or 
 gastronomic doctor, send in your subscriptions. Or say to 
 him while he lives. Go forth, and be a Knight ! Ha ! They 
 have a good cook at this house. He suits me better than 
 ours at Raynham. I almost wish I had brought my manu- 
 script to town, I feel so much better. Aha ! I didn't expect 
 to digest at all without my regular incentive. I think I 
 shall give it up. — What do you say to the theatre to-night,, 
 boys ! " 
 
 Richard shouted, " Bravo, uncle ! " 
 
 " Let Mr. Thompson finish first," said Algernon. " I want 
 to hear the conclusion of the story. The old girl has a wig 
 and a daughter. I'll swear somebody runs away with one of 
 the two ! Fill your glass, Mr. Thompson, and forward ! " 
 
 " So somebody does," Ripton received his impetus. " And 
 they're found in town together," he made a fresh jerk. " She- 
 — a — that is, the old lady — found them in company." 
 
 " She finds him with her wig on in company !" said Alger- 
 non. " Capital ! Here's matter for the lawyers !" 
 
 " And you advise her not to proceed, under such circum- 
 stances of aggravation ?" Hippias observed, humorously 
 twinkling stomachic contentment. 
 
 " It's the daughter," Ripton sighed, and surrendering to- 
 pressure, hurried on recklessly, " A runaway match — beau- 
 tiful girl ! — the only son of a baronet — married by special 
 license. A — the point is," he now brightened and spoke from 
 his own element, " the point is whether the marriage can be 
 annulled, as she's of the Catholic persuasion and he's a 
 Protestant, and they're both married under age. That's the- 
 point." 
 
 Having come to the point he breathed extreme relief, and 
 saw things more distinctly ; not a little amazed at his leader's 
 horrified face. 
 
 The two elders were making various absurd inquiries, when 
 Richard sent his chair to the floor, crying, " What a muddle 
 you're in, Rip ! You're mixing half-a-dozen stories together. 
 The old lady I told you about was old Dame Bakewell, and 
 the dispute was concerning a neighbour of hers who en- 
 croached on her garden, and I said I'd pay the money to see- 
 her righted !" 
 
EAPID DEVELOrMENT OF THE HERO. 223 
 
 " All, to be sure !" said Ripton humbly, " I -was thinking 
 of the other. Oh, of course ! Yes — she — a — her cab- 
 bages" 
 
 " Here, come along," Richard beckoned to him savagely. 
 "I'll be back in five minutes, uncle," he nodded coolly tO' 
 either. 
 
 The young men left the room, and put on their hats. In 
 the hall-passage they met Berry, dressed to return to Rayn- 
 ham. Richard dropped a helper to the intelligence into his 
 hand, and warned him not to gossip much of London. Berry 
 bowed perfect discreetness. 
 
 " What on earth induced you to talk about Protestants and 
 Catholics marrying. Rip ?" said Richard, as soon as they 
 were in the street. 
 
 "Why," Ripton answered, "I was so hard pushed for it^ 
 'pon my honour, I didn't know what to say. I ain't an 
 author, you know; I can't make a story. I was trying to 
 invent a point, you know, and I couldn't think of any other, 
 and I thought that was just the point likely to make a jolly 
 good dispute. Capital dinners they give at those crack 
 hotels. Why did you throw it all upon me ? I didn't begin, 
 on the old lady." 
 
 The hero mused, "It's odd! It's impossible you could 
 have known ! I'll tell you why. Rip ! I wanted to try you. 
 Tou fib well at long range, but you don't do at close quarters 
 and single combat. You're good behind walls, but not worth 
 a shot in the open. I just see what you're fit for. You're 
 staunch — that I am certain of. You always were. Lead the 
 way to one of the Parks — down in that direction. You know ? 
 —where she is !" 
 
 Ripton led the way. His dinner had prepared this young 
 Englishman to defy the whole artillery of established morals. 
 With the muffled roar of London around them, alone in a 
 dark slope of green, the hero, leaning on his henchman, and 
 speaking in a harsh clear under-tone, delivei'ed his explana- 
 tions. Doubtless the true heroic insignia and point of view 
 will be discerned, albeit in common private's uniform. 
 
 " They've been plotting against me for a year, Rip ! When 
 you see her, you'll know what it was to have such a creature- 
 taken away from you. It nearly killed me. Never mind 
 what she is. She's the most perfect and noble creature God; 
 ever made ! It's not only her beauty — I don't care so much' 
 
224 THE ORDEAL OP EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 about that ! — but when you've once seen her, she seems to 
 draw music from all the nerves of your body ; but she's such 
 an angel. I worship her. And her mind's like her face. 
 She's pure gold. There, you'll see her to-night. 
 
 " Well," he pursued, after inflating Ripton with this rap- 
 turous prospect, " they got her away, and I recovered. It 
 was Mister Adrian's work. What's my father's objection to 
 her ? Because of her birth ? She's educated ; her manners 
 are beautiful — full of refinement — quick and soft ! Can they 
 show me one of their ladies like her ? — she's the daughter 
 of a naval lieutenant ! Because she's a Catholic ? What 
 has religion to do with" — he pronounced "Love!" a little 
 modestly — as it were a blush in his voice. 
 
 " Well, when I recovered I thought I did not care for her. 
 It shows how we know ourselves ! And I cared for nothing. 
 I felt as if I had no blood. I tried to imitate my dear Austin. 
 I wish to God he were here. I love Austin. He would 
 understand her. He's coming back this year, and then — but 
 it'll be too late then. — Well, my father's always scheming to 
 make me perfect — he has never spoken to me a word about 
 her, but I can see her in his eyes — he wanted to give me a 
 change, he said, and asked me to come to town with my uncle 
 Hippy, and I consented. It was another plot to get me out 
 of the way ! As I live, I had no more idea of meeting her 
 than of flying to heaven ! " 
 
 He lifted his face. " Look at those old elm branches \ 
 How they seem to mix among the stars ! — glittering fruits of 
 Winter ! " 
 
 Ripton tipped his comical nose upward, and was in duty 
 bound to say. Yes ! though he observed no connection 
 between them and the narrative. 
 
 " Well," the hero went on, " I came to town. There I 
 heard she was coming, too — coming home. It must have 
 been fate, Ripton ! Heaven forgive me ! I was angry with 
 her, and I thought I should like to see her once — only once 
 — and reproach her for being false — for she never wrote to 
 me. And, oh, the dear angel ! what she must have suffered ! 
 — I gave my uncle the slip, and got to the railway she was 
 coming by. There was a fellow going to meet her — a farmer's 
 son — and, good God ! they were going to try and make her 
 marry him ! I remembered it all then. A servant of the 
 farm had told me. That fellow went to the wrong station, 
 
EAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HEED. 225^ 
 
 I suppose, for we saw nothing of Hm. There she was — not 
 
 changed a hit ! — looking lovelier than ever ! And when she 
 
 saw me, I knew in a minnte that she must love me till 
 
 death ! — Ton don't know what it is yet. Rip ! — Will you 
 
 believe it ? — Though I was as sure she loved me and had 
 
 been true as steel, as that I shall see her to-night, I spoke 
 
 bitterly to her. And she bore it meekly — she looked like a 
 
 saint. I told her there was but one hope of life for me — she 
 
 must prove she was true, and as I give up all, so must she. 
 
 I don't know what I said. The thought of losing her made 
 
 me mad. She tried to plead with me to wait — it was for my 
 
 sake, I know. I pretended, like a miserable hypocrite, that 
 
 she did not love me at all. I think I said shameful things. 
 
 Oh what noble creatures women are ! She hardly had 
 
 strength to move. I took her to that place where you found 
 
 us. — Rip ! she went down on her knees to me. I never 
 
 dreamed of anything in life so lovely as she looked then. 
 
 Her eyes were thrown up, bright with a crowd of tears — her 
 
 dark brows bent together, like Pain and Beauty meeting in 
 
 one ; and her glorious golden hair swept off her shoulders as 
 
 she hung forward to my hands. — Could I lose such a prize ? 
 
 — If anything could have persuaded me, would not that ? — I 
 
 thought of Dante's Madonna— Guide's Magdalen.— Is there 
 
 sin in it ? I see none ! And if there is, it's all mine ! I 
 
 swear she's spotless of a thought of sin. I see her very soul! 
 
 Cease to love her ? Who dares ask me ? Cease to love her ? 
 
 Why I live on her! — To see her little chin straining up from 
 
 her throat, as she knelt to me ! — there was one curl that fell 
 
 across her throat " 
 
 Ripton listened for more. Richard had gone off in a muse 
 at the picture. 
 
 " Well ? " said Ripton, " and how about that young farmer 
 fellow ? " 
 
 The hero's head was again contemplating the starry 
 branches. His lieutenant's question came to him after an 
 interval. 
 
 " Young Tom ? Why, it's young Tom Blaize — son of our 
 old enemy, Rip ! I like the old man now. Oh ! I saw 
 nothing of the fellow." 
 
 " Lord ! " cried Ripton, " are we going to get into a mess 
 with Blaizes again ? I don't like that ! " 
 
 His commander quietly passed his likes or dislikes. 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FETEEEL. 
 
 " But when lie goes to the train, and finds she's not there ?" 
 Ripton suggested. 
 
 " IVe provided for that. The fool went to the South-east 
 instead of the South-west. All warmth, all sweetness, conies 
 with the South-west ! — I've provided for that, friend Rip. 
 My trusty Tom awaits him there, as if by accident. He tells 
 him he has not seen her, and advises him to remain in town, 
 and go for her there to-morrow, and the day following. Tom 
 has money for the work. Young Tom ought to see London, 
 you know. Rip ! — like you. We shall gain some good clear 
 days. And when old Blaize hears of it — what then ? I have 
 her ! she's mine ! — Besides, he won't hear for a week. This 
 Tom beats that Tom in cunning, I'll wager. "Ha! ha!" 
 the hero burst out at a recollection. " What do you think, 
 Rip ? My father has some sort of System with me, it 
 appears, and when I came to town the time before, he took 
 me to some people — the Grandisons — and what do you 
 think ? one of the daughters is a little girl — a nice little 
 thing enough — very funny — and he wants me to wait for 
 her ! He hasn't said so, but I know it. I know what he 
 means. Nobody understands him but me. I know he loves 
 me, and is one of the best of men — but just consider ! — a 
 little girl who just comes up to my elbow. Isn't it ridicu- 
 lous ? Did you ever hear such nonsense ? " 
 
 RijJton emphasized his opinion that it certainly was 
 foolish. 
 
 " No, no ! The die's cast ! " said Richard. " They've been 
 plotting for a year up to this day, and this is what comes of 
 it ! If my father loves me, he will love her. And if he 
 loves me, he'll forgive my acting against his wishes, and see 
 it was the only thing to be done. Come ! step out ! what a 
 time we've been ! " and away he went, compelling Ripton to 
 the sort of strides a drummer-boy has to take beside a 
 column of grenadiers. 
 
 Ripton began to wish himself in love, seeing that it 
 endowed a man with wind so that he could breathe great 
 sighs, while going at a tremendous pace, and experience no 
 sensation of fatigue. The hero was communing with the 
 elements, his familiars, and allowed him to pant as he 
 pleased. Some keen-eyed Kensington urchins, noticing the 
 discrepancy between the pedestrian jjowers of the two, aimed 
 their wit at Mr. Thompson junior's expense. The pace, and 
 
EAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HEEO. 227 
 
 notMng but the pace, induced Ripton to proclaim that they 
 had gone too far, when they discovered that they had over- 
 shot the naark by half a mile. In the street over which 
 stood love's star, the hero thundered his presence at a door, 
 and evoked a flying housemaid, who knew not Mrs. Berry. 
 The hero attached significance to the fact that his instincts 
 should have betrayed him, for he could have sworn to that 
 house. The door being shut he stood in dead silence. 
 
 " Haven't you got her card ? " Ripton inquired, and heard 
 that it was in the custody of the cabman. Neither of them 
 could positively bring to mind the number of the house. 
 
 " Tou ought to have chalked it, like that fellow in the 
 Forty Thieves," Ripton hazarded a pleasantry which met 
 with no response. 
 
 Betrayed by his instincts, the magic slaves of Love ! The 
 hero heavily descended the steps. 
 
 Ripton murmured that they were done for. His com- 
 mander turned on him, and said : " Take all the houses on 
 the opposite side, one after another. I'll take these." With 
 a wry face Ripton crossed the road, altogether subdued by 
 Richard's native superiority to adverse circumstances. 
 
 Then were families aroused. Then did mortals dimly 
 guess that something portentous was abroad. Then were 
 labourers all day in the vineyard, harshly wakened from 
 their evening's nap. Hope and Fear stalked the street, 
 as again and again the loud companion summonses 
 resounded. Finally Ripton sang out cheerfully. He had 
 Mrs. Berry before him, profuse of mellow curtsies. 
 
 Richard ran to her and caught her hands : " She's well ? — 
 upstairs ? " 
 
 " Oh, quite well ! only a trifle tired with her journey, and 
 fluttering-like," Mrs. Berry replied to Ripton alone. The 
 lover had flown aloft. 
 
 The wise woman sagely ushered Ripton into her own 
 private parlour, there to wait till he was wanted. 
 
 q2 
 
228 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED TETEEEL. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 CONTAINS AN INTEEOESSION FOK THE HBEOINE. 
 
 " In all cases wliere two have joined to commit an ofEence, 
 pxmish one of tlie two lightly," is the dictum of The 
 Pilgeim's Sceip. 
 
 It is possible for young heads to conceive proper plans of 
 action, and occasionally, by sheer force of will, to check the 
 wild horses that are ever fretting to gallop off with them. 
 But when they have given the reins and the whip to another, 
 what are they to do ? They may go down on their knees, 
 and beg and pray the furious charioteer to stop, or moderate 
 his pace. Alas ! each fresh thing they do redoubles his 
 ardour. There is a power in their troubled beauty women 
 learn the use of, and what wonder ? They have seen it 
 kindle Ilium to flames so often ! But ere they grow ma- 
 tronly in the house of Menelaus, they weep, and implore, and 
 do not, in truth, know how terribly two-edged is their gift of 
 loveliness. They resign themselves to an incomprehensible 
 frenzy ; pleasant to them, because they attribute it to exces- 
 sive love. And so the very sensible things which they can 
 and do say, are vain. 
 
 I reckon it absurd to ask them to be quite in earnest. Are 
 not those their own horses in yonder team ? Certainly, if 
 they were quite in earnest, they might soon have my gentle- 
 man as sober as a carter. A hundred different ways of dis- 
 enchanting him exist, and Adrian will point you out one 
 or two that shall be instantly efficacious. For Love, the 
 charioteer, is easily tripped, while honest jog-trot Love keeps 
 his legs to the end. Granted dear women are not quite in 
 earnest, still the mere words they utter should be put to 
 their good account. They do mean them, though their 
 hearts are set the wrong way. 'Tis a despairing, pathetic 
 homage to the judgement of the majority, in whose faces 
 they are flying. Punish Helen, very young, lightly. After 
 a certain age you may select her for special chastisement. 
 An innocent with Theseus, with Paris she is an advanced 
 incendiary. 
 
 The fair young girl was sitting as her lover had left her ; 
 
INTEECESSION POE THE HEROINE. 229 
 
 trying to recall her stnimed senses. Her bonnet ■was nn- 
 removed, lier hands clasped on her knees ; dry tears in her 
 eyes. Like a dutiful slave, she rose to him. And first he 
 claimed her mouth. There was a speech, made up of all the 
 pretty -wisdom her wild situation and true love could gather, 
 awaiting him there ; but his kiss scattered it to fragments. 
 She dropped to her seat weeping, and hiding her shamed 
 cheeks. 
 
 By his silence she divined his thoughts, and took his hand 
 and drew it to her lips. 
 
 He bent beside her, bidding her look at him. 
 
 " Keep your eyes so." 
 
 She could not. 
 
 " Do you fear me, Lucy ? " 
 
 A throbbing pressure answered him, 
 
 " Do you love me, darling ? " 
 
 She trembled from head to foot. 
 
 " Then why do you turn from me ? " 
 
 She wept : " O Richard, take me home ! take me home ! " 
 
 " Look at me, Lucy ! " 
 
 Her head shrank timidly round. 
 
 " Keep your eyes on me, darling ! Now speak ! " 
 
 But she could not look and speak too. The lover knew his 
 mastery when he had her eyes. 
 
 " You wish me to take you home ? " 
 
 She faltered: " Richard ? it is not too late." 
 
 " Tou regret what you have done for me ? " 
 
 " Dearest ! it is ruin." 
 
 " Tou weep because you have consented to be mine ? ' 
 
 " Not for me ! Richard ! " 
 
 " For me you weep ? Look at me ! For me P " 
 
 " How will it end ! Richard ! " 
 
 " Tou weep for me ? " 
 
 " Dearest ! I would die for you ! " 
 
 "Would you see me indifferent to everything in the 
 world ? Would you have me lost ? Do you think I will 
 live another day in England without you ? I have staked 
 all I have on you, Lucy. Tou have nearly killed me once. 
 A second time, and the earth will not be troubled by me. 
 Tou ask me to wait, when they are plotting against us on all 
 sides ? Darling Lucy ! look on me. Fix your fond eyes on 
 me. Tou ask me to wait when here you are given to me— 
 
230 THE OEDEAL OE EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 ■when you have proved my faitli — wlien we know we love as 
 none have loved. Give me your eyes ! Let them tell me I 
 have your heart ! " 
 
 Where was her wise little speech ? How could she match 
 such mighty eloquence ? She sought to collect a few more 
 of the scattered fragments. 
 
 " Dearest ! your father may be brought to consent by and 
 by, and then — Oh ! if you take me home now " 
 
 The lover stood up ! " He who has been arrangeing that 
 fine scheme to disgrace and martyrize you ? True, as I live ! 
 that's the reason of their having you back. Tour old servant 
 heard him and your uncle discussing it. He ! — Lucy ! he's 
 a good man, but he miust not step in between you and me 
 I say God has given you to me." 
 
 He was down by her side again, his arms enfolding her. 
 
 She had hoped to fight a better battle than in the morning 
 and she was weaker and softer. 
 
 Ah ! why should she doubt that his great love was the first 
 law to her ? Why should she not believe that she would 
 wreck him by resisting ? And if she sujffiered, oh sweet to 
 think it was for his sake ! Sweet to shut out wisdom ; accept 
 total blindness, and be led by him ! 
 
 The hag Wisdom annoyed them little further. She rustled 
 her garments ominously, and vanished. 
 
 " Oh, my own Richard !" the fair girl just breathed. 
 
 He whispered, " Call me that name." 
 
 She blushed deeply. 
 
 " Call me that name," he repeated. " Tou said it once to- 
 day." 
 
 " Dearest !" 
 
 " Not that." 
 
 " O darling !" 
 
 " Not that." 
 
 " Husband !" 
 
 She was won. The rosy gate from which the word had 
 issued was closed with a seal. 
 
 Ripton did not enjoy his introduction to the caged bird of 
 beauty that night. He received a lesson in the art of pump- 
 ing from the worthy landlady below, up to an hour when she 
 yawned, and he blinked, and their common candle wore with 
 dignity the brigand's hat of midnight, and cocked a drunken 
 eye at them from under it. 
 
PEEPAEATIONS FOE ACTION. 231 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 EELATES HOW PEEPAKATIONS FOE ACTION WEEK CONDTJOTEP 
 UNDEE THE APEIL OP LOTEES. 
 
 Beauty, of course, is for the hero. Nevertlieless, it is not 
 always lie on whom beauty works its most oonqnering in- 
 fluence. It is the dull commonplace man into whose slow 
 braia she drops like a celestial light, and burns lastingly. 
 The poet, for instance, is a connoisseur of beauty : to the artist 
 she is a model. These gentlemen by much contemplation of 
 her charms wax critical. The days when they had hearts 
 being gone, they are haply divided between the blonde and 
 the brunette ; the aquiline nose and the Proserpine ; this 
 shaped eye and that. But go about among simple unpro- 
 fessional fellows, boors, dunderheads, and here and there you 
 shall find some barbarous intelligence which has had just 
 strength enough to conceive, and has taken Beauty as its 
 Goddess, and knows but one form to worship, in its poor 
 stupid fashion, and would perish for her. Nay, more : the 
 man would devote all his days to her, though he is dumb as 
 a dog. And, indeed, he is Beauty's Dog. Almost every 
 Beauty has her Dog. The hero possesses her ; the poet pro- 
 claims her ; the painter puts her upon canvas ; and the 
 faithful old Dog follows her : and the end of it is that the 
 faithful old Dog is her single attendant. Sir Hero is revel- 
 ling in the wars, or in Armida's bowers ; Mr. Poet has spied 
 a wrinkle ; the brush is for the rose in its season. She turns 
 to her old Dog then. She hugs him ; and he, who has sub- 
 sisted on a bone and a pat till there he squats decrepid, he 
 turns his grateful old eyes up to her, and has not a notion 
 that she is hugging sad memories in him : Hero, Poet, 
 Painter, in one scrubby one ! Then is she buried, and the 
 village hears languid howls, and there is a paragraph in the 
 newspapers concerning the extraordinary fidelity of an Old 
 Dog. 
 
 Excited by suggestive recollections of Nooredeen and the 
 Fair Persian, and the change in the obscure monotony of 
 his life by his having quarters in a crack hotel, and living 
 familiarly with West-End people — living on the fat of the 
 land (which forms a stout portion of an honest youth's 
 romance), Bipton Thompson breakfasted next morning with 
 
232 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED EEVEEEL. 
 
 his chief at half-past eight. The meal had been fixed OYsr- 
 night for seven, but Ripton slept a great deal more than the 
 nightingale, and (to chronicle his exact state) even half -past 
 eight rather afflicted his new aristocratic senses, and reminded 
 him too keenly of law and bondage. He had preferred to 
 breakfast at Algernon's hour, who had left word for eleven. 
 Him, however, it was Richard's object to avoid, so they fell 
 to, and Ripton no longer envied Hippias in bed. Breakfast 
 done, they bequeathed the consoling information for Alger- 
 non that they were ofi to hear a popular preacher, and 
 departed. 
 
 " How happy everybody looks ! " said Richard, in the 
 quiet Sunday streets. 
 
 " Tes— jolly ! " said Ripton. 
 
 "When I'm — when this is over, I'll see that they are, 
 too — as many as I can make happy," said the hero : adding 
 softly : " Her blind was down at a quarter to six. I think 
 she slept well ! " 
 
 " Tou don't mean to say you've been there this morning ?" 
 Ripton exclaimed. " Really ? " and an idea of what love 
 was dawned upon his dull brain. 
 
 " Will she see me, Ricky ? " 
 
 " Tes. She'll see you to-day. She was tired last night." 
 
 " Positively ? " 
 
 Richard assured him that the privilege would be his. 
 
 " Here," he said, coming under some trees in the park, 
 " here's where I talked to you last night. What a time it 
 seems ! How I hate the night ! " 
 
 " Tou'll " Ripton darkly winked ; but his chief looked 
 
 uninstructed, and he branched into the converse of day- 
 light. 
 
 On the way, that Richard might have an exalted opinion 
 of him, he hinted decorously at a somewhat intimate and 
 mysterious acquaintance with the sex. Ripton Thompson 
 had seen pretty girls, and pretty girls had seen Ripton 
 Thompson. Ahem ! — Headings of certain random adven- 
 tures he gave. 
 
 " Well ! " said his chief, " why don't you marry her ? " 
 
 Then was Ripton shocked, and cried, " Oh, dear ! " and 
 had a taste of the feeling of superiority, destined that day 
 to be crushed utterly. 
 
 He was again deposited in Mrs. Berry's charge for a term 
 
PREPARATIONS TOE ACTION. 233 
 
 that caused Mm dismal fears that the' Fair Persian still 
 refused to show her face, but Richard called out to him, 
 and up Ripton went, unaware of the transformation he was 
 to undergo. Hero and Beauty stood together to receive him. 
 From the bottom of the stairs he had his vivaciously agree- 
 able smile ready for them, and by the time he entered the 
 room his cheeks were painfully stiff, and his eyes strained 
 beyond their exact meaning. Lucy, with one hand anchored 
 to her lover, welcomed him kindly. He relieved her shy- 
 ness by looking so extremely silly. They sat down, and 
 tried to commence a conversation, but Ripton was as little 
 master of his tongue as he was of his eyes. After an inter- 
 val, the Fair Persian having done duty by showing herself, 
 was glad to quit the room. Her lord and possessor then 
 turned inquiringly to Ripton. 
 
 " Tou don't wonder now, Rip ? " he said. 
 
 " No, Richard ! " Ripton waited to reply with sufficient 
 solemnity, " indeed I don't ! " 
 
 He spoke differently ; he looked differently. He had the 
 Old Dog's eyes in his head. They watched the door she had 
 passed through ; they listened for her, as dogs' eyes do. 
 When she came in, bonneted for a walk, his agitation was 
 dog-like. When she hung on her lover timidly, and went 
 forth, he followed without an idea of envy, or anything save 
 the secret raptures the sight of her gave him, which are the 
 Old Dog's own. For beneficent Nature requites him. His 
 sensations cannot be heroic, but they have a fulness, and a 
 wagging delight, as good in their way. And this capacity 
 for humble unaspiring worship has its peculiar guerdon. 
 When Ripton comes to think of Miss Random now, what 
 will he think of himself ? Let no one despise the Old Dog. 
 Through him doth Beauty vindicate her sex. 
 
 It did not please Ripton that others should have the \)liss 
 of beholding her, and as, to his perceptions, everybody did, 
 and observed her offensively, and stared, and turned their 
 heads back, and interchanged comments on her, and became 
 in a minute madly in love with her, he had to smother low 
 growls. They strolled about the pleasant gardens of Ken- 
 sington all the morning, under the young chestnut buds, and 
 round the windless waters, talking, and soothing the 
 wild excitement of their hearts. If Lucy spoke, Ripton 
 pricked up his ears. She, too, made the remark that every- 
 
234 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 body seemed to look happy, and lie teard it with thrills of 
 joy. " So everybody is, where you are ! " he would have 
 wished to say, if he dared, but was restrained by fears that 
 his burning eloquence would commit him. Ripton knew the 
 people he met twice. It would have been difficult to per- 
 suade him they were the creatures of accident. 
 
 From the Gardens, in contempt of Ripton's frowned pro- 
 test, Richard boldly struck into the Park, where solitary 
 carriages were beginning to perform the circtdt. Here 
 Ripton had some justification for his jealous pangs. The 
 young girl's golden locks of hair ; her sweet, now dreamily 
 sad, face; her gentle graceful figure in the black straight 
 dress she wore ; a sort of half- conventual air she had — a 
 mark of something not of class, that was partly beauty's, 
 partly maiden innocence growing conscious, partly remorse 
 at her weakness and dim fear of the future it was sowing — 
 did attract the eye-glasses. Ripton had to learn that eyes 
 are bearable, but eye-glasses an abomination. They fixed a 
 spell upon his courage ; for somehow the youth had always 
 ranked them as emblems of our nobility, and hearing two 
 exquisite eye-glasses, who had been to front and rear several 
 times, drawl in gibberish generally imputed to lords, that 
 his heroine was a charming little creature, just the size, but 
 had no style, — he was abashed ; he did not fly at them and 
 tear them. He became dejected. Beauty's dog is affected 
 by the eye-glass in a manner not unlike the common animal's 
 terror of the human eye. 
 
 Richard appeared to hear nothing, or it was homage that 
 he heard. He repeated to Lucy Diaper Sandoe's verses — 
 
 " The cockneys nod to each other aside, 
 The coxcombs lift their glasses," 
 
 and projected hiring a horse for her to ride every day in the 
 park, and shine among the highest. 
 
 They had turned to the West, against the sky glittering 
 through the bare trees across the water, and the bright- 
 edged rack. The lover, his imagination just then occupied 
 in clothing earthly glories in celestial, felt where his senses 
 were sharpest the hand of his darling falter, and instinctively 
 looked ahead. His uncle Algernon was leisurely jolting 
 towards them on his one sound leg. The dismembered 
 Guardsman talked to a friend whose arm supported him, 
 
PEEPAEATIONS FOE ACTION. 235 
 
 and speculated from time to time on tlie fair ladies driving 
 by. The t-sro white faces passed him unobserved. Unfor- 
 tunately Ripton, coming behind, went plump upon the 
 Captain's live toe — or so he pretended — crying, " Confound 
 it, Mr. Thompson ! you might have chosen the other." 
 
 The horrible apparition did confound Ripton, who stam- 
 mered that it was extraordinary. 
 
 " Not at all," said Algernon. " Everybody makes up to 
 that fellow. Instinct, I suppose ! " 
 
 He had not to ask for his nephew. Richard turned to 
 face the matter. 
 
 " Sorry I couldn't wait for you this morning, uncle," he 
 said, with the coolness of relationship. " I thought you 
 never walked so far." 
 
 His voice was in perfect tone — the heroic mask admirable. 
 
 Algernon examined the downcast visage at his side, and 
 contrived to allude to the popular preacher. He was 
 instantly iatroduced to Ripton's sister. Miss Thompson. 
 
 The Captain bowed, smiling melancholy approval of his 
 nephew's choice of a minister. After a few stray remarks, 
 and an affable salute to Miss Thompson, he hobbled away, 
 and then the three sealed volcanoes breathed, and Lucy's 
 arm ceased to be squeezed quite so much up to the heroic 
 pitch. 
 
 This incident quickened their steps homeward to the 
 sheltering wings of Mrs. Berry. All that passed between 
 them on the subject comprised a stammered excuse from 
 Ripton for his conduct, and a good-humoured rejoinder from 
 Richard, that he had gained a sister by it : at which Ripton 
 ventured to wish aloud Miss Desborough would only think 
 so, and a faint smile twitched poor Lucy's lips to please him. 
 She hardly had strength to reach her cage. She had none 
 to eat of Mrs. Berry's nice little dinner. To be alone, that 
 she might cry and ease her heart of its accusing weight of 
 tears, was all she prayed for. Kind Mrs. Berry, slipping 
 into her bedroom to take ofE her things, found the fair body 
 in a fevered shudder, and finished by undressing her com- 
 pletely and putting her to bed. 
 
 " Just an hour's sleep, or so," the mellifluous woman ex- 
 plained the case to the two anxious gentlemen. " A quiet 
 sleep and a cup of warm tea goes for more than twenty 
 doctors, it do — when there's the flutters," she pursued. " I 
 
236 THE OEDEAL OF BICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 know it by myself. And a good cry beforehand's better tban 
 the best of medicine." 
 
 Sbe nursed them into a make-believe of eating, and retired 
 to her softer charge and sweeter babe, reflecting, " Lord ! 
 Lord ! the three of 'em don't make fifty ! I'm as old as two 
 and a half of 'em, to say the least." Mrs. Berry used her 
 apron, and by virtue of their tender years took them all three 
 into her heart. 
 
 Left alone, neither of the yonng men could swallow a 
 morsel. 
 
 " Did you see the change come over her ? " Richard 
 whispered. 
 
 Ripton fiercely accused his prodigious stupidity. 
 
 The lover flung down his knife and fork : " What could 
 I do ? If I had said nothing, we should have been suspected. 
 I was obliged to speak. Aud she hates a lie! See! it has 
 struck her down. God forgive me ! " 
 
 Ripton affected a serene mind : " It was a fright, Richard," 
 he said. " That's what Mrs. Berry means by flutters. 
 Those old women talk ia that way. Ton heard what she 
 said. And these old women know. I'll tell you what it is. 
 It's this, Richard ! — it's because you've got a fool for your 
 friend ! " 
 
 " She regrets it," muttered the lover. " Good God ! I 
 think she fears me." He dropped his face in his hands. 
 
 Ripton went to the vsandow, repeating energetically for his 
 comfort : " It's because you've got a fool for your friend 1 " 
 
 Sombre grew the street they had last night aroused. The 
 sun was buried alive in cloud. Ripton saw himself no more 
 in the opposite window. He watched the deplorable objects 
 passing on the pavement. His aristocratic visions had gone 
 like his breakfast. Beauty had been struck down by his 
 egregious folly, and there he stood — a wretch ! 
 
 Richard came to him : " Don't mumble on like that, Rip !" 
 he said. " ISTobody blames yon." 
 
 " Ah ! you're very kind, Richard," interposed the wretch, 
 moved at the face of misery he beheld. 
 
 " Listen to me. Rip ! I shall take her home to-night. 
 Tes ! If she's happier away from me ! — do you think me a 
 
 brute, Ripton ? Rather than have her shed a tear, I'd ! 
 
 I'll take her home to-night ! " 
 
PEEPAKATIONS FOE ACTION. 237 
 
 Ripton suggested that it was sudden ; adding from his 
 larger experience, people perhaps might talk. 
 
 The lover could not understand what they should talk 
 about, but he said : " If I give him who came for her yester- 
 day the clue ? If no one sees or hears of me, what can they 
 say ? Rip ! I'll give her up. I'm wrecked for ever ! what 
 of that ? Tea — ^let them take her ! The world in arms 
 should never have torn her from me, but when she cries — 
 Yes ! all's over. I'll find him at once." 
 
 He searched in out-of-the-way corners for the hat of 
 resolve. Ripton looked on, wretcheder than ever. 
 
 " Suppose," the idea struck him, " suppose, Richard, she 
 doesn't want to go ? " 
 
 The lover sternly continued his hunt. He found the pro- 
 pelling machine at last, and put it on, saying under its 
 shadow : " I'm ready ! Now ! " 
 
 Here was sadness and gloom come upon them ! Ripton 
 likewise commenced the search for his doleful casque, and 
 toppled it moodily on the back of his head in sign of glorious 
 enterprise abandoned, and surrender to the enemy . 
 
 It was a moment when, perhaps, one who sided with 
 parents and guardians and the old wise world, might have 
 inclined them to pursue their righteous wretched course, and 
 have given small Cupid a smack and sent him home to 
 his naughty Mother. Alas ! (it is The Pilgeim's Scrip in- 
 terjecting) women are the born accomplices of mischief ! In 
 bustles Mrs. Berry to clear away the refection, and finds the 
 two knights helmed, and sees, though 'tis dusk, that they 
 wear doubtful brows, and guesses bad things for her dear 
 God Hymen in a twinkling. 
 
 " Dear ! dear ! " she exclaimed, " and neither of you eaten 
 a scrap ! And there's my dear young lady ofi into the pret- 
 tiest sleep you ever see ! " 
 
 " Ha ! " cried the lover, illuminated. 
 
 " Soft as a baby ! " Mrs. Berry averred. " I went to look 
 at her this very moment, and there's not a bit of trouble in 
 her breath. It come and it go like the sweetest regular 
 instrument ever made. The Black Ox haven't trod on 'her 
 foot yet ! Most like it was the air of London. But only 
 fancy, if you had called in a doctor ! Why, I shouldn't have 
 let her take any of his quackery. Now, there ! " 
 
 Ripton attentively observed his chief, and saw him doff 
 
238 THE OEDBAI OF EICHAED PETEEEL. 
 
 his tat witli a curious caution, and peer into its recess, from 
 wMcli, during Mrs. Berry's speech, lie drew forth, a little 
 glove — dropped there by some freak of chance. 
 
 " Keep me, keep me, now you have me ! " sang the little 
 glove, and amused the lover with a thousand conceits. 
 
 " When will she wake, do you think, Mrs. Berry ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh ! we mustn't go for disturbing her," said the guileful 
 good creature. " Bless ye ! let her sleep it out. And if you 
 young gentlemen was to take my advice, and go and take a 
 walk for to get a appetite — everybody should eat ! it's their 
 sacred duty, no matter what their feelings be ! and I say it 
 who 'm no chicken ! — I'll frickashee this — which is a chicken 
 — against your return. I'm a cook, I can assure ye ! " 
 
 The lover seized her two hands. " You're the best old 
 soul in the world ! " he cried. Mrs. Berry appeared willing 
 to kiss him. " We won't disturb her. Let her sleep. Keep 
 her in bed, Mrs. Berry. Will you ? And we'll call to 
 inquire after her this evening, and come and see her to-mor- 
 row. I'm sure you'll be kind to her. There ! there ! " Mrs. 
 Berry was preparing to whimper. " I trust her to you, you 
 see. Good-bye, you dear old soul." 
 
 He smuggled a handful of gold into her keeping, and went 
 to dine with his uncles, happy and hungry. 
 
 Before they reached the hotel, they had agreed to draw 
 Mrs. Berry into their confidenoe, telling her (with embellish- 
 ments) all save their names, so that they might enjoy the 
 counsel and assistance of that trump of a woman, and yet 
 have nothing to fear from her. Lucy was to receive the 
 name of Letitia, Ripton's youngest and best-looking sister. 
 The heartless fellow proposed it in cruel mockery of an old 
 weakness of hers. 
 
 " Letitia ! " mused Richard. " I like the name. Both 
 begin with L. There's something soft — womanlike — in the 
 L.'s." 
 
 Material Bipton remarked that they looked like pounds on 
 paper. The lover roamed through his golden groves. " Lucy 
 Feverel ! that sounds better ! I wonder where Ralph is. I 
 should like to help him. He's in love with my cousin Clare. 
 He'll never do anything till he marries. No man can. I'm 
 going to do a hundred things when it's over. We shall 
 travel first. I want to see the Alps. One doesn't know 
 
PREPARATIONS FOE ACTION. 239 
 
 ■wLat the earth is till one has seen the Alps. What a delight 
 it will be to her ! I fancy I see her eyes gazing up at them. 
 
 " ' And oh, your dear blue eyeg, that heavenward glance 
 With kindred beauty, banished humbleness, 
 Past weeping for mortality's distress — 
 Tet from your soul a tear hangs there in trance. 
 And fills, but does not fall ; 
 Softly I hear It call 
 At heaven's gate, till Sister Seraphs press 
 To look on you their old love from the skies : 
 Those are the eyes of Seraphs bright on your blue eyes t " 
 
 Beautiful ! These lines, Rip, were written by a man who 
 was once a friend of my father's. I intend to find him and 
 make them friends again. Ton don't care for poetry. It's 
 no nse your trying to swallow it, Rip ! " 
 
 " It soiuids very nice," said Ripton, modestly shutting his 
 mouth. 
 
 " The Alps ! Italy ! Rome ! and then I shall go to the 
 East," the hero continued. " She's ready to go anywhere 
 with me, the dear brave heart ! Oh, the glorious golden 
 East ! I dream of the desert. I dream I'm chief of an 
 Arab tribe, and we fly all white in the moonlight on our 
 mares, and hurry to the rescue of my darling ! And we 
 push the spears, and we scatter them, and I come to the tent 
 where she crouches, and catch her to my saddle, and away ! 
 —Rip! what a life!" 
 
 Ripton strove to imagine he could enjoy it. " And then 
 we shall come home, and I shall lead Austin's life, with her 
 to help me. First be virtuous. Rip ! and then serve your 
 country heart and soul. A wise man told me that. I think 
 I shall do something." 
 
 Sunshine and cloud, cloud and sunshine, passed over the 
 lover. Now life was a narrow ring; now the distances 
 extended. An hour ago and food was hateful. Now he 
 manfully refreshed his nature, and joined in Algernon's 
 encomiums on Miss Letitia Thompson. 
 
 Meantime Beauty slept, watched by the veteran volunteer 
 of the hero's band. Lucy awoke from dreams which seemed 
 reality, to the reality which was a dream. She awoke call- 
 ing for some friend, " Margaret ! " and heard one say, " My 
 name is Bessy Berry, my love ! not Margaret." Then she 
 asked piteously where she was, eud where was Margaret, her 
 
240 THE OEDEAL Of EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 dear friend, and Mrs. Berry whispered, " Sure youVe got a 
 dearer ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " sighed Lucy, sinking on her pillow, overwhelmed 
 by the strangeness of her state. 
 
 Mrs. Berry closed the frill of her nightgown and adjusted 
 the bedclothes quietly. 
 
 Her name was breathed. 
 
 " Tes, my love ? " she said. 
 
 "Is he here?" 
 
 " He's gone, my dear." 
 
 " Gone ? — Oh, where ? " The young girl started up in dis- 
 order. 
 
 " Gone, to be back, my love ! Ah ! that young gentle- 
 man ! " Mrs. Berry chanted: "Not a morsel have he eat; 
 not a drop have he drunk ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Berry ! why did you not make him ? " Lucy 
 wept for the famine-struck hero who was just then feeding 
 mightily. 
 
 Mrs. Berry explained that to make one eat who thought 
 the darling of his heart like to die, was a sheer impossibility 
 for the cleverest of women ; and on this deep truth Lucy 
 reflected, with her eyes wide at the candle. She wanted one 
 to pour her feelings out to. She slid her hand from under 
 the bedclothes, and took Mrs. Berry's, and kissed it. The 
 good creature required no further avowal of her secret, but 
 forthwith leaned her consummate bosom to the pillow, and 
 petitioned Heaven to bless them both ! — Then the little bride 
 was alarmed, .and wondered how Mrs. Berry could have 
 guessed It. 
 
 " Why," said Mrs. Berry, " your love is out of your eyes, 
 and out of everything ye do." And the little bride wondered 
 more. She thought she had been so very cautious not to 
 betray it. The common woman in them made cheer together 
 after their own April fashion. Following which Mrs. Berry 
 probed for the sweet particulars of this beautiful love-match ; 
 but the little bride's lips were locked. She only said her 
 lover was above her in station. 
 
 " And you're a Catholic, my dear ! " 
 
 " Tes, Mrs. Berry ! " 
 
 "And him a Protestant." 
 
 " Tes, Mrs. Berry ! " 
 
 " Dear, dear ! — And why shouldn't ye be ? " she ejaculated. 
 
PEEPAEATIONS FOE ACTION. 241 
 
 seeing sadness return to the bridal babe. " So as you was 
 born, so shall ye be ! But you'll have to make your arrange- 
 ments about the children. The girls to worship with you • 
 the boys with him. It's the same God, my dear! Tou 
 mustn't blush at it, though you do look so pretty. If my 
 young gentleman could see you now ! " 
 
 " Please, Mrs. Berry ! " Lucy murmured. 
 
 " Why, he will, you know, my dear ! " 
 
 " Oh, please, Mrs. Berry ! " 
 
 " And you that can't bear the thoughts of it ! Well, I do 
 wish there was fathers and mothers on both sides and dock- 
 m.ents signed, and bridesmaids, and a breakfast ! but love ia 
 love, and ever will be, in spite of them." 
 
 She made other and deeper dives into the little heart, but 
 though she drew up pearls, they were not of the kind she 
 searched for. The one fact that hung as a fruit upon her 
 tree of Love, Lucy had given her ; she would not, in fealty to 
 her lover, reveal its growth and history, however sadly she 
 yearned to pour out all to this dear old Mother Confessor. 
 
 Her conduct drove Mrs. Berry from the rosy to the 
 autumnal view of matrimony, generally heralded by the 
 announcement that it is a lottery. 
 
 " And when you see your ticket," said Mrs. Berry, "you 
 sha'n't know whether it's a prize or a blank. And, Lord 
 knows ! some go on thinking it's a prize when it turns on 'em 
 and tears 'em. I'm one of the blanks, my dear ! I drew a 
 blank in Berry. He was a black Berry to me, my dear ! 
 Smile away ! he truly was, and I a prizin' him as proud as 
 you can conceive ! My dear ! " Mrs. Berry pressed her 
 hands flat on her apron. " We hadn't been a three months 
 man and wife, when that man — it wasn't the honeymoon, 
 which some can't say — that man — ^Tes ! he kicked me. His 
 wedded wife he kicked ! Ah ! " she sighed to Lucy's large 
 eyes, " I could have borne that. A blow don't touch the 
 heart," the poor creature tapped her sensitive side. " I went 
 on loving of him, for I'm a soft one. Tall as a Grenadier he 
 is, and when out of service grows his moustache. I used to 
 call him my body guardsman — ^like a Queen ! I flattered him 
 like the fools we women are. For, take my word for it, my 
 dear, there's nothing here below so vain as a man ! That I 
 know. But I didn't deserve it ... . I'm a superior cook 
 .... I did not deserve that noways." Mrs. Beny thumped 
 
 B 
 
242 THE ORDEAL OP EICHAED EETEEEL. 
 
 lier knee, and accentuated, up to her climax : " I mended 
 his linen. I saw to tis adornments — lie called his clotlies, 
 the bad man ! I was a servant to him, my dear ! and there — 
 it was nine months — nine months from the day he swear to 
 protect and cherish and that — nine calendar months, and my 
 gentleman is ofE with another woman ! Bone of his bone ! 
 - — pish !" exclaimed Mrs. Berry, reckoning her wrongs over 
 vividly. " Here's my ring. A pretty ornament ! What do 
 it mean ? I'm for tearin' it off my finger a dozen times in. 
 the day. It's a symbol ? I call it a tomfoolery for the dead- 
 alive to wear it, that's a widow and not a widow, and haven't 
 got a name for what she is in any Dixonary. I've looked, 
 my dear, and" — she spread out her arms — " Johnson haven't 
 got a name for me !" 
 
 At this impressive woe Mrs. Berry's voice quavered into 
 sobs. Lucy spoke gentle words to the poor outcast from 
 Johnson. The sorrows of Autumn have no warning for 
 April. The little bride, for all her tender pity, felt happier 
 when she had heard her landlady's moving tale of the wicked- 
 ness of man, which cast in bright relief the glory of that 
 one hero who was hers. Then from a short flight of incon- 
 ceivable bliss, she fell, shot by one of her hundred Argus- 
 eyed fears. 
 
 " Mrs. Berry ! I'm so young ! Think of me — only just 
 seventeen !" 
 
 Mrs. Berry immediately dried her eyes to radiance. 
 " Young, my dear ! Nonsense ! There's no so much harm in 
 being youjig, here and there. I knew an Irish lady was 
 married at fourteen. Her daughter married close on fourteen. 
 She was a grandmother by thirty ! When any strange man 
 began, she used to ask hiim what pattern caps grandmothers 
 wore. They'd stare ! Bless you ! the grandmother could 
 have married over and over again. It was her daughter's 
 fault, not hers, you know." 
 
 " She was three years younger," mused Lucy. 
 
 " She married beneath her, my dear. Ran off with her 
 father's bailiff's son. 'Ah, Berry!' she'd say, 'if I hadn't 
 been foolish, I should be my lady now — not Granny !' Her 
 father never forgave her — left all his estates out of the 
 family." 
 
 "Did her husband always love her?" Lucy preferred to 
 know. 
 
PEEPAEATIONS FOR ACTION. 243 
 
 " In his way, my dear, lie did," said Mrs. Berry, coming 
 upon her matrimonial wisdom. " He couldn't help himself. 
 If he left off, he began again. She was so clever, and did 
 make him so comfortable. Cook ! there wasn't such another 
 cook out of a Alderman's kitchen ; no, indeed ! And she a 
 born lady ! That tells ye it's the duty of all women ! She 
 had her saying — ' When the parlour fire gets low, put coals 
 on the ketchen fire !' and a good saying it is to treasure. 
 Such is man ! no use in havin' their hearts if ye don't have 
 their stomachs." 
 
 Perceiving that she grew abstruse, Mrs. Berry added 
 briskly : " Tou know nothing about that yet, my dear. Only 
 mind me and mark me : don't neglect your cookery. Kissing 
 don't last : cookery do !" 
 
 Here, with an aphorism worthy a place in The Pilgeim's 
 Scrip, she broke off to go posseting for her dear invalid. 
 Lucy was quite well ; very eager to be allowed to rise and 
 (be ready when the knock should come. Mrs. Berry, in her 
 iloving considerateness for the little bride, positively com- 
 manded her to lie down, and be quiet, and submit to be 
 nursed and cherished. For Mrs. Berry well knew that ten 
 minutes alone with the hero could only be had while the little 
 bride was in that unattainable position. 
 
 Thanks to her strategy, as she thought, her object was 
 gained. The night did not pass before she learnt, from the 
 hero's own mouth, that Mr. Richards, the father of the hero, 
 and a stem lawyer, was adverse to his union with this young 
 lady he loved, because of a ward of his, heiress to an immense 
 property, whom he desired his son to espouse ; and because 
 his darling Letitia was a Catholic — Letitia, the sole daugh- 
 ter of a brave naval officer deceased, and in the hands of a 
 savage uncle, who wanted to sacrifice this beauty to a brute 
 of a son. Mrs. Berry listened credulously to the emphatic 
 narrative, and spoke to the efBect that the wickedness of old 
 people formed the excuse for the wildness of young ones. 
 The ceremonious administration of oaths of secresy and 
 devotion over, she was enrolled in the hero's band, which, 
 now numbered three, and entered upon the duties with 
 feminine energy, for there are no conspirators like women. 
 Eipton's lieutenancy became a sinecure, his rank merely 
 titular. He had never been married — he knew nothing- 
 about licenses, except that they must be obtained, and were 
 
 r2 
 
244 THE OEDEAl OJ RICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 not difficult — tie had not an idea that so many days' warning 
 must be given to the clergyman of the parish where one of 
 ihe parties was resident. How should he ? All his fore- 
 thought was comprised in the ring, and whenever the discus- 
 .sion of arrangements for the great event grew particularly 
 lot and important, he would say, with a shrewd nod : " We 
 mustn't forget the ring, you know, Mrs. Berry ! " and the 
 new member was only prevented by natural complacence 
 from shouting : " Oh, drat ye ! and your ring too." Mrs. 
 Berry had acted conspicuously in fifteen marriages, by banns, 
 and by licenses, and to have such an obvious requisite dinned 
 in her ears was exasperating. They could not have con- 
 tracted alliance with an auxiliary more invaluable, an 
 authority so profound ; and they acknowledged it to them- 
 selves. The hero marched like an automaton at her bidding ; 
 Lieutenant Thompson was rejoiced to perform services aa 
 errand-boy in the enterprise. 
 
 " It's in hopes you'll be happier than me, I do it," said the 
 devout and charitable Berry. " Marriages is made in 
 heaven, they say ; and if that's the case, I say they don't 
 take much account of us below ! " 
 
 Her own woful experiences had been given to the hero in 
 exchange for his story of cruel parents. 
 
 Richard vowed to her that he would henceforth hold it a 
 duty to hunt out the wanderer from wedded bonds, and 
 bring him back bound and suppliant. 
 
 " Oh, he'll come ! " said Mrs. Berry, pursing prophetic 
 wrinkles : " he'll come of his own accord. Never anywheres 
 will he meet such a cook as Bessy Berry ! And he know her 
 value in his heart of hearts. And I do believe, when he do 
 come, I shall be opening these arms to him again, and not 
 slapping his impidence in the face — I'm that soft ! I always 
 was — in matrimony, Mr. Richards ! " 
 
 As when nations are secretly preparing for war, the docks 
 and arsenals hammer night and day, and busy contractors 
 measure timie by inches, and the air hums around for leagues 
 as it were myriads of bees, so the house and neighbourhood 
 of the matrimonial soft one resounded in the heroic style, and 
 knew little of the changes of light decreed by Creation. Mrs. 
 Berry was the general of the hour. Down to Doctors' Com- 
 mons she expedited the hero, instructing him how boldly to 
 iace the Law, and fib : for that the Law never could resist a 
 
PREPARATIONS FOE ACTION. 245 
 
 fib and a bold face. Down the bero went, and proclaimed 
 bis presence. And lo ! tbe Law danced to him its sedatest 
 lovely bear's-dance. Think ye tbe Law less susceptible to him 
 than flesh and blood ? With a beautiful confidence it put 
 tbe few familiar questions to bim, and nodded to his replies : 
 then stamped tbe bond, and took tbe fee. It must be an old 
 vagabond at heart that can permit tbe irrevocable to go so 
 cheap, even to a hero. For only mark bim when he is peti- 
 tioned by heroes and heroines to undo what he does so 
 easily! That small archway of Doctors' Commons seems 
 the eye of a needle, through which the lean purse has a way, 
 somehow, of slipping more readily than the portly ; but once 
 through, all are camels alike, the lean purse an especially 
 big camel. Dispensing tremendous marriage as it does, the 
 Law can have no conscience. 
 
 " I hadn't the slightest difficulty," said tbe exulting hero. 
 
 " Of course not ! " returns Mrs. Berry. " It's as easy, if 
 ye're in earnest, as buying a plum bun." 
 
 Likewise tbe ambassador of the hero went to claim tbe 
 promise of the Church to be in attendance on a certain spot, on 
 a certain day, and there hear oath of eternal fealty, and gird 
 bim about with all its forces : which the Church, receiving a 
 wink from the Law, obsequiously engaged to do, for less 
 than the price of a plum-cake. 
 
 Meantime, while craftsmen and skilled women, directed 
 by Mrs. Berry, were toiling to deck tbe day at band, Rayn- 
 bam and Beltborpe slept, — tbe former soundly ; and one day 
 was as another to them. Regularly every morning a letter 
 arrived from Richard to bis father, containing observations 
 on tbe phenomena of London ; remarks (mainly cynical) on 
 tbe speeches and acts of Parliament ; and reasons for no< 
 having yet been able to call on the Grandisons. They were 
 certainly rather monotonous and spiritless. The baronet did 
 not complain. That cold dutiful tone assured him there was 
 no internal trouble or distraction. " The letters of a bealtb- 
 fnl physique ! " be said to Lady Blandish, with sure insight. 
 Complacently be sat and smiled, little witting that his son's 
 ordeal was imminent, and that bis son's ordeal was 
 to be bis own. Hippias wrote that bis nephew was 
 killing bim by making appointments which be never kept, 
 and altogether neglecting bim in the most shameless way, 
 so that his ganglionic centre was in a ten times worse 
 
246 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FBVEEEL. 
 
 state than -svlien lie left Raynliam. He wrote very bitterly, 
 but it was bard to feel compassion for his offended stomach. 
 
 On the other hand, young Tom Blaize was not forth- 
 coming, and had despatched no tidings whatever. Farmer 
 Blaize smoked his pipe evening after evening, vastly dis- 
 turbed. London was a large place— young Tom might be 
 lost in it, he thought ; and young Tom had his weaknesses. 
 A wolf at Belthorpe, he was likely to be a sheep in London, 
 as yokels have proved. But what had become of Lucy ? 
 This consideration almost sent Farmer Blaize oif to London 
 direct, and he would have gone had not his pipe enlightened 
 him. A young fellow might play truant and get into a 
 scrape, but a young man and a young woman were sure to 
 be heard of, unless they were acting in complicity. Why, of 
 course, young Tom had behaved like a man, the rascal ! and 
 married her outright there, while he had the chance. It was 
 a long guess. Still it was the only reasonable way of 
 accounting for his extraordinary silence, and therefore the 
 farm.er held to it that he had done the deed. He argued as 
 modern men do who think the hero, the upsetter of ordinary 
 calculations, is gone from us. So, after despatching a letter 
 to a friend in town to be on the lookout for son Tom, he 
 continued awhile to smoke his pipe, rather elated than not, 
 and mused on the shrewd manner he should adopt when 
 Master Honeymoon did appear. 
 
 Toward the middle of the second week of Richard's 
 absence, Tom Bakewell came to Raynham for Cassandra, 
 and privately handed a letter to the Eighteenth Century, 
 containing a request for money, and a round sum. The 
 Eighteenth Century was as good as her word, and gave Tom 
 a letter in return, enclosing a cheque on her bankers, amply 
 providing to keep the heroic engine in motion at a moderate 
 pace. Tom went back, and Raynham and Lobourne slept 
 and dreamed not of the morrow. The System, wedded to 
 Time, slept, and knew not how he had been outraged — anti- 
 cipated by seven pregnant seasons. For Time had heard 
 the hero swear to that legalizing instrument, and had also 
 registered an oath. Ah me ! venerable Hebrew Time ! he is 
 unforgiving. Half the confusion and fever of the world 
 comes of this vendetta he declares against the hapless 
 innocents who have once done him a vsrong. They cannot 
 escape him. They will never outlive it. The father of jokes, 
 
THE LAST ACT OF A COMEDT. 247 
 
 he is himself no joke ; which it seems the business of men to 
 discover. 
 
 The days roll round. He is their servant now. Mrs. 
 Berry has a new satin gown, a beautiful bonnet, a gold 
 brooch, and sweet gloves, presented to her by the hero, 
 wherein to stand by his bride at the altar to-morrow ; and, 
 instead of being an old wary hen, she is as much a chicken as 
 any of the party, such has been the magic of these articles. 
 Fathers she sees accepting the facts produced for them by 
 their children ; a world content to be carved out as it pleases 
 the hero. 
 
 At last Time brings the bridal eve, and is blest as a bene- 
 factor. The final arrangements are made ; the bridegroom 
 does depart ; and Mrs. Berry lights the little bride to her 
 bed. Lucy stops on the landing where there is an old clock 
 eccentrically correct that night. 'Tis the palpitating pause 
 before the gates of her transfiguration. MJrs. Berry sees her 
 put her rosy finger on the One about to strike, and touch all 
 the hours successively till she comes to the Twelve that 
 shall sound " Wife " in her ears on the morrow, moving her 
 lips the while, and looking round archly solemn when she 
 has done ; and that sight so catches at Mrs. Berry's heart 
 that, not guessing Time to be the poor child's enemy, she 
 endangers her candle by folding Lucy warmly in her arms, 
 whimpering, " Bless you for a darling ! you innocent lamb ! 
 You shall be happy ! Tou shall ! " 
 
 Old Time gazes grimly ahead. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF A COMEDY TAKES THE PLACE 
 OF THE EIEST. 
 
 Although it blew hard when Csesar crossed the Rubicon, 
 the passage of that river is commonly calm; calm as 
 Acheron. So long as he gets his fare, the ferryman does not 
 need to be told whom he carries : he pulls with a will, and 
 heroes may be over in half an hour. Only when they stand 
 
248 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 on the opposite bank, do they see wliat a leap ttey have 
 taken. The shores they have relinquished shrink to an 
 infinite remoteness. There they have dreamed : here they 
 must act. There lie youth and irresolution : here manhood 
 and purpose. They are veritably in another land : a moral 
 Acheron divides their life. Their memories scarce seem 
 their own ! The Philosophical Geogkapht (about to be 
 published) observes that each man has, one time or other, a 
 little Rubicon — a clear, or a foul, water to cross. It is asked 
 him ; " Wilt thou wed this Fate, and give up all behind 
 thee ? " And " I will," firmly pronounced, speeds him over. 
 The above-named manuscript authority informs us that by 
 far the greater number of carcases rolled by this heroic flood 
 to its sister stream below, are those of fellows who have re- 
 pented their pledge, and have tried to swim back to the bank 
 they have blotted out. For though every man of us may be 
 a hero for one fatal minute, very few remain so after a day's 
 march even : and who wonders that Madam Fate is indig- 
 nant, and wears the features of the terrible Universal Fate 
 to him. ? Fail before her, either in heart, or in act, and lo, 
 how the alluring loves in her visage wither and sicken to 
 what it is modelled on ! Be your Rubicon big or small, 
 clear or foul, it is the same : you shall not return. On — or 
 to Acheron ! — I subscribe to that saying of The Pilgrim's 
 Scrip : 
 
 " The danger of a little knowledge of things is disputable : 
 hut beware the little knowledge of one's self ! " 
 
 Richard Feverel was now crossing the River of his Ordeal. 
 Already the mists were stealing over the land he had left : 
 his life was cut in two, and he breathed but the air that met 
 his nostrils. His father, his father's love, his boyhood and 
 ambition, were shadowy. His poetic dreams had taken a 
 living attainable shape. He had a distincter impression of 
 the Autumnal Berry and her household than of anything at 
 Raynham. And yet the young man loved his father, loved 
 his home : and I dare say Csesar loved Rome : but whether 
 he did or no, Csesar when he killed the Republic was quite 
 bald, and the hero we are dealing with is scarce beginning 
 to feel his despotic moustache. Did he know what he was 
 made of ? Doubtless, nothing at all. But honest passion 
 has an instinct that can be safer than conscious wisdom. 
 He was an arrow drawn to the head, flying from the bow. 
 
THE LAST ACT OF A COMEDY. 249 
 
 His audacious mendacities and subterfuges did not strike 
 him as in any -way criminal ; for lie was perfectly sure that 
 the winning and securing of Lucy would in the end be bois- 
 terously approved of, and in that case were not the means 
 justified ? Not that he took trouble to argue thus, as older 
 heroes and self -convicting villains are in the habit of doing, 
 to deduce a clear conscience. Conscience and Lucy went 
 together. 
 
 It was a soft fair day. The Rubicon sparkled in the 
 morning sun. One of those days when London embraces 
 the prospect of summer, and troops forth all its babies. The 
 pavement, the squares, the parks, were early alive with the 
 cries of young Britain. Violet and primrose girls, and organ 
 boys with military monkeys, and systematic bands very de- 
 termined in tone if not in tune, filled the atmosphere, and 
 crowned the blazing procession of omnibuses, freighted with 
 business men, cityward, where a column of reddish brown 
 smoke, — ^blown aloft by the South-west, marked the scene of 
 conflict to which these persistent warriors repaired. Richard 
 had seen much of early London that morning. His plans 
 were laid. He had taken care to ensure his personal liberty 
 against accidents, by leaving his hotel and his injured uncle 
 Hippias at sunrise. To-day or to-morrow his father was to 
 arrive. Farmer Blaize, Tom Bakewell reported to him, was 
 raging in town. Another day and she might be torn from 
 him : but to-day this miracle of creation would be his, and 
 then from those glittering banks yonder, let them summon 
 him to surrender her who dared ! The position of things 
 looked so propitious that he naturally thought the powers 
 waiting on love conspired in his behalf. And she, too — ■ 
 since she must cross this river, she had sworn to him to be 
 brave, and do him honour, and wear the true gladness of her 
 heart in her face. Without a suspicion of folly in his acts, 
 or fear of results, Richard strolled into Kensington Gardens, 
 breakfasting on the foreshadow of his great joy, now with a 
 vision of his bride, now of the new life opening to him. 
 Mountain masses of clouds, rounded in sunlight, swung up 
 the blue. The flowering chestnut pavilions overhead rustled 
 and hummed. A sound in his ears as of a banner unfolding 
 in the joyful distance lulled him. 
 
 He was to meet his bride at the church at a quarter past 
 eleven. His watch said a quarter to ten. He strolled on 
 
250 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED PETEEEL. 
 
 beneath, the long-stemmed trees toward the well dedicated to 
 a saint obscure. Some people were drinking at the well. 
 A florid lady stood by a younger one, who had a little silver 
 mug half-way to her month, and evinced "undisgnised dislike 
 to the liquor of the salutary saint. 
 
 "Drink, child!" said the maturer lady. "That is only 
 your second mug. I insist upon your drinking three full ones 
 every morning we're in town. Tour constitution positively 
 requires iron !" 
 
 " But, mama," the other expostulated, " it's so nasty. I 
 shall be sick." 
 
 "Drink!" was the harsh injunction. "Nothing to the 
 German waters, my dear. Here, let me taste." She took 
 the mug and gave it a flying kiss. " I declare I think it 
 almost nice — not at all objectionable. Pray taste it," she 
 said to a gentleman standing below them to act as cup- 
 bearer. 
 
 An unmistakable cis-Rubicon voice replied : " Certainly, 
 if it's good fellowship ; though I confess I don't think 
 inutual sickness a very engaging ceremony." 
 
 Can one never escape from one's relatives ? Richard ejacu- 
 lated inwardly. 
 
 Without a doubt those people were Mrs. Doria, Clare, and 
 Adrian. He had them under his eyes. 
 
 Clare, peeping up from her constitutional dose to make 
 sure no man was near to see the possible consequence of it, 
 was the first to perceive him. Her hand dropped. 
 
 " Now pray drink, and do not fuss !" said Mrs. Doria. 
 
 " Mama !" Clare gasped. 
 
 Richard came forward, and capitulated honourably, since 
 retreat was out of the question. Mrs. Doria swam to meet 
 him: "My own boy! My dear Richard!" profuse of excla- 
 mations. Clare shyly greeted him. Adrian kept in the 
 background. 
 
 " Why, we were coming for you to-day, Richard," said 
 Mrs. Doria, smiling eifusion; and rattled on, "We want 
 another cavalier. This is delightful 1 My dear nephew ! 
 Tou have grown from a boy to a man. And there's down on 
 his lip ! And what brings you here at such an hour in the 
 morning ? Poetry, I suppose ! Here, take my arm, child. — 
 Clare ! finish that mug and thank your cousin for sparing 
 you the third. I always bring her, when we are by a 
 
THE LAST ACT OP A COMEDY. 251 
 
 cHalybeate, to take tlie waters before breakfast. We have 
 to get up at imeartlily hours. Think, my dear boy ! Mothers 
 are sacrifices ! And so you've been alone a fortnight with 
 your agreeable uncle ! A charming time of it you must have 
 had ! Poor Hippias ! what may be his last nostrum ?" 
 
 "Nephew!" Adrian stretched his head round to the 
 couple. " Doses of nephew taken morning and night fouiT' 
 teen days ! And he guarantees that it shall destroy an iron 
 constitution in a month." 
 
 Richard mechanically shook Adrian's hand as he spoke. 
 
 "Quite well, Ricky?" 
 
 " Yes : well enough," Richard answered. 
 
 "Well ?" resumed his vigorous aunt, walking on with him, 
 while Clare and Adrian followed. " I really never saw you 
 looking so handsome. There's something about yoxir face — 
 look at me — you needn't blush. Tou've grown to an Apollo. 
 That blue buttoned-up frock coat becomes you admirably — 
 and those gloves, and that easy neck-tie. Tour style is 
 irreproachable, quite a style of your own ! And nothing 
 eccentric. Tou have the instiact of dress. Dress shows 
 blood, my dear boy, as much as anything else. Boy ! — you 
 see, I can't forget old habits. Tou were a boy when I left, 
 and now ! — Do you see any change in him, Clare ?" she 
 turned half round to her daughter. 
 
 " Richard is looking very well, mama," said Clare, glanc- 
 ing at him under her eyelids. 
 
 " I wish I could say the same of you, my dear. — Take my 
 arm, Richard. Are you afraid of your aunt ? I want to get 
 used to you. Won't it be pleasant, our being all in town 
 together in the season ? How fresh the Opera will be to 
 you ! Austin, I hear, takes stalls. Tou can come to the 
 Forey's box when you like. We are staying with the Foreys 
 close by here. I think it's a little too far out, you know ; 
 but they like the neighbourhood. This is what I have 
 always said : Give him more liberty ! Austin has seen it at 
 last. How do you think Clare looking ? " 
 
 The question had to be repeated. Richard surveyed his 
 cousin hastily, and praised her looks. 
 
 " Pale ! " Mrs. Doria sighed. 
 
 "Rather pale, aunt." 
 
 " Grown very much — don't you think, Richard ? " 
 
 " Very tall girl indeed, aunt." 
 
252 THE OEDEAL OE RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 " If she had but a little more colour, my dear Ricliard ! 
 I'm^ sure I give her all the iron she can swallow, but that 
 pallor still continues. I think she does not prosper away 
 from her old companion. She was accustomed to look up to 
 you, Richard " 
 
 " Did you get Ralph's letter, aunt ? " Richard interrupted 
 her. 
 
 " Absurd ! " Mrs. Doria pressed his arm. " The nonsense 
 of a boy ! Why did you undertake to forward such stuff ? " 
 
 "I'm certain he loves her," said Richard, in a serious way. 
 
 The maternal eyes narrowed on him. " Life, my dear 
 Richard, is a game of cross-purposes," she observed, drop- 
 ping her fluency, and was rather angered to hear him laugh. 
 He excused himself by saying that she spoke so like his 
 father. 
 
 " Tou breakfast with us,'' she freshened off again. " The 
 JToreys wish to see you ; the girls are dying to know you. 
 Do you know, you have a reputation on account of that " — 
 she crushed an intruding adjective — " System you were 
 brought up on. Tou mustn't mind it. For my part, I think 
 you look a credit to it. Don't be bashful with young women, 
 mind ! As much as you please with the old ones. Tou 
 know how to behave among men. There you have your 
 Drawing-room Guide ! I'm sure I shall be proud of you. 
 Am I not ? " 
 
 Mrs. Doria addressed his eyes coaxingly. 
 
 A benevolent idea struck Richard, that he might employ 
 the minutes to spare, in pleading the case of poor Ralph ; 
 and, as he was drawn along, he pulled out his watch to note 
 the precise number of minutes he could dedicate to this 
 charitable office. 
 
 " Pardon me," said Mrs. Doria. " Tou want manners, my 
 dear boy. I think it never happened to me before that a man 
 consulted his watch in my presence." 
 
 Richard mildly replied that he had an engagement at a 
 particular hour, up to which he was her servant. 
 
 " Fiddlededee ! " the vivacious lady sang. " Now I've got 
 you, I mean to keep you. Oh ! I've heard all about you. 
 This ridiculous indifference that your father makes so much 
 of ! Why, of course, you wanted to see the world ! A 
 strong healthy young man shut up all his life in a lonely 
 house — no friends, no society, no amusements but those of 
 
THE LAST ACT OF A COMEDY. 253 
 
 rustics ! Of course you were indifferent ! Tour intelligence 
 and superior mind alone saved you from becoming a dis- 
 sipated country boor. — Where are tlie others ? " 
 
 Clare and Adrian came up at a quick pace. 
 
 " My damozel dropped something," Adrian explained. 
 
 Her mother asked what it was. 
 
 " Nothing, mama," said Clara demurely, and they pro- 
 ceeded as before. 
 
 Overborne by his aunt's fluency of tongue, and occupied in 
 acute calculation of the flying minutes, Richard let many 
 pass before he edged in a word for Ralph. When he did, 
 Mrs. Doria stopped him immediately. 
 
 " I must tell you, child, that I refuse to listen to such rank 
 idiotcy." 
 
 " It's nothing of the kind, aunt." 
 
 " The fancy of a boy." 
 
 " He's not a boy. He's half a year older than I am ! " 
 
 " Tou silly child ! The moment you fall in love, you all 
 think yourselves men." 
 
 " On my honour, aunt ! I believe he loves her thoroughly." 
 
 " Did he tell you so, child ? " 
 
 " Men don't speak openly of those things," said Richard. 
 
 " Boys do," said Mrs. Doria. 
 
 " But listen to me in earnest, aunt. I want you to be kind 
 to Ralph. Don't drive him to — Tou may be sorry for it. Let 
 him — do let him write to her, and see her. I believe women 
 are as cruel as men in these things." 
 
 " I never encourage absurdity, Richard." 
 
 " What objection have you to Ralph, aunt ? " 
 
 " Oh, they're both good families. It's not that absurdity, 
 Richard. It will be to his credit to remember that his first 
 fancy wasn't a dairymaid." Mrs. Doria pitched her accent 
 tellingly. It did not touch her nephew. 
 
 " Don't you want Clare ever to marry ?" He put the last 
 point of reason to her. 
 
 Mrs. Doria laughed. "I hope so, child. We must find 
 some comfortable old gentleman for her." 
 
 " What infamy ! " mutters Richard. 
 
 " And I engage Ralph shall be ready to dance at her wed- 
 ding, or eat a hearty breakfast — We don't dance at wed- 
 dings now, and very properly. It's a horrid sad business, 
 not to be treated with levity. — Is that his regiment ? " she 
 
254 THE OEDEAL 03? EICHAED JEVEEEL. 
 
 said, as they passed out of the hussar-sentinelled gardens. 
 " Tush, tush, child ! Master Ralph will recover, as — hem ! 
 others haye done. A little headache — you call it heartache 
 — and up you rise again, looking better than ever. No 
 doubt, to have a grain of sense forced into your brains, you 
 poor dear children ! must be painful. Girls suffer as much 
 as boys, I assure you. More, for their heads are weaker, 
 and their appetites less constant. Do I talk like your father 
 now ? Whatever makes the boy fidget at his watch so ? " 
 
 Richard stopped short. Time spoke urgently. 
 
 " I must go," he said. 
 
 His face did not seem good for trifling. Mrs. Doria would 
 trifle in spite. 
 
 " Listen, Clare ! Richard is going. He says he has an 
 engagement. What possible engagem.ent can a young man 
 have at eleven o'clock in the morning ? — unless he's going to 
 he married ? Eh ? Then of course ! " Mrs. Doria laughed 
 at the ingenuity of her suggestion. 
 
 " Is the church handy, Ricky ! " said Adrian. " Tou can 
 still give us half an hour if it is. The celibate hours strike 
 at Twelve." And he also laughed in his fashion. 
 
 " Won't you stay with us, Richard ? " Clare asked. She 
 blushed timidly, and her voice shook. 
 
 Something indefinite — a sharp-edged thrill in the tones 
 made the burning bridegroom speak gently to her. 
 
 "Indeed, I would, Care; I should like to please you, but 
 I have a most imperative appointment — that is, I promised 
 — I must go. I shall see you again " 
 
 Mrs. Doria took forcible possession of him. " Now do 
 come, and don't waste words. I insist upon your having 
 some breakfast first, and then, if you really must go, you 
 shall. Look ! there's the house. At least you will accom- 
 pany your aunt to the door." 
 
 Richard conceded this. She little imagined what she 
 required of him. Two of his golden minutes melted into 
 nothingness. They were growing to be jewels of price, one by 
 one more and more precious as they ran, and now so costly- 
 rare — rich as his blood ! not to kindest relations, dearest 
 friends, could he give another. The die is cast ! Ferryman ! 
 push off. 
 
 " Good-bye ! " he cried, nodding bluffly at the three as one, 
 fjnd fled. 
 
 They watched his abrupt muscular stride through the 
 
THE LAST ACT 01 A COMEDY. 255 
 
 grounds of the house. He looked like resolution on the 
 march. Mrs. Doria, as usual with her out of her brother's 
 hearing, began rating the System. 
 
 " See what becomes of that nonsensical education ! The 
 boy really does not know how to behave like a common 
 mortal. He has some paltry appointment, or is mad after 
 some ridiculous idea of his own, and everything must be 
 sacrificed to it ! That's what Austin calls concentration of 
 the faculties. I think it's more likely to lead to downright 
 insanity than to greatness of any kind. And so I shall tell 
 Austin. It's time he should be spoken to seriouslv about 
 him." ^ 
 
 " He's an engine, my dear aunt," said Adrian. " He isn't 
 a boy, or a man, but an engine. And he appears to have 
 been at high pressure since he came to town — out all day 
 and ha,lf the night." 
 
 "He's mad ! " Mrs. Doria interjected. 
 
 " Not at all. Extremely shrewd is Master Ricky, and 
 carries as open an eye ahead of him as the ships before Troy. 
 He's more than a match for any of us. He is for me, I 
 confess." 
 
 " Then," said Mrs. Doria, " he does astonish me !" 
 
 Adrian begged her to retain her astonishment till the right 
 season, which would not be long arriving. 
 
 Their common wisdom counselled them not to tell the 
 Foreys of their hopeful relative's ungracious behaviour. 
 Clare had left them. When Mrs. Doria went to her room 
 her daughter was there, gazing down at something in her 
 hand, which she guiltily closed. 
 
 In answer to an inquiry why she had not gone to take off 
 her things, Clare said she was not hungry. Mrs. Doria 
 lamented the obstinacy of a constitution that no quantity 
 of iron could affect, and eclipsed the looking-glass, saying : 
 " Take them off here, child, and learn to assist yourself." 
 
 She disentangled her bonnet from the array of her spread- 
 ing hair, talking of Richard, and his handsome appearance, 
 and extraordinary conduct. Clare kept opening and shutting 
 her hand, in an attitude half pensive, half listless. She did 
 not stir to undress. A joyless dimple hung in one pale cheek, 
 and she drew long even breaths. 
 
 Mrs. Doria, assured by the glass that she was ready to 
 show, came to her daughter. 
 
256 THE OEDEAL OF RICHARD FETEEEL. 
 
 " Now really," she said, " you are too helpless, my dear. 
 You cannot do a thing without a dozen women at your elbow. 
 What will become of you ? Yovl will have to marry a mil- 
 lionaire. — What's the matter with you, child ?" 
 
 Clare undid her tight-shut fingers, as if to some attraction 
 of her eyes, and displayed a small gold hoop on the palm of 
 a green glove. 
 
 " A wedding-ring !" exclaimed Mrs. Doria, inspecting the 
 curiosity most daintily. 
 
 There on Clare's pale green glove lay a wedding-ring ! 
 
 Rapid questions as to where, when, how, it was found, 
 beset Clare, who replied : " In the Gardens, mama. This 
 morning. When I was walking behind Richard." 
 
 " Are you sure he did not give it you, Clare ?" 
 
 " Oh no, m.ama ! he did not give it me." 
 
 " Of course not ! only he does such absurd things ! I 
 thought, perhaps — these boys are so exceedingly ridiculous!" 
 Mrs. Doria had an idea that it might have been concerted 
 between the two young gentlemen, Richard and Ralph, that 
 the former should present this token of hymenasal devotion 
 from the latter to the young lady of his love ; but a moment's 
 reflection exonerated boys even from such preposterous be- 
 haviour. 
 
 "ISTow, I wonder," she speculated on Clare's cold face, 
 " I do wonder whether it's lucky to find a wedding-ring ? 
 What very quick eyes you have, my darling!" Mrs. Doria 
 kissed her. She thought it must be lucky, and the circum- 
 stance miade her feel tender to her child. Her child did not 
 move to the kiss. 
 
 "Let's see whether it fits," said Mrs. Doria, almost in- 
 fantine with surprise and pleasure. 
 
 Clare suffered her glove to be dravm off. The ring slid 
 down her long thin finger, and settled comfortably. 
 
 " It does !" Mrs. Doria whispered. To find a wedding- 
 ring is open to any woman ; but to find a wedding-ring that 
 fits may well cause superstitious emotions. Moreover, that 
 it should be found while walking in the neighbourhood of 
 the identical youth whom a mother has destined for her 
 daughter, gives significance to the gentle perturbation of 
 ideas consequent on such a hint from fortune. 
 
 " It really fits !" she pursued. " Now I never pay any 
 attention to the nonsense of omens and that kind of thing" 
 
THE LAST ACT OF A COMEDY. 257 
 
 (had tte ring been a horseslioe Mrs. Doria would have picked 
 it up and dragged it obediently home), " but this, I must 
 say, is odd — to find a ring that fits ! — singular ! It never 
 happened to me. Sixpence is the most I ever discovered, 
 and I have it now. Mind you keep it, Clare — this ring. 
 And," she laughed, " offer it to Richard when he comes ; say, 
 you think he must have dropped it." 
 
 The dimple in Clare's cheek quivered. 
 
 Mother and daughter had never spoken explicitly of 
 Richard. Mrs. Doria, by exquisite management, had con- 
 trived to be sure that on one side there would be no obstacle 
 to her project of general happiness, without, as she thought, 
 compromising her daughter's feelings unnecessarily. It could 
 do no harm to an obedient young girl to hear that there was 
 no youth in the world like a certain youth. He the prince 
 of his generation, she might softly consent, when requested, 
 to be his princess ; and if never requested (for Mrs. Doria 
 envisaged failure), she might easily transfer her softness to 
 squires of lower degree. Clare had always been blindly 
 obedient to her mother (Adrian called them Mrs. Doria 
 Battledoria and the fair Shuttlecockiana), and her mother 
 accepted in this blind obedience the text of her entire cha- 
 racter. It is difficult for those who think very earnestly for 
 their children to know when their children are thinking on 
 their own account. The exercise of their volition we con- 
 strue as revolt. Our love does not like to be invalided and 
 deposed from its command, and here I think yonder old 
 thrush on the lawn who has just kicked the last of her lank 
 offspring out of the nest to go shift for itself, much the 
 kinder of the two, though sentimental people do shrug their 
 shoulders at these unsentimental acts of the creatures who 
 never wander from nature. Now, excess of obedience is, to 
 one who manages most exquisitely, as bad as insurrection. 
 Happily Mrs. Doria saw nothing in her daughter's manner 
 save a want of iron. Her pallor, her lassitude, the tremulous 
 nerves in her face, exhibited an imperious requirement of the 
 mineral. 
 
 " The reason why men and women are mysterious to us, 
 and prove disappointing," we learn from The Pilgrim's 
 ScEiP, " is, that we will read them from our own book ; just 
 as we are perplexed by reading ourselves from theirs." 
 
 Mrs. Doria read her daughter from her own book, and she 
 
258 THE OEDEAL OP BICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 was gay ; she laughed with Adrian at the breakfast-table, 
 and mock-seriously joined in his jocose assertion that Clare 
 was positively and by all hymenaaal auspices betrothed to the 
 owner of that ring, be he who he may, and must, whenever 
 he should choose to come and claim her, give her hand to 
 him (for everybody agreed the owner must be masculine, as 
 no woman woald drop a wedding-ring), and follow him 
 whither he listed all the world over. Amiable giggling 
 !Forey girls called Clare, The Betrothed. Dark man, or 
 fair ? was mooted. Adrian threw off the first strophe of 
 Clare's fortune in burlesque rhymes, with an insiauating 
 gypsy twang. Her Aunt Porey warned her to have her 
 dresses in readiness. Her Grandpapa Forey pretended to 
 grumble at bridal presents being expected from grandpapas. 
 This one smelt orange-flower, another spoke solemnly of an 
 old shoe. The finding of a wedding-ring was celebrated 
 through all the palpitating accessories and rosy ceremonies 
 involved by that famous instrument. In the midst of the 
 general hilarity, Clare showed her deplorable want of iron 
 by bursting into tears. 
 
 Did the poor mooked-at heart divine what might be then 
 enacting ? Perhaps, dimly, as we say : that is, without 
 eyes. 
 
 At an altar stand two fair young creatures, ready with 
 their oaths. They are asked to fix all time to the moment, 
 and they do so. If there is hesitation at the immense under- 
 taking, it is but maidenly. She conceives as little mental 
 doubt of the sanity of the act as he. Over them hangs a 
 cool young curate in his raiment of office. Behind are two 
 apparently lucid people, distinguished from' each other by 
 sex and age : the foremost a bunch of simmering black 
 satin ; under her shadow a cock-robiu in the dress of a gen- 
 tleman, big joy swelling out his chest, and pert satisfaction 
 cocking his head. These be they who stand here in place of 
 parents to the young couple. All is well. The service 
 proceeds. 
 
 Firmly the bridegroom tells forth his words. This hour 
 of the complacent giant at least is his, and that he means to 
 hold him bound through the eternities, men may hear. 
 Clearly, and with brave modesty, speaks she : no less firmly, 
 though her body trembles : her voice just vibrating while the 
 tone travels on, like a smitten vase. 
 
THE LAST ACT 01' A COMEDY. 259 
 
 Time hears sentence pronounced on him : the frail hands 
 bind his huge limbs and lock the chains. He is used to it : 
 he lets them do as they will. 
 
 Then comes that period when they are to give their troth 
 to each other. The Man with his right hand takes the 
 Woman by her right hand : the Woman with her right hand 
 takes the Man by his right hand. — Devils dare not laugh at 
 whom Angels crowd to contemplate. 
 
 Their hands are joined : their blood flows as one stream. 
 -Adam and fair Eve front the generations. Are they not 
 ilovely ? Pnrer fountains of life were never in two bosoms. 
 
 And then they loose their hands, and the cool curate doth 
 bid the Man to put a ring on the Woman's fourth finger, 
 ■counting thumb. And the Man thrusts his hand into one 
 pocket, and into another, forward and back many times : 
 into all his pockets. He remembers that he felt for it, and 
 felt it in his waistcoat pocket, when in the Gardens. And 
 his hand comes forth empty. And the Man is ghastly to 
 look at ! 
 
 Tet, though Angels smile, shall not Devils laugh ! The 
 curate deliberates. The black satin bunch ceases to simmer. 
 He in her shadow changes from a beaming cock-robin to an 
 inquisitive sparrow. Eyes multiply questions : lips have no 
 reply. Time ominously shakes his chain, and in the pause a 
 sound of mockery stings their ears. 
 
 Think ye a hero one to be defeated in his first battle? 
 Look at the clock ! there are but seven minutes to the stroke 
 -of the celibate hours : the veteran is surely lifting his two 
 hands to deliver fire, and his shot will sunder them in twain 
 so nearly united. All the jewellers of London speeding down 
 with sacks full of the nuptual circlet cannot save them ! 
 
 The battle must be won on the field, and what does the 
 hero now ? It is an inspiration ! For who else would dream 
 of such a reserve in the rear ? None see what he does ; only 
 that the black-satin bunch is remonstratingly agitated, 
 stormUy shaken, and subdued : and as though the menacing 
 cloud had opened, and dropped the dear token from the skies 
 at his demand, he produces the symbol of their consent, and 
 the service proceeds : "With this ring I thee wed." 
 
 They are prayed over and blest. For good, or for ill, this 
 •deed is done. The names are registered ; fees fly right and 
 left : they thank, and salute, the curate, whose ofiicial coolness 
 
 s 2 
 
260 THE OEDEAL OF EICHARD PEVEREL. 
 
 melts into a smile of monastic gallantry : tlie beadle on tlie 
 steps waves off a gaping world, as they issue forth : bride- 
 groom and bridesman recklessly scatter gold on him : carriage- 
 doors are banged to : the coachmen drive off, and the scene- 
 closes, everybody happy. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXI. 
 
 CBLEBEATES THE BREAKFAST. 
 
 And the next moment the bride is weeping as if she would 
 dissolve to one of Dian's Virgin Fountains from the clasp of 
 the Sun- God. She has nobly preserved the mask imposed by 
 comedies, till the curtain has fallen, and now she weeps, 
 streams with tears. Have patience, impetuous young man ! 
 It is your profession to be a hero. This poor heart is new to 
 it, and her duties involve such wild acts, such brigandage, 
 such terrors and tasks, she is quite unnerved. She did you 
 honour till now. Bear with her now. She does not cry the 
 cry of ordinary maidens in like cases. While the struggle 
 went on her tender face was brave ; but, alas ! Omens are 
 against her : she holds an ever-present dreadful one on that 
 fatal fourth finger of hers, which has coiled itself round her 
 dream of delight, and takes her in its clutch like a horrid 
 serpent. And yet she must love it. She dares not part from 
 it. She must love and hug it, and feed on its strange honey, 
 and all the bliss it gives her casts all the deeper shadow on 
 what is to come. 
 
 Say. Is it not enough to cause feminine apprehension for 
 a woman to be m.arried in another woman's ring ? 
 
 Tou are amazons, ladies, at Saragossa, and a thousand 
 citadels — wherever there is strife, and Time is to be taken by 
 the throat. Then shall few men match your sublime fury. 
 But what if you see a vulture, visible only to yourselves, 
 hovering over the house you are gaily led by the torch to 
 inhabit ? Will you not crouch and be cowards ? 
 
 As for the hero, in the hour of victory he pays no heed to 
 omens. He does his best to win his darling to confidence by 
 caresses. Is she not his ? Is he not hers ? And why, when. 
 
CELEBRATES THE BREAKFAST. 261 
 
 the battle is won, does she weep ? Does she regret what she 
 has done ? 
 
 Oh, never ! never ! her soft blue eyes assure him, steadfast 
 love seen swimming on clear depths of faith in them, through 
 the shower. 
 
 He is silenced by her exceeding beauty, and sits perplexed 
 waiting for the shower to pass. 
 
 Alone with Mrs. Berry, in her bedroom, Lucy gave tongue 
 to her distress, and a second character in the comedy changed 
 her face. 
 
 Mrs. Berry! Mrs. Berry! what has happened! what 
 has happened ! " 
 
 " My darlin' child ! " The bridal Berry gazed at the finger 
 of doleful joy. " I'd forgot all about it ! And that's what've 
 made me feel so queer ever since, then ! I've been seemin' 
 as if I wasn't myself somehow, without my ring. Dear ! 
 dear ! what a wilful young gentleman ! We ain't a match 
 for men in that state — Lord help us ! " 
 
 Mrs. Berry sat on the edge of a chair : Lucy on the edge 
 of the bed. 
 
 " What do you think of it, Mrs. Berry ? Is it not ter- 
 rible ? " 
 
 "I can't say I should 'a liked it myself, my dear," Mrs. 
 Berry candidly responded. 
 
 " Oh ! why, why, why did it happen ! " the young bride 
 bent to a flood of fresh tears, murmuring that she felt 
 already old — forsaken. 
 
 " Haven't you got a comfort in your religion for all acci- 
 dents ? " Mrs. Berry inquired. 
 
 " None for this. I know it's wrong to cry when I am so 
 happy. I hope he will forgive me." 
 
 Mrs. Berry vowed her bride was the sweetest, softest, 
 beautifulest thing in life. 
 
 " I'll cry no more," said Lucy. " Leave me, Mrs. Berry, 
 and come back when I ring." 
 
 She drew forth a little silver cross, and fell upon her knees 
 to the bed. Mrs. Berry left the room tiptoe. 
 
 When she was called to return, Lucy was calm and tear- 
 less, and smiled kindly to her. 
 
 " It's over now," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Berry sedately looked for her ring to follow. 
 
 " He does not wish me to go in to the breakfast you have 
 
262 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 prepared, Mrs. Berry. I begged to be excused. I caimotr 
 eat." 
 
 Mrs. Berry very mucli deplored it, as she had laid out a 
 superior nuptial breakfast, but with her mind on her ring 
 she nodded assentingly. 
 
 " We shall not have much packing to do, Mrs. Berry." 
 
 " No, my dear. It's pretty well all done." 
 
 ""We are going to the Isle of Wight, Mrs. Berry." 
 
 " And a very suitable spot ye've chose, my dear ! " 
 
 " He loves the sea. He wishes to be near it." 
 
 " Don't ye cross to-night, if it's anyways rough, my dear. 
 It isn't adviseable." Mrs. Berry sank her voice to say, 
 " Don't ye be soft and give way to him there, or you'll both 
 be repenting it." 
 
 Lucy had only been staving off the unpleasantness she had' 
 to speak. She saw Mrs. Berry's eyes pursuiug her ring, and. 
 screwed up her courage at last. 
 
 "Mrs. Berry." 
 
 " Yes, my dear." 
 
 "Mrs. Berry, you shall have another ring." 
 
 " Another, my dear ? " Berry did not comprehend. 
 " One's quite enough for the objeck," she remarked. 
 
 " I mean," Lucy touched her fourth finger," I cannot part 
 with this." She looked straight at Mrs. Berry. 
 
 That bewildered creature gazed at her, and at the ring, 
 till she had thoroughly exhausted the meaning of the words, 
 and then exclaimed, horror-struck : " Deary me, now ! you 
 don't say that ? Tou're to be married again in your own. 
 religion." 
 
 The young wife repeated : " I can never part with it." 
 
 " But, my dear ! " the wretched Berry wrung her hands, 
 divided between compassion and a sense of injury. " My 
 dear ! " she kept expostulating like a mute. 
 
 " I know all that you would say, Mrs. Berry. I am vei-y 
 grieved to pain you. It is mine now, and must be mine. I 
 cannot give it back." 
 
 There she sat, suddenly developed to the most inflexible 
 little heroine in the three Kingdoms. 
 
 From her first perception of the meaning of the young 
 bride's words, Mrs. Berry, a shrewd physiognomist, knew 
 that her case was hopeless, unless she treated her as she her- 
 
CELEBRATES THE BEEAKPAST. 263 
 
 self had been treated, and seized the ring by force of arms ; 
 and that she had not heart for. 
 
 " What ! " she gasped faintly, " one's own lawful wedding- 
 ring yon would'nt give back to a body ? " 
 
 " Because it is mine, Mrs. Berry. It was yours, but it is 
 mine now. You shall have whatever you ask for but that. 
 Pray forgive me ! It must be so." 
 
 Mrs. Berry rocked on her chair, and sounded her hands 
 together. It amazed her that this soft little creature could 
 be thus firm. She tried argument. ■ 
 
 " Don't ye know, my dear, it's the fatalest thing you're 
 inflictin' upon me, reelly ! Don't ye know that bein' bereft 
 of one's own lawful wedding-ring's the fatalest thing in life, 
 and there's no prosperity after it ! For what stands in 
 place o' that, when that's gone, my dear ? And what could 
 ye give me to compensate a body for the loss o' that ? Don't 
 ye know — Oh, deary me !" The little bride's face was so set 
 that poor Berry wailed ofE in despair. 
 
 " I know it," said Lucy. " I know it all. I know what I 
 do to you. Dear, dear Mrs. Berry ! forgive me ! If I parted 
 with my ring I know it would be fatal." 
 
 So this fair young freebooter took possession of her argu- 
 ment as well as her ring. 
 
 Berry racked her distracted wits for a further appeal. 
 
 " But, my child," she counterargued, " you don't under- 
 stand. It ain't as you think. It ain't a hurt to you now. 
 Not a bit, it ain't. It makes no difference now ! Any ring 
 does while the wearer's a maid. And your Mr. Richard '11 
 find the very ring he intended for ye. And, of course, that's 
 the one you'll wear as his wife. It's all the same now, my 
 dear. It's no shame to a maid. Now do — now do — there's 
 a darliu' !" 
 
 Wheedling availed as little as argument. 
 
 " Mrs. Berry," said Lucy, " you know what my — he spoke : 
 ' With this ring I thee wed.' It was with this ring. Then 
 how could it be with another ?" 
 
 Berry was constrained despondently to acknowledge that 
 was logic. 
 
 She hit upon an artful conjecture : 
 
 " Won't it be unlucky you're wearin' of that ring which 
 served me so ? Think o' that !" 
 
 " It may ! it may ! it may !" cried Lucy. 
 
264 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 " And arn't you nisliiii' into it, my dear ?" 
 
 " Mrs. Berry," Lucy said again, " it was tMs ring. It can- 
 not — it never can be another. It was this. What it brings 
 me I must bear. I shall wear it till I die !" 
 
 " Then what am I to do ?" the ill-used woman groaned. 
 " What shall I tell my husband when he come bact to me, 
 and see IVe got a new ring waitin' for him ? Won't that 
 be a welcome ?" 
 
 Quoth Lucy : " How can he know it is not the same, in a 
 plain gold ring ?" 
 
 "Tou never see so keen a eyed man in joolry as my 
 Berry !" returned his solitary spouse. " Not know, my dear ? 
 Why, any one would know that Ve got eyes in his head. 
 There's as much difference in wedding-rings as there's in 
 wedding people ! Now, do pray be reasonable, my own 
 sweet !" 
 
 " Pray do not ask me," pleads Lucy. 
 
 " Pray do think better of it," urges Berry. 
 
 " Pray, pray, Mrs. Berry !" pleads Lucy. 
 
 " — And not leave your old Berry all forlorn just when 
 you're so happy !" 
 
 " Indeed I would not, you dear, kind old creature !" Lucy 
 faltered. 
 
 Mrs. Berry thought she had her. 
 
 " Just when you're going to be the happiest wife on earth 
 — all you want yours !" she pursued the tender strain. " A 
 handsome young gentleman ! Love and Fortune smilin' on 
 ye!" • 
 
 Lucy rose up. 
 
 " Mrs. Berry," she said, " I think we must not lose time in 
 getting ready, or he will be impatient." 
 
 Poor Berry surveyed her in abject wonder from the edge 
 of her chair. Dignity and resolve were in the ductile form 
 she had hitherto folded under her wing. In an hour the 
 heroine had risen to the measure of the hero. Without being 
 exactly aware what creature she was dealing with, Berry 
 acknowledged to herself it was not one of the common run, 
 and sighed, and submitted. 
 
 "It's like a divorce, that it is !" she sobbed. 
 
 After putting the corners of her apron to her eyes, Berry 
 bustled humbly about the packing. Then Lucy, whose heart 
 was full to her, came and kissed her, and Berry bujnped 
 
CELEBRATES THE BEEAKPAST. 265 
 
 down and regularly cried. This over, ste tad recourse to 
 fatalism. 
 
 " I suppose it was to be, my dear! It's my punishment 
 for meddlin' wi' such matters. No, I'm not sorry. Bless ye 
 both. Who'd 'a thought you was so wilful ? — you that any 
 one might have taken for one of the silly-softs ! You're a 
 pair, my dear ! indeed you are ! Tou was made to meet ! 
 But we mustn't show him we've been crying. — Men don't like 
 it when they're happy. Let's wash our faces and try to bear 
 our lot." 
 
 So saying the black-satin bunch careened to a renewed 
 deluge. She deserved some sympathy, for if it is sad to be 
 married in another person's ring, how much sadder to have 
 one's own old accustomed lavrful ring violently torn off one's 
 finger and eternally severed from one ! But where you have 
 heroes and heroines, these terrible complications ensue. 
 
 They had now both fought their battle of the ring, and 
 with equal honour and success. 
 
 In the chamber of banquet Richard was giving Eipton his 
 last directions. Though it was a private wedding, Mrs. Berry 
 had prepared a sumptuous breakfast. Chickens offered their 
 breasts : pies hinted savoury secrets : things mystic, in a 
 mash, with Gallic appellatives, jellies, creams, fruits, strewed 
 the table : as a tower in the midst, the cake colossal : the 
 priestly vesture of its nuptual white relieved by hymeneeal 
 splendours. 
 
 Many hours, much labour and anxiety of mind, Mrs. Berry 
 had expended upon this breakfast, and why ? There is one 
 who comes to all feasts that have their basis in Tolly, whom 
 criminals of trained instinct are careful to provide against : 
 who will speak, and whose hateful voice must somehow be 
 silenced while the feast is going on. This personage is The 
 Philosophee. Mrs. Berry knew him. She knew that he 
 would come. She provided against him in the manner she 
 thought most effiicaoious : that is, by cheating her eyes and 
 intoxicating her conscience with the due and proper glories 
 incident to weddings where fathers dilate, mothers collapse, 
 and marriage settlements are flourished on high by the 
 family lawyer : and had there been no show of the kind to 
 greet her on her return from the church, she would, and she 
 foresaw she would, have stared at squalor and emptiness, 
 and repented her work. The Philosopher would have laid 
 
266 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FETEEEL. 
 
 hold of her by tlie ear, and called her bad names. En- 
 trenched behind a breakfast-table so legitimately adorned,. 
 Mi's. Berry defied him. In the presence of that cake he- 
 dared not speak above a whisper. And there were wines to- 
 drown him in, should he still -think of protesting ; fiery -wines, 
 and cool : claret sent purposely by the bridegroom for the 
 delectation of his friend. 
 
 For one good hour, therefore, the labour of many hours 
 kept him dumb. Ripton was fortifying himself so as to 
 forget him altogether, and the world as well, till the next 
 morning. Ripton was excited, overdone with delight. He- 
 had already finished one bottle, and listened, pleasantly 
 flushed, to his emphatic and more abstemious chief. He had 
 nothing to do but to listen, and to drink. The hero would 
 not allow him to shout Victory ! or hear a word of toasts ; 
 and as, from the quantity of oil poured on it, his eloquence 
 was becoming a natural force in his bosom, the poor fellow 
 was afflicted with a sort of elephantiasis of suppressed 
 emotion. At times he half rose from his chair, and fell 
 vacuously into it again; or he chuckled in the face of 
 weighty, severely-worded instructions ; tapped his chest, 
 stretched his arms, yawned, and in short behaved so sin- 
 gularly that Richard observed it, and said : " On my soul, I 
 don't think you know a word I'm saying." 
 
 " Every word, Ricky ! " Ripton spirted through the open- 
 ing. " I'm going do-wn to your governor, and tell him : Sir 
 Austin ! Here's your only chance of being a happy father — 
 no, no ! — Oh ! don't you fear me, Ricky ! I shall talk the 
 old gentleman over. I feel tremendous ! I feel, upon my 
 honour, Ricky, I feel as if nobody could resis' me ! " Ripton 
 stamped his might on the table. " I shall tell him the whole 
 affair point-blank. I can tell you that if it comes to argu- 
 ment 'tween us, I can lay on the man who'll have the best of 
 it. I shall tell him I was a witness. And I hope. Sir 
 Austin, in a year's time, you'll have the best of all, sir ! — 
 jolly 'ittle grandson ! " Ripton's head went roguishly to- 
 right and left, and he emptied his glass at a draught. 
 
 Richard arrested his resumption of speech, and he con- 
 tinued slowly to fizz like an ill-corked effervescence, while- 
 his chief said : 
 
 " Look here. Ton had better not go down to-night. Go- 
 down the first thing to-morrow, by the six o'clock train. 
 
CELEBRATES THE BEEAKPAST. 267 
 
 Give Mm my letter. Listen to me — give him my letter, and 
 don't speak a "word till lie speaks. His eyebrows will go up 
 and down, lie won't say mucli. I know him. If he asks you 
 about her, don't be a fool, but say what you think of her 
 sensibly" 
 
 No cork could hold in Ripton when she was alluded to. 
 He shouted : " She's an angel ! " 
 
 Richard checked him : " Speak sensibly, I say — quietly. 
 Tou can say how gentle and good she is — my fleur-de-lnce ! 
 And say, this was not her doing. If any one's to blame, 
 it's I. I made her marry me. Then go to Lady Blandish, if 
 you don't find her at the house. Tou may say whatever you 
 please to her. Give her my letter, and tell her I want to 
 hear from her immediately. She has seen Lucy, and I know 
 what she thinks of her. Tou will then go to Farmer Blaize. 
 I told you Lucy happens to be his niece — she has not lived 
 long there. She lived with her Aunt Desborough in France 
 while she was a child, and can hardly be called a relative to 
 the farmer — there's not a point of likeness between them. 
 Poor darling ! she never knew her mother. Go to Mr. Blaize, 
 and tell him. Tou will treat him just as you would treat 
 any other gentleman. If you are civil, he is sure to be. 
 And if he abuses me, for my sake and hers you will still 
 treat him with respect. Tou hear P And then write me a 
 full account of all that has been said and done. Tou will 
 have my address the day after to-morrow. By the way, 
 Tom will be here this afternoon. Write out for him where 
 to call on you the day after to-morrow, in case you have 
 heard anything in the morning you think I ought to know 
 at once, as Tom will join me that night. Don't mention to 
 anybody about my losing the ring, Ripton. I wouldn't have 
 Adrian get hold of that for a thousand pounds. How on 
 earth I came to lose it ! How well she bore it. Rip ! How 
 beautifully she behaved ! " 
 
 Ripton again shouted: "She's an angel!" He endea- 
 voured to get a leap beyond the angels, but being of tame 
 imagination, those commonplace hosts had to stand for 
 what he felt. Throwing up the heels of his second bottle,, 
 he said — 
 
 " Tou may trust your friend, Richard. Tour oldest 
 friend, Ricky ! — Eh ? A cool head and a heart in the right 
 place ! A man who'd want to drink better wine than this 
 
268 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 — he'd bet' not drink any 't all. I think I was, hem ! — ■ 
 marking that we know what wine is. Talking of old Blaize, 
 ain't it odd we should be drinking cleret 'gether, just 
 married ? I mean, when you come to think of it, Ricky ? 
 It strike me 's odd. But as for your thinking there '11 be 
 much fuss, you know, there you're wrong. Let's have 
 s' more cleret." 
 
 Richard hospitably opened another bottle for him, and sat 
 knocking his finger nails on his teeth, impatient for the 
 bride, while Ripton freely flowed forth. In spite of the 
 innoouousness of claret, his words were displaying an oily 
 tendency to run into one another, and his eyes were growing 
 vivaciously stupid. 
 
 " Strikes me, Richard, every fresh bottle's better than one 
 before. Well, I was saying, you know, I shall make all 
 right with your father. Oh ! he won't stand out after a little 
 talking. And mind you, Mr. Ricky, I can talk ! I ought to 
 have gone the Bar, you know. Cleret ! cleret I keep say- 
 ing : — claret, sir ! 'Minds me of Grravelkind. Tou may 
 drink as much as ever you like, and it never 'fects you. 
 Gentleman's wine ! Though if you ask me point-blank 
 which I p'fer, why, I'd rather go the Bar. I'm an only son, 
 you know, and a mother and four sisters, and I must do as 
 I'm tole. Ha ! ha ! that Letty ! what a face she'll make when 
 she hears of it ! sil' 'ittle thing ! — ha ! ha ! — I do think this 
 has been the jollies' day I ever knew ! Behave, sir ? She 
 did behave most beautiful ! I hear her voice now — like that 
 glass. Tell you the truth, girls don't quite take to me — not 
 in that way, you know. I don't know how to talk to them 
 unless they begin, and look all right. It went as smooth, 
 Ricky! — but such a chap. You're sure to do it if you say 
 you will. Aha! when you pulled at old Mrs. Berry I didn't 
 know what was up. I do wish you'd let me drink her 
 health ? " 
 
 " Here's to Penelope ! " said Richard, just wetting his 
 mouth. The carriage was at the door : a couple of dire 
 organs, each grinding the same tune, and a vulture-scented 
 itinerant band (from which not the secretest veiled wedding 
 can ever escape) worked harmoniously without in the pro- 
 duction of discord, and the noise acting on his nervous state 
 made him begin to fume and send in messages for his bride 
 by the maid. 
 
CELEBRATES THE BREAKFAST. 269 
 
 Ripton drank Penelope, and afterwards had an idea that 
 Penelope did not mean Lucy. He tried to tell Richard that 
 the health proposed was that of his lovely wife, but Richard 
 had no ear for him, and let him mumble on. By and by the 
 lovely wife presented herself dressed for her journey, and 
 smiling from stained eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Berry was requested to drink some wine, which Rip- 
 ton poured out for her, enabling Mrs. Berry thereby to 
 measure his condition. Ripton's expressive bibulous invita- 
 tion was : " Aha ! Mrs. Berry ! " 
 
 Penelope bowed and bumped her duty to them all. 
 Richard and Lucy talked apart. Ripton balanced his body 
 against the back of his chair. A notion possessed his nod- 
 ding head that it devolved upon him to make a formal 
 speech, and that now was the time. If ever the old Dog 
 was to enunciate in human language his devoted apprecia- 
 tion of Beauty, the occasion was present. But how was he 
 to fashion his phrases ? Notwithstanding the state he was 
 in, his sincere homage caused him to be critical of his capa- 
 bilities, and then his brain whirled ; innumerable phantom 
 forms of sentences with a promise of glowing periods, offered 
 their heads to him, and immediately cut themselves off from 
 all consequence, so that he was afraid to commence. Speak- 
 ing, moreover, he found to affect his balance. It became a 
 problem whether he should talk, or retain his perpendicular. 
 His latent sense of propriety counselled him not to risk it, 
 and he stood mute, looking like a mask of ancient comedy, 
 beneath which general embracing took place. The bride 
 kissed Mrs. Berry, Mrs. Berry kissed the bridegroom, on the 
 plea of her softness. Ripton's long tight smile elaborated as 
 the mad idea, engendered by these proceedings, of claiming 
 certain privileges due to him in his character of bridesman, 
 flashed across him. Some one noticed that the cake had not 
 been cut, and his attention was drawn to the cake, and he 
 fell upon it, literally, rising sufficiently ashamed not to dare 
 to look in the fair bride's face, much more to claim a privi- 
 lege. Lucy, however, gave him her hand, with a musical 
 " Good-bye, Mr. Ripton," and her extreme graciousness 
 made him just sensible enough to sit down before he mur- 
 mured his fervent hopes for her hsippiness. 
 
 " I shall take good care of him," said Mrs. Berry, focussing 
 her eyes to the comprehension of the company. 
 
270 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 " Farewell, Penelope ! " cries Richard. "I stall tell the 
 police everywhere to look out for your lord." 
 
 " Oh ! no fear, my dears ! he'll return. Good-bye ! and 
 Heaven bless ye both ! " 
 
 Berry quavered, touched with compunction at the thoughts 
 ■of approaching loneliness. Eipton, his mouth drawn like a 
 bow to his ears, brought up the rear to the carriage, receiv- 
 ing a fair slap on the cheek from an old shoe precipitated by 
 Mrs. Berry's enthusiastic female domestic. 
 
 Wh.ite handkerchiefs were waved, the adieux had fallen to 
 signs : they were off. Then did a thought of such urgency 
 illumine Mrs. Berry, that she telegraphed, hand in air, 
 awakening Ripton's lungs, for the coachman to stop, and ran 
 back to the house. Richard chafed to be gone, but at his 
 bride's intercession he consented to wait. Presently they 
 beheld the old black-satin bunch stream through the street- 
 door, down the bit of garden, and up the astonished street, 
 halting, panting, capless at the carriage door, a book in her 
 hand, — a much-used, dog-leaved, steamy, greasy book, which, 
 at the same time calling out in breathless jerks, " There ! 
 never ye mind looks ! I ain't got a new one. Read it, and 
 don't ye forget it ! " she discharged into Lucy's lap, and 
 retreated to the railings, a signal for the coachman to drive 
 away for good. 
 
 How Richard laughed at the Berry's bridal gift ! Lucy, 
 too, lost the omen at her heart as she glanced at the title of 
 the volume. It was Dr. Kitchener on Domestic Cookery ! 
 Mrs. Berry's beloved private copy, with the wisdom con- 
 tained in which she trusted to allure back to hom.e and its 
 duties the wandering Ulysses of Footmen. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHEE APPEARS IN PEBSOK. 
 
 Geneeal withdrawing of heads from street-windows, 
 •emigration of organs and bands, and a relaxed atmosphere 
 in the circle of Mrs. Berry's abode, proved that Dan Cupid had 
 veritably flown to suck the life of fresh regions. With a pen- 
 sive mind she grasped Ripton's arm to regulate his steps, and 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER APPEARS IN PERSON. 271 
 
 returned to the room where her creditor awaited her. In 
 the interval he had stormed her undefended fortress, the 
 cake, from which altitude he shook a dolorous head at the 
 guilty woman. She smoothed her excited apron, sighing. 
 Let no one imagine that she regretted her complicity. She 
 was ready to cry torrents, but there must be absolute casti- 
 gation before this criminal shall conceive the sense of regret ; 
 and probably then she will cling to her wickedness the more 
 — such is the born Pagan's tenacity! !MJrs. Berry sighed, 
 and gave him back his shake of the head. O you wanton, 
 improvident creature ! said he. O you very wise old gentle- 
 man ! said she. He asked her the thing she had been doing. 
 She enlightened him with the fatalist's reply. He sounded 
 a bogey's alarm of contingent grave results. She retreated 
 to the entrenched camp of the fact she had helped to make. 
 " It's done !" she exclaimed. How could she regret what 
 she felt comfort to know was done ? Convinced that events 
 alone could stamp a mark on such stubborn flesh, he deter- 
 mined to wait for them, and crouched silent on the cake, with 
 one finger downwards at Ripton's incision there, showing a 
 «rumbling chasm and gloomy rich recess. 
 
 The eloquent indication was understood. "Dear! dear!" 
 cried Mrs. Berry, " what a heap o' cake, and no one to send 
 it to !" 
 
 Eipton had resumed his seat by the table and his embrace 
 of the claret. Clear ideas of satisfaction had left him and 
 resolved to a boiling geyser of indistinguishable transports. 
 He bubbled, and waggled, and nodded amicably to nothing, 
 and successfully, though not without effort, preserved his 
 uppermost member from the seductions of the nymph, 
 Oravitation, who was on the look-out for his whole length 
 shortly. 
 
 "Ha! ha!" he shouted, about a minute after Mrs. Berry 
 had spoken, and almost abandoned himself to the nymph on 
 the spot. Mrs. Berry's words had just reached his wits. 
 
 " Why do you laugh, young man ?" she inquired, familiar 
 and motherly on account of his condition. 
 
 " Ha ! hah !" Eipton laughed louder, and caught his chest 
 on the edge of the table and his nose on a chicken. " That's 
 goo' !" he said, recovering, and rocking under Mrs. Berry's 
 eyes. " No frien' send to ? I Kke that !" 
 
 Mrs. Berry searched him with a glance. Perhaps the ine- 
 
272 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 briate youth might let her into a few sweet particulars of 
 this interesting business, denied to her by the wary bride- 
 groom and his obedient bride, she thought. She wanted to 
 have the stern father and cruel uncle described to her ; their 
 stature, complexion, and annual net incomes ; also their places 
 of residence. 
 
 " I did not say, no friend," she remarked. " I said, no 
 one ; meanin', I know not where for to send it to." 
 
 Ripton's response to this was : " You out fair, Mizz Berry. 
 There won't be much for 'em, I sh. . .'sure you. Take glass 
 wine. Cleret's my wine, sh. . .berry's yours. Why 'n't you 
 put Richard's crez' on that cake ? Mr. Richards — ha ! ha ! 
 — best fun the world ! — why 'n't you put a Gtrif&n on that 
 cake, Mizz Berry ? Wheatsheaves each side. Plenty 't 
 means and plenty te-te-'tis ! I'm very fond of heraldry," he 
 added with a reflective visage, and fell half asleep upon the 
 attachment. 
 
 " His crest F" Mrs. Berry winningly waked him. 
 
 " Oldest bar'netoy 'n England!" waved Ripton. 
 
 " Tes ?" Mrs. Berry encouraged him on. 
 
 " Oldest bar'netcy 'n England ! If 'tisn't my name's not 
 Rip'm Thomps' — Es... quire. Gentleman, ma'm, though he 
 is arricled the law. Take glass wine, M. ..Mizz Berry. 
 Cleret's my wine, sh. . .berry's yours. This bom my third 
 bod'l. Wliat's three to a gentleman, though he isn't a 
 bar'net's son with fifty th — thousand a-year." , 
 
 " Fifty thousand ! My goodness gracioiis me !" ejaculated 
 Mrs. Berry in flattering accents. 
 
 " Na a penny less, ma'm ! And I'm his oldts friend. Very 
 near transp. . .orted once, drinking cleret 'gether. Nev' 'fects 
 you ! Do take glass wine. Ha ! ha ! you think he's Richards. 
 Nor a bir of it ! No bar'net Richards's I know. We're 
 'bliged be secret, Mizz Berry." Ripton looked profoundedly 
 secret. " Anything if 't's your own dedriment. That's law, 
 Mizz Berry. And 't's not his own dedri-ment. It's his de- 
 laight— ha! hah!" 
 
 Here gravitation gave Ripton a strong pull. He just saved 
 himself, and went on, with a hideous mimicry of the God of 
 Secrecy: "We're oblige' be very close. And she's the most 
 lovely ! — If I hear man say thing 'gainst her, I. . .1 knock 'm 
 down ! I. ..I. ..I knock 'm dovni ! She is such a pretty crea- 
 ture ! " he sang in falsetto. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHEE APPEAES IN PERSON. 273 
 
 " Tou needn't for to cry over her, young man," said Mrs. 
 Berry, who was resolved to stop his claret the moment she 
 had the secret, and indulged him for that sole object. 
 
 Ripton attempted the God of Secrecy again, but his lips 
 would not protrude enough, and his eyebrows were dis- 
 affected. He laughed outright. " Wha' 's it matter now ? 
 They're married, sir. Wha' 've you be 'shamed of ? — eh ? 
 I can talk ! Here, I say, Mizz Berry ! come — bumper ! 
 La'ies and gen'lemen ! 
 
 Filling Mrs. Berry's glass, and his own, to OYerflowing, 
 and again splitting the solitary female who formed his 
 audience into two sexes, Ripton commanded silence, and pen - 
 dulously swayed over Mrs. Berry's lap in total forgetfulness 
 of what he had ventured on his legs to celebrate. Aware 
 that they did duty for some purpose, he shut his eyes to 
 meditate, but at this congenial action densest oblivion en- 
 wrapped his senses, and he was in danger of coming into 
 Mrs. Berry's lap head foremost ; a calamity she averted by 
 rising likewise, and shaking him roughly, which brought him 
 back to visionary consciousness, when he sank into his 
 chair, and mildly asked : " Wha'm I 'bout ? That you, Mizz 
 Berry?" 
 
 A little asperity was in her voice as she replied. " Tou 
 were going to propose a toast. And then, young man, you'd 
 better lie down a bit, and cool yourself. Do it sitting," she 
 gesticulated peremptorily. " I'll open the bottle and fill the 
 glass for you. I declare you're drinking it out of tumblers. 
 It's shocking! Tou're never going to have another full 
 tumbler ? " 
 
 Ripton chivalrously insisted on a bumper. She filled it 
 for him, lander mental protest, for conscience pricked her. 
 Ripton drained his bumper in emphatic silence. 
 
 " Young man," said Mrs. Berry, severely, " I wanted for 
 to drink their right healths by their right names, and then 
 go about my day's work, and I do hope you won't keep me." 
 
 As if by miracle, Ripton stood bolt upright at her words. 
 
 " Tou do ? " he said, and filling another bumper he with 
 cheerfully vinous articulation and gUbness of tongue proposed 
 the health of Richard and Lucy Feverel, of Raynham Abbey ! 
 and that mankind should not require an expeditious example 
 of the way to accept the inspiring toast, he drained his 
 bumper at a gulp. It finished him. The farthing rush- 
 
274 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 HgM of his reason leapt and expired. He staggered to the' 
 sofa, and there stretched. Ripton was far from being ia 
 practice. 
 
 Some minutes subsequent to Ripton's signalization of his 
 devotion to the bridal pair, Mrs. BeiTy's maid entered the 
 room to say that a gentleman was inquiring below after the 
 young gentleman who had departed, and found her mistress 
 with a tottering wineglass in her hand, exhibiting every 
 symptom of unconsoled hysterics. Her mouth gaped, as if 
 the fell creditor had her by the swallow. She ejaculated with 
 horrible exultation that she had been and done it, as her 
 disastrous aspect seemed to testify, and her evident, but in- 
 explicable, access of misery induced the sympathetic maid tO' 
 tender those caressing words that were all Mrs. Berry wanted 
 to go off into the self -caressing fit without delay ; and she had 
 already given the preluding demoniac ironic outbiirst, when 
 the maid called heaven to witness that the gentleman would 
 hear her ; upon which Mrs. Berry violently controlled her 
 bosom, and ordered that he should be shown upstairs in- 
 stantly to see her the wretch she was. She repeated the 
 injunction. 
 
 " I'll be seen as I am ! " screamed Mrs. Berry. 
 
 The maid did as she was told, and Mrs. Berry, wishing 
 first to see herself as she was, mutely accosted the looking- 
 glass, and tried to look a very little better. She dropped a 
 shawl on Ripton and was settled, smoothing her agitation 
 when her visitor was announced. 
 
 The gentleman was Adrian Harley. An interview with 
 Tom Bakewell had put him on the track, and now a momen- 
 tary survey of the table, and its white- vestured cake, mad& 
 him whistle. 
 
 Mrs. Berry plaintively begged him to do her the favour to- 
 be seated. 
 
 " A fine morning, ma'am," said Adrian. 
 
 " It have been ! " Mrs. Berry answered, glancing over her 
 shoulder at the window, and gulping as if to get her heart 
 down from her mouth. 
 
 " A very fine Spring," pursued Adrian, calmly anatomizing- 
 her countenance. 
 
 Mrs. Berry smothered an adjective to "weather" on a 
 deep sigh. Her wretchedness was palpable. In proportion 
 to it Adrian waxed cheerful and brisk. He divined enough 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER APPEARS IN PERSON. 275 
 
 of the business to see that there was some strange intelli- 
 gence to be fished out of the culprit who sat compressing 
 hysterics before him ; and as he was never more in his ele- 
 ment than when he had a sinner, and a repentant prostrate 
 abject sinner, in hand, his affable countenance might well 
 deceive poor Berry. 
 
 " I presume these are Mr. Thompson's lodgings ? " he 
 remarked, with a look at the table. 
 
 Mrs. Berry's head and the whites of her eyes informed him 
 that they were not Mr. Thompson's lodgings. 
 
 " No ? " said Adrian, and threw a carelessly inquisitive eye 
 about him. " Mr. I'everel is out, I suppose ? " 
 
 A convulsive start at the name, and two corroborating 
 hands dropped on her knees, formed Mrs. Berry's reply. 
 
 " Mr. Feverel's m.an," continued Adrian, " told me I 
 should be certain to find him here. I thought he would 
 be with his friend, Mr. Thompson. I'm too late, I perceive. 
 Their entertainment is over. I fancy you have been having 
 a party of them here, ma'am ? — a bachelor's breakfast ! " 
 
 In the presence of that cake this observation seemed to 
 mask an irony so shre^^d that Mrs. Berry could barely con- 
 tain herself. She felt she must speak. Making her face as 
 deplorably propitiating as she could, she began : 
 
 " Sir, niay I beg for to know your name ? " 
 
 Mr. Harley accorded her request. 
 
 Groaning in the clutch of a pitiless truth, she continued : 
 
 " And you are Mr. Harley, that was — oh ! and you've come 
 for Mr. ? " 
 
 Mr. Richard Feverel was the gentleman Mr. Harley had 
 come for. 
 
 " Oh ! and it's no mistake, and he's of Raynham Abbey ? " 
 Mrs. Berry inquired. 
 
 Adrian, very much amused, assured her that he was born 
 and bred there. 
 
 " His father's Sir Austin ? " wailed the black-satin bunch 
 from behind her handkerchief. 
 
 Adrian verified Richard's descent. 
 
 " Oh, then, what have I been and done ! " she cried, and 
 stared blankly at her visitor. " I been and married my 
 baby ! I been and married the bread out of my own mouth ! 
 O Mr. Harley ! Mr. Harley ! I knew you when you was a 
 boy that big, and wore jackets ; and all of you. And it's my 
 
 t2 
 
276 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED PETEEEL. 
 
 softness th&t's my niin, for I never can resist a man's asking. 
 Look at that cake, Mr. Harley ! " 
 
 Adrian followed her directions quite coolly. " Wedding- 
 cake, ma'am ! " he said. 
 
 " Bride-cake it is, Mr. Harley ! " 
 
 " Did you make it yourself, ma'am ? " 
 
 The quiet ease of the question overwhelmed Mrs. Berry, 
 and upset that train of symbolic representations by which 
 she was seeking to make him guess the catastrophe and 
 spare her the furnace of confession. 
 
 " I did not make it myself, Mr. Harley," she replied. 
 " It's a bought cake, and I'm a lost woman. Little I 
 dream.ed when I had him in my arms a baby that I should 
 some day be marrying him out of my own house ! I little 
 dreamed that ! Oh, why did he come to me ! Don't you 
 remember his old nurse, when he was a baby in arms, that 
 went away so sudden, and no fault of hers, Mr. Harley! 
 The very mornin' after the night you got into Mr. Benson's 
 cellar, and got so tipsy on his Madeary — I remember it as 
 clear as yesterday ! — and Mr. Benson was that angry he 
 threated to use the whip to you, and I helped put you to 
 bed. I'm that very woman." 
 
 Adrian smiled placidly at these reminiscences of his guile- 
 less youthful life. 
 
 " "Well, ma'am ! well ? " he said. He would bring her to 
 the furnace. 
 
 " Won't you see it all, kind sir ? " Mrs. Berry appealed to 
 him in pathetic dumb show. 
 
 Doubtless by this time Adrian did see it all, and was 
 mentally cursing at Folly, and reckoning the immediate con- 
 sequences, but he looked uninstructed, his peculiar dimple- 
 smile was undisturbed, his comfortable full-bodied posture 
 was the same. " Well, ma'am ? " he spurred her on. 
 
 Mrs. Berry burst forth : " It were done this mornin', Mr. 
 Harley, in the church, at half-past e-leven of the clock, or 
 twenty to, by licence ; " adding from the bottom of her voice, 
 " and I've never a ring to show for it ! " 
 
 Adrian was now obliged to comprehend a case of matri- 
 mony. " Oh ! " he said, like one who is as hard as facts, 
 and as little to be moved : " Somebody was married this 
 morning; was it Mr. Thompson, or Mr. Feverel ? " 
 
 Mrs. Berry shuffled up to Ripton, and removed the shawl 
 
THE PHILOSOPHEE APPEAES IN PERSON. 277 
 
 from tini, saying : " Do he look like a new married bride- 
 gi'oom, Mr. Harley ? " 
 
 Adrian inspected the oblivious Ripton with philosophic 
 gravity. 
 
 " This young gentleman was at church this morning ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Oh ! he were quite reasonable and proper then," Mrs. 
 Berry begged him to understand. 
 
 " Of course, ma'am." Adrian lifted and let fall the stupid 
 inanimate limbs of the gone vsrretch, puckering his mouth 
 queerly. " Tou were all reasonable and proper, m.a'am. 
 The principal male performer, then, is my cousin, Mr. 
 Feverel ? He was married by you, this morning, by license, 
 at your parish church, and came here, and ate a hearty 
 breakfast, and left intoxicated." 
 
 Mrs. Berry flew out. " He never drink a drop, sir. A 
 more moderate young gentleman you never see. Oh ! don't 
 ye think that now, Mr. Harley. He was as upright and 
 master of his mind as you be." 
 
 " Ay ! " the wise youth nodded thanks to her for the com- 
 parison, " I mean the other form of intoxication." 
 
 Mrs. Berry sighed. She could say nothing on that score. 
 
 Adrian desired her to sit down, and compose herself, and 
 tell him circumstantially what had been done. 
 
 She obeyed, in utter perplexity at his perfectly composed 
 demeanour. 
 
 Mrs. Berry, as her recital declared, was no other than 
 that identical woman who once in old days had dared to 
 behold the baronet behind his mask, and had ever since 
 lived in exile from the Raynham world on a little pension 
 regularly paid to her as an indemnity. She was that 
 woman, and the thought of it made her almost accuse Provi- 
 dence for the betraying excess of softness it had endowed 
 her with. How was she to recognize her baby grown a 
 man ? He came in a feigned name ; not a word of the 
 family was mentioned. He came like an ordinary mortal, 
 though she felt something more than ordinary towards him 
 — she knew she did. He came bringing a beautiful young 
 lady, and on what grounds could she turn her back on them ? 
 Why, seeing that all was chaste and legal, why should she 
 interfere to make them unhappy — so few the chances of hap- 
 
278 THE OEDBAl OF EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 piness in this world ! Mrs. Berry related the seizure of her 
 ring. 
 
 " One wrench," said the sobbing culprit, " one wrench, 
 and my ring went off like my Berry ! " 
 
 She had no suspicions, and she had therefore never 
 thought of looking at the signatures in the vestry-hook. 
 
 " And it's fort'nate I didn't ! " she exclaimed, " for out 1 
 should 'a shrieked there and then, never mind where's the 
 spot, to thin\ I been and married m.y own baby unbeknown. 
 Not till this Mr. Thompson proposed their healths tipsy by 
 their right names did I think — Peverel ! Raynham Abbey ! 
 Oh ! then I had been and married my baby ! and so you 
 found me, Mr. Harley, and I daresay I looked it." 
 
 " Tou looked as if you were suffering from a premature 
 indigestion of bride-cake, ma'am," said Adrian. " I dare 
 say you were exceedingly sorry for what you had done." 
 
 " Indeed, sir," dolorously moaned Berry, " I were, and 
 am." 
 
 " And would do your best to rectify the mischief — eh, 
 ma am r 
 
 " Indeed, and indeed, sir, I would ! " she protested 
 solemnly. 
 
 " — As, of course, you should— knowing the family. 
 Where may these lunatics have gone to spend the Moon ? " 
 
 Mrs. Berry swimmingly replied : "To the Isle o' . 
 
 I don't know, indeed, sir ! " she snapped the indication short, 
 and jumped out of the pit she had fallen into. Repentant 
 as she might be, those dears should not be pursued and 
 cruelly balked of their young bliss ! To-morrow, if you 
 please, Mr. Harley : not to day ! " 
 
 " A pleasant spot," Adrian observed, smiling at his easy 
 prey. 
 
 By a measurement of dates he discovered that the bride- 
 groom had brought his bride to the house on the day he had 
 quitted Raynham, and this was enough to satisfy Adrian's 
 mind that there had been concoction and chicanery. Chance, 
 probably, had brought him to the old woman : chance cer- 
 tainly had not brought him to the young one. 
 
 " Very well, ma'am," he said, in answer to her petitions 
 for his favourable offices with Sir Austin in behalf of her 
 little pension, and the bridal pair, " I will tell him you were 
 only a blind agent in the affair, being naturally soft, and 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER APPEAES IN PEESON. 279 
 
 that you trust lie will bless the consuminatioii. He "will be 
 in town to-morrow morning ; but one of you two must see 
 him to-night. An emetic kindly administered will set our 
 friend here on his legs. A bath, and a clean shirt, and he 
 might go. I don't see why your name should appear at all. 
 Brush him up, and send him to Belliagham by the seven 
 o'clock train. He will find his way to Raynham ; he knows 
 the neighbourhood in the dark. Let him go and state the 
 ■case. Remember, one of you must go." 
 
 With this fair prospect of leaving a choice of a perdition 
 between the couple of unfortunates, for them, to fight and 
 lose all their virtues over, Adrian said, " Good morning." 
 
 Mrs. Berry touchingly arrested him. " You won't refuse 
 a piece of his cake, Mr. Harley ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no, ma'am." Adrian turned to the cake with 
 alacrity. " I shall claim a very large piece. Richard has a 
 great many friends who will rejoice to eat his wedding-cake. 
 Cut me a fair quarter, Mrs. Berry. Put it in paper, if you 
 please. I shall be delighted to carry it to them, and appor- 
 tion it eqiiitably according to their several degrees of 
 xelationship." 
 
 Mrs. Berry cut the cake. Somehow, as she sliced through 
 it, the sweetness and hapless innocence of the bride was pre- 
 sented to her, and she launched into eulogies of Lucy, and 
 ■clearly showed how little she regretted her conduct. She 
 vowed that they seemed made for each other ; that both were 
 beautiful ; both had spirit ; both were innocent ; and to part 
 them, or make them unhappy, would be, Mrs. Berry wrought 
 herself to cry aloud, oh, such a pity ! 
 
 Adrian listened to it as the expression of a matter-of-fact 
 opinion. He took the huge quarter of cake, nodded multitu- 
 dinous promises, and left Mrs. Berry to bless his good heart. 
 
 " So dies the System ! " was Adrian's comment in the 
 street. " And now let prophets roar ! He dies respectably 
 in a marriage-bed, which is more than I should have foretold 
 -of the monster. Meantime," he gave the cake a dramatic 
 ttap, " I'll go sow nightmares." 
 
280 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 PEOCESSION OF THE CAKE. 
 
 Adrian really bore the news lie liad heard -with creditable 
 disinterestedness, and admirable repression of anything 
 beneath the dignity of a philosopher. When one has 
 attained that felicitous point of wisdom from which one sees 
 all mankind to be fools, the diminutive objects may make 
 what new moves they please, one does not marvel at them : 
 their sedateness is as comical as their frolic, and their 
 frenzies more comical still. On this intellectual eminence 
 the wise youth had built his castle, and he had lived in it 
 from an early period. Astonishment never shook the founda- 
 tions, nor did envy of greater heights tempt him to relin- 
 quish the security of his stronghold, for he saw none. 
 Jugglers he saw running up ladders that overtopped him, 
 and air-balloons scaling the empyrean ; but the former came 
 precipitately down again, and the latter were at the mercy of 
 the winds ; while he remained tranquil on his solid unambi- 
 tious ground, fitting his morality to the laws, his conscience 
 to his morality, his comfort to his conscience. Not that 
 voluntarily he cut himself off from his fellows : on the con- 
 trary, his sole amusement was their society. Alone- he was 
 rather dull, as a man who beholds but one thing must natur- 
 ally be. Study of the animated varieties of that one thing 
 excited him sufficiently to think life a pleasant play ; and 
 the faculties he had forfeited to hold his elevated position 
 he could serenely enjoy by contemplation of them in others. 
 Thus : — wonder at Master Richard's madness : though he 
 himself did not experience it, he was eager to mark the effect 
 on his beloved relatives. As he carried along his vindictive 
 hunch of cake, he shaped out their different attitudes of 
 amaze, bewilderment, horror; passing by some personal 
 chagrin in the prospect. For his patron had projected a 
 journey, commencing with Paris, culminating on the Alps, 
 and lapsing in Rome : a delightful journey to show Richard 
 the highways of History and tear him from the risk of 
 further ignoble fascinations, that his spirit might be alto- 
 gether bathed in freshness and revivedT. This had been 
 planned during Richard's absence to surprise him. 
 
PEOCESSION OF THE CAKE. 281 
 
 Now the dream of travel was to Adrian what the love of 
 woman is to the race of young men. It supplanted that 
 foolishness. It was his Romance, as we say ; that buoyant 
 anticipation on which in youth we ride the airs, and which, 
 as we wax older and too heavy for our atmosphere, hardens 
 to the Hobby, which, if an obstinate animal, is a safer horse, 
 and conducts man at a slower pace to the sexton. Adrian 
 had never travelled. He was aware that his romance was 
 earthly and had discomforts only to be evaded by the one 
 potent talisman possessed by his patron. His Alp would 
 hardly be grand to him without an obsequious landlord in 
 the foreground : he must recline on Mammon's imperial 
 cushions in order to moralize becomingly on the ancient 
 world. The search for pleasure at the expense of discom- 
 fort, as frantic lovers woo their mistresses to partake the 
 shelter of a hut and batten on a crust, Adrian deemed the 
 bitterness of beggarliness. Let his sweet mistress be given 
 him in the pomp and splendour due to his superior emotions, 
 or not at all. Consequently the wise youth had long nursed 
 an inefBectual passion, and it argued a great nature in him 
 that, at the moment when his wishes were to be crowned, he 
 should look with such slight touches of spleen at the gorge- 
 ous composite fabric of Parisian cookery and Roman antiqui- 
 ties crumbling into unsubstantial mockery. Assuredly very 
 few even of the philosophers would have turned away un- 
 complainingly to meaner delights the moment after. 
 
 Hippias received the first portion of the cake. 
 
 He was sitting by the window in his hotel, reading. He 
 had fought down his breakfast with more than usual success, 
 and was looking forward to his dinner at the Foreys with 
 less than usual timidity. 
 
 " Ah ! glad you've come, Adrian," he said, and expanded 
 his chest. " I was afraid I should have to ride down. This 
 is kind of you. We'll walk down together through the park. 
 It's absolutely dangerous to walk alone in these streets. My 
 opinion is, that orange-peel lasts all through the year now, 
 and will till legislation puts a stop to it. We were free 
 from that nuisance in the Summer — once ; but now every- 
 body's stupid inconsiderateness has multiplied tenfold the 
 malignity of those boys who broke our necks in the Winter, 
 and there's positively no relapse. I give yon my word I 
 slipped on a piece of orange-peel yesterday afternoon in Pic- 
 
282 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVBEEL. 
 
 cadilly, and I thought I was down— I thought I was down ! 
 I saved myself by a miracle." 
 
 Adrian animadverted on everybody very sympathetically. 
 
 " Ton have an appetite, I hope ? " he asked. 
 
 " I think I shall get one, after a bit of a walk," chirped 
 Hippias. " Yes. I think I feel hungry now." 
 
 " Charmed to hear it," said Adrian, and began unpinning 
 his parcel on his knees. " How should you define Folly ? " 
 he checked the process to inquire. 
 
 " Hm ! " Hippias meditated; he always prided himself on 
 heing oracular when such questions were addressed to him. 
 " I think I should define it to be a slide." 
 
 " Very good definition. In other words, a piece of orange- 
 peel ; once on it, your life and limbs are in danger, and you 
 are saved by a miracle. You must present that to the 
 PiLGElM. And the monument of folly, what would that 
 be?" 
 
 Hippias meditated anew. "All the human race on one 
 another's shoulders." He chuckled at the sweeping sour- 
 ness of the instance. 
 
 "Very good," Adrian applauded, "or in default of that, 
 some symbol of the thing, say ; such as this of which I have 
 here brought you a chip." 
 
 Adrian displayed the q^uarter of the cake. 
 
 " This is the monument made portable — eh ? " 
 
 " Cake ! " cried Hippias, retreating his chair with intense 
 disgust. " Well ! you're right of them that eat it. If I — if 
 I don't mistake," he peered at it, " the noxious composition 
 bedizened in that way is what they call wedding-cake. It's 
 arrant poison ! It's destruction to the stomach ! Ugh ! 
 Who is it you want to kill ? What are you carrying such 
 stuff about for ? " 
 
 Adrian rang the bell for a knife. " To present you with 
 your due and proper portion." 
 
 " Me ? " Hippias's face became venomous. 
 
 " Well," said Adrian, " you will have friends and relatives, 
 and can't be saved from them, not even by miracle. It is a 
 habit which exhibits, perhaps, the unconscious inherent 
 cynicism of the human mind, for people who consider that 
 they have reached the acme of mundane felicity, to distribute 
 this token of esteem to their friends, with the object pro- 
 bably" (he took the knife from a waiter and went to the table 
 
PROCESSION OF THE CAKE. 283 
 
 to slice tlie cake) " of enabling those friends (these edifices 
 require very delicate incision — each particular currant and 
 subtle condiment hangs to its neighbour — a wedding-cake is 
 evidently the most highly civilized of cakes, and partakes of 
 the evils as 'well as the advantages of civilization !) — I was 
 saying, they send us these love-tokens, no doubt (we shall 
 tave to weigh out the crumbs, if each is to have his fair 
 share) that we may the better estimate (got to the bottom 
 at last !) their state of bliss, by passing some hours in pur- 
 gatory. This, as far as I can apportion it without weights 
 and scales, is your share, my uncle !" 
 
 He pushed the corner of the table bearing the cake towards 
 Hippias. 
 
 " Get away !" Hippias vehemently motioned, and started 
 from his chair. " I'll have none of it, I tell you ! It's death ! 
 It's fifty times worse than that beastly compound Christmas 
 pudding ! What fool has been doing this, then ? Who dares 
 send me cake ? Me ! It's an insult." 
 
 "Tou are not compelled to eat any before dinner," said 
 Adrian, pointing the corner of the table after him, " but your 
 share you must take, and appear to consume. One who has 
 done so much to bring about the marriage cannot in con- 
 science refuse his allotment of the fruits. Maidens, I hear, 
 first cook it under their pillows, and extract nuptial dreams 
 therefrom — said to be of a lighter class, taken that way. 
 It's a capital cake, and, upon my honour, you have helped 
 to make it — you have indeed ! So here it is." 
 
 The table again went at Hippias. He ran nimbly round it, 
 andflunghimself on a sofa exhausted, crying: "There! . . . 
 M-j appetite's gone for to-day !" 
 
 " Then shall I tell Richard that you won't touch a morsel 
 ■of his cake ?" said Adrian, leaning on his two hands over the 
 table and looking at his uncle. 
 
 "Richard?" 
 
 "Yes, your nephew: my cousin: Richard! Tour companion 
 since you've been in town. He's married, you know. Mar- 
 ried this morning at Kensington parish church, by licence, 
 at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to. Married, 
 and gone to spend his honeymoon in the Isle of Wight : a 
 very delectable place for a month's residence. I have to 
 announce to you that, thanks to your assistance, the experi- 
 ment is launched, sir !" 
 
284 THE OEDEAL OP RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 " Richard married !" 
 
 There was sometMng to think and to say in objection to it, 
 but the wits of poor Hippias were softened by the shook. 
 His hand travelled half-way to his forehead, spread out to 
 smooth the surface of that seat of reason, and then fell. 
 
 " Surely you knew all about it ? you were so anxious to 
 have him in town under your charge." . . . 
 
 "Married?" Hippias jumped up — he had it. "Why, 
 he's under age ! he's an infant." 
 
 " So he is. But the infant is not the less married. Eib 
 like a man and pay your fee — what does it matter ? Any 
 one who is breeched can obtain a licence in our noble country. 
 And the interests of morality demand that it should not be 
 difficult. Is it true — can you persuade anybody that you 
 have known nothing about it ?" 
 
 " Ha ! infamous joke ! I wish, sir, you would play your 
 pranks on somebody else," said Hippias sternly, as he sank 
 back on the sofa. " You've done me up for the day, I can 
 assure you." 
 
 Adrian sat down to instil belief by gentle degrees, and 
 put an artistic finish to the work. He had the gratification 
 of passing his uncle through varied contortions, and at last 
 Hippias perspired in conviction, and exclaimed, " This 
 accounts for his conduct to me. That boy must have a cun- 
 ning nothing short of infernal ! I feel ... I feel it just 
 here," he drew a hand along his midriff. 
 
 " I'm not equal to this world of fools," he added faintly, 
 and shut his eyes. " No, I can't dine. Eat ? ha ! . . . no. 
 Go without me !" 
 
 Shortly after, Hippias went to bed, saying to himself, as 
 he undressed, " See what comes of our fine schemes ! Poor 
 Austin!" and as the pillow swelled over his ears, "I'm not 
 sure that a day's fast won't do me good." The Dyspepsy had 
 bought his philosophy at a heavy price ; he had a right to 
 use it. 
 
 Adrian resumed the procession of the cake. 
 
 He sighted his melancholy uncle Algernon hunting an 
 appetite in the Row, and looking as if the hope ahead of him 
 were also one-legged. The Captain did not pass without 
 querying the ungainly parcel. 
 
 " I hope I carry it ostentatiously enough ? " said Adrian. 
 " Enclosed is wherevrithal to quiet the alarm of the land. 
 
PROCESSION OF THE CAKE. 285 
 
 Now may the maids and wives of Merry England sleep 
 secnre ! I liad half a mind to fix it on a pole, and engage a 
 band to parade it. This is our dear Richard's wedding-cake. 
 Married at half-past eleven this morning, by licence, at the 
 Kensington parish church ; his own ring being lost he 
 employed the ring of his beautiful bride's lachrymose land- 
 lady, she standing adjacent by the altar. His farewell to 
 you as a bachelor, and hers as a maid, you can claim on 
 the spot, if you think proper, and digest according to your 
 powers." 
 
 Algernon let off steam in a whistle. " Thompson, the 
 solicitor's daughter ! " he said. " I met them the other day, 
 somewhere about here. He introduced me to her. A pretty 
 little baggage." 
 
 " No." Adrian set him right. " 'Tis a Miss Desborough, 
 a Roman Catholic dairymaid. Reminds one of pastoral Eng- 
 land in the time of the Plantagenets ! He's quite equal to 
 introducing her as Thompson's daughter, and himself as 
 Beelzebub's son. However, the wild animal is in Hymen's 
 chains, and the cake is cut. Will you have your morsel ? " 
 
 " Oh, by all means ! — not now." Algernon had an un- 
 wonted air of reflection. — " Father know it ? " 
 
 " Not yet. He will to-night by nine o'clock.'' 
 
 " Then I must see him by seven. Don't say you met me." 
 
 He nodded, and pricked his horse. 
 
 " Wants money ! " said Adrian, putting the combustible he 
 carried once more in motion. 
 
 The women were the crowning joy of his contemplative 
 mind. He had reserved them for his final discharge. Dear 
 demonstrative creatures ! Dyspepsia would not weaken their 
 poignant outcries, or self-interest check their fainting fits. 
 On the generic woman one could calculate. Well might The 
 Pilgrim's Scbip say of her that, " She is always at Nature's 
 breast ; " not intending it as a compliment. Each woman is 
 Eve throughout the ages ; whereas the Pilgeim would have 
 ns believe that the Adam in men has become warier, if not 
 wiser ; and weak as he is, has learnt a lesson from time. 
 Probably the Pilgrim's meaning may be taken to be, that 
 Man grows, and Woman does not. 
 
 At any rate, Adrian hoped for such natural choruses as you 
 hear in the nursery when a bauble is lost. He was awake 
 to Mrs. Doria's maternal predestinations, and guessed that 
 
286 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED PBVEEEL. 
 
 Clare stood ready with the best form of filial obedience^ 
 They were only a poor couple to gratify his Mephistophelian 
 humour, to be sure, but Mrs. Doria was equal to twenty, and 
 they would proclaim the diverse ways with which maidenhood 
 and womanhood took disappointment, while the surrounding- 
 Forey girls and other females of the family assembly were 
 expected to develop the finer shades and tapering edges of 
 an agitation to which no woman could be cold. 
 
 All went well. He managed cleverly to leave the cake 
 unchallenged in a conspicuous part of the dravnng-roona, and 
 stepped gaily down to dinner. Much of the conversation 
 adverted to Richard. Mrs. Doria asked him if he had seen 
 the youth, or heard of him. 
 
 " Seen him ? no ! Heard of him ? yes ! " said Adrian. " I 
 have heard of him. I heard that he was sublimely happy, 
 and had eaten such a breakfast that dinner was impossible y 
 claret and cold chicken, cake and " 
 
 " Cake at breakfast ! " they all interjected. 
 
 " That seems to be his fancy just now." 
 
 " What an extraordinary taste ! " 
 
 " You know, he is educated on a System." 
 
 One fast young male Forey allied the System, and the cake 
 in a miserable pun. Adrian, a hater of puns, looked at him, 
 and held the table silent, as if he were going to speak ; but 
 he said nothing and the young gentleman vanished from the 
 conversation in a blush, extinguished by his own spark. 
 
 Mrs. Doria peevishly exclaimed, " Oh ! fish-cake, I sup- 
 pose ! I wish he understood a little better the obligations of 
 relationship." 
 
 " Whether he understands them, I can't say," observed 
 Adrian, " but I assure you he is very energetic in extending- 
 them." 
 
 The wise youth talked innuendoes whenever he had an 
 opportunity, that his dear relative might be rendered suffi- 
 ciently inflammable by and by at the aspect of the cake ; but 
 he was not thought more than commonly mysterious and 
 deep. 
 
 " Was his appointment at the house of those Grandison 
 people ? " Mrs. Doria asked, with a hostile upper-lip. 
 
 Adrian warmed the blindfolded parties by replying, " Do 
 they keep a beadle at the door ? " 
 
 Mrs. Doria's animosity to Mrs. Grandison made her treat 
 
PE0CES3I0N OP THE CAKE. 287 
 
 this as a piece of satirical ingenuousness. " I dare say ttey 
 do," she said. 
 
 " And a curate on hand ? " 
 
 " Oh, I should think a dozen ! " 
 
 Old Mr. Forey advised his punning grandson Clarence to 
 give that house a wide berth, vfhere he might be disposed of 
 and dished-up at a moment's notice, and the scent ran off at 
 a jest. 
 
 The Foreys gave good dinners, and with the old gentleman 
 the excellent old fashion remaiaed in permanence of trooping 
 off the ladies as soon as they had taken their sustenance and 
 just exchanged a smile with the flowers and the dessert, 
 when they rose to fade with a beautiful accord, and the 
 gallant males breathed under easier waistcoats, and settled 
 to the business of the table, sure that an hour was their own. 
 Adrian took a chair by Brandon Forey, a barrister of 
 standing. 
 
 " I want to ask you," he said, " whether an infant in law 
 can legally bind himself." 
 
 " If he's old enough to affix his signature to an instrument, 
 I suppose he can," yawned Brandon. 
 
 "Is he responsible for his acts ? " 
 
 "I've no doubt we could hang him." 
 
 " Then what he could do for himself, yon could do for 
 him?" 
 
 " Not quite so much ; pretty near." 
 
 " For instance, he can marry ? " 
 
 " That's not a criminal case, you know." 
 
 " And the marriage is valid ? " 
 
 " Tou can dispute it." 
 
 "Tes, and the Greeks and the Trojans can fight. It holds 
 then ? " 
 
 " Both water and fire ! " 
 
 The patriarch of the table sang out to Adrian that h© 
 stopped the vigorous circulation of the claret. 
 
 " Dear me, sir ! " said Adrian, " I beg pardon. The cir- 
 cumstances must excuse me. The fact is, my cousin Richard 
 got married to a dairymaid this morning, and I wanted to 
 know whether it held in law." 
 
 It was amusing to watch the manly coolness with which 
 the announcement was taken. Nothing was heard more 
 energetic than, " Deuce he has ! " and, " A dairymaid ! " 
 
288 THE OBDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 " I tliouglit it better to let the ladies dine in peace," 
 Adrian continued. '' I wanted to bo able to console my 
 aunt" 
 
 " Well, but — well, but," the old gentleman, muoli the most 
 excited, puffed — " eh, Brandon ? He's a boy, this young 
 ass ! Do you moan to tell me a boy can go and marry when 
 he pleases, and any trull he pleases, and the marriage is 
 . good ? If I thought that I'd turn every woman off my 
 premises. I would ! from the housekeeper to the scullery- 
 maid. I'd have no woman near him till — till " 
 
 " Till the young greenhorn was grey, sir ? " suggested 
 Brandon. 
 
 " Till he knew what wom.en are made of, sir ! " the old 
 gentleman finished his sentence vehem.ently. " What, d ye 
 think, will Feverel say to it, Mr. Adrian ? " 
 
 " He has been trying the very System you have proposed, 
 sir — one that does not reckon on the powerful action of 
 curiosity on the juvenile intelligence. I'm. afraid it's the 
 very worst way of solving the problem." 
 
 " Of course it is," said Clarence. " None but a fool " 
 
 " At your age," Adrian relieved his embarrassment, "it is 
 natural, my dear Clarence, that you should consider the idea 
 of an isolated or imprisoned manhood something monstrous, 
 and we do not expect you to see what amount of wisdom it 
 contains. You follow one extreme, and we the other. I 
 don't say that a middle course exists. The history of man- 
 kind shows our painful efforts to find one, but they have 
 invariably resolved themselves into asceticism, or laxity, 
 acting and reacting. The moral question is, if a naughty 
 little m.an, by reason of his naughtiness, releases himself 
 from foolishness, does a foolish little man, by reason of his 
 foolishness, save himself from naughtiness ? " 
 
 A discussion, peculiar to men of the world, succeeded the 
 laugh at Mr. Clarence. Then coffee was handed round and 
 the footman informed Adrian, in a low voice, that Mrs. 
 Doria Forey particularly wished to speak with him. Adrian 
 preferred not to go in alone. " Very well," he said, and 
 sipped his coffee. They talked on, sounding the depths of 
 law in Brandon Forey, and receiving nought but hollow 
 echoes from that profound cavity. He would not affirm that 
 the marriage was invalid : he would not affirm that it could 
 not be annulled. He thought not : still he thought it would 
 
PEOCISSIOB. OP THl CAKE. 289' 
 
 be ■worth trying. A consummated and a non-consummateti 
 union were two difEerent things. . . . 
 
 " Dear me ! " said Adrian, " does the Law recognize that ? 
 Why that's almost human ! " 
 
 Another message was brought to Adrian that Mrs. Doria 
 Forey very particularly wished to speak with him. 
 
 " What can be the matter ? " he exclaimed, pleased to have 
 his faith in woman strengthened. The cake had exploded, 
 no doubt. 
 
 So it proved, when the gentleman joined the fair society. 
 All the younger ladies stood about the table, whereon the 
 cake stood displayed, gaps being left for those sitting to 
 feast their vision, and intrude the comments and specula- 
 tions continually arising from fresh shocks of wonder at the 
 unaccountable apparition. Entering with the half-guilty air 
 of men who know they have come from a grosser atmo^ 
 sphere, the gallant males also arranged themselves round the 
 common object of curiosity. 
 
 " Here ! Adrian ! " Mrs. Doria cried. " Where is Adrian ? 
 Pray come here. Tell me ! Where did this cake come 
 from ? Whose is it ? What does it do here ? You know 
 all about it, for you brought it. Clare saw you bring it into 
 the room. What does It mean ? I insist upon a direct 
 answer. Now do not make me impatient, Adrian." 
 
 Certainly Mrs. Doria was equal to twenty. By her con- 
 centrated rapidity and volcanic complexion it was evident 
 that suspicion had kindled. 
 
 " I was really bound to bring it," Adrian protested. 
 
 " Answer me ! " 
 
 The wise youth bowed : " Categorically. This cake came 
 from the house of a person, a female, of the name of Berry. 
 It belongs to you partly, partly to me, partly to Clare, and 
 to the rest of our family, on the principle of equal division : 
 for which purpose it is present. . . ." 
 
 "Yes! Speak!" 
 
 " It means, my dear aunt, what that kind of cake usually 
 does mean." 
 
 " This, then, is the Breakfast ! And the riag ! Adrian ! 
 where is Richard ? " 
 
 Mrs. Doria still clung to unbelief in the monstrous 
 horror. 
 
 But when Adrian told her that Richard had left town, her 
 
 u 
 
290 THE OKDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEnEL. 
 
 struggling liope sank. " The wretolied boy has ruined him- 
 self ! " she said, and sat down trembling. 
 
 Oh ! that System ! The delicate vituperations gentle 
 ladies use instead of oaths, Mrs. Doria showered on that 
 System. She hesitated not to say that her brother had got 
 what he deserved. Opinionated, morbid, weak, justice had 
 overtaken him. Now he would see ! but at what a price ! at 
 what a sacrifice ! 
 
 Mrs. Doria commanded Adrian to confirm her fears. 
 
 Sadly the wise youth recapitulated Berry's words. " He 
 was married this morning at half-past eleven of the clock, or 
 twenty to, by licence, at the Kensington parish church." 
 
 " Then that was his appointment ! " Mrs. Doria mur- 
 mured. 
 
 " That was the cake for breakfast ! " breathed a second of 
 her sex. 
 
 " And it was his ring ! " exclaimed a third. 
 
 The men were silent, and made long faces. 
 
 Clare stood cold and sedate. She and her mother avoided 
 each other's eyes. 
 
 " Is it that abominable country person, Adrian ? " 
 
 " The happy damsel is, I regret to say, the Papist dairy- 
 maid," said Adrian, in sorrowful but delibei'ate accents. 
 
 Then arose a feminine hum, in the midst of which Mrs. 
 Doria cried, " Brandon ! " She was a woman of energy. 
 Her thoughts resolved to action spontaneously. 
 
 " Brandon," she drew the barrister a little aside, " can they 
 not be followed, and separated ? I want your advice ? 
 Cannot we separate them ? A boy ! it is really shameful 
 if he should be allowed to fall into the toils of a designing 
 creature to ruin himself irrevocably. Can we not, Bran- 
 don ?" 
 
 The worthy barrister felt inclined to laugh, but ho 
 answered her entreaties : " Prom what I hear of the young 
 groom I should imagine the ofilce perilous." 
 
 " I'm speaking of law, Brandon. Can we not obtain an 
 order from one of your Courts to pursue them and separate 
 them instantly ?" 
 
 " This evening ?" 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 Brandon was sorry to say she decidedly could not. 
 
 ■" You might call on one of your Judges, Brandon." 
 
PROCESSION OF THE CAKE. 291 
 
 Brandon assured lier that the Judges were a hard-worked 
 race, and to a man slept heavily after dinner. 
 
 " Will you do so to-morrow, the first thing in the morning ? 
 Will you promise me to do so, Brandon ? — Or a magistrate ! 
 A magistrate would send a policeman after them. My dear 
 Brandon ! I beg — I beg you to assist us in this dreadful 
 extremity. It will be the death of my poor brother. I 
 believe he would forgive anything but this. You have no 
 idea what his notions are of blood." 
 
 Brandon tipped Adrian a significant nod to step in and 
 aid. 
 
 " What is it, aunt ?" asked the wise youth. "You want 
 them followed and torn asunder by wild policemen ?" 
 
 " To-morrow !" Brandon queerly interposed. 
 
 " Won't that be — just too late ?" Adrian suggested. 
 
 Mrs. Doria sighed out her last spark of hope. 
 
 " You see," said Adrian. . . . 
 
 " Yes ! yes !" Mrs. Doria did not require any of his 
 elucidations. " Pray be quiet, Adrian, and let me speak. 
 Brandon ! it cannot be ! it's quite impossible ! Can you stand 
 there and tell me that boy is legally married ? I never will 
 believe it ! The law cannot be so shamefully bad as to permit 
 a boy — a mere child — ^to do such absurd things. Grandpapa ! " 
 she beckoned to the old gentleman. " Grandpapa ! pray do 
 make Brandon speak. These lawyers never will. He might 
 stop it, if he would. If I were a man, do you think I would 
 stand here ?" 
 
 " Well, my dear," the old gentleman toddled to compose 
 her, " I'm quite of your opinion. I believe he knows no more 
 than you or I. My belief is they none of them know any- 
 thing till they join issue and go into Court. I want to see 
 a few female lawyers." 
 
 " To encourage the bankrupt perruquier, sir ?" said 
 Adrian. " They would have to keep a large supply of wigs 
 on hand." 
 
 " And you can jest, Adrian !" his aunt reproached him. 
 " But I will not be beaten. I know — I am fiimly convineed 
 that no law would ever allow a boy to disgrace his family 
 and ruin himself like that, and nothiug shall persuade mc 
 that it is so. Ifow, tek me, Brandon, and pray do speak in 
 answer to my questions, and please to forget you are dealing 
 with a woman. Can my nephew be rescued from the con- 
 
 u2 
 
292 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED FEYEEEL. 
 
 sequences of his folly ? Is what lie has done legitimate ? 
 Is he bound for life by what he has done while a boy P" 
 
 " Well — a," Brandon breathed through his teeth. " A — hm ! 
 the matter's so very delicate, you see, Helen." 
 
 " You're to forget that," Adrian remarked. 
 
 " A — hm ! well !" pursued Brandon. " Perhaps if you 
 could arrest and divide them before nightfall, and make 
 affidavit of certain facts" . . . 
 
 " Yes ?" the eager woman hastened his lagging mouth. 
 
 " Well . . . hm ! a ... in that case . . . a . . Or if a 
 lunatic, you could prove him to have been- of unsound 
 mind" ... 
 
 " Oh ! there's no doubt of his madness on iny mind, 
 Brandon." 
 
 "Yes! well! in that case . . . Or if of different religious 
 persuasions" . . 
 
 " She is a Catholic !" Mrs. Doria joyfully interjected. 
 
 " Yes ! well ! in that case . . . objections might be taken 
 to the form of the marriage . . . Might be proved fictitious 
 ... Or if he's under, say, eighteen years" . . 
 
 " He canH be much more," cried Mrs. Doria. " I think," 
 she appeared to reflect, and then faltered imploringly to 
 Adrian, "What is Richard's age ?" 
 
 The kind wise youth could not find it in his heart to strike 
 away the phantom straw she caught at. 
 
 " Oh ! about that, I should fancy," he muttered, and found 
 it necessary at the same time to duck and turn his head for 
 concealment. Mrs. Doria surpassed his expectations. 
 
 " Yes ! well, then . . ." Brandon was resuming with a 
 shrug, which was meant to say he still pledged himself to 
 nothing, when Clare's voice was heard from out the buzzing 
 circle of her cousins : " Richard is nineteen years and six 
 months old to-day, mama." 
 
 " Nonsense, child." 
 
 " He is, mama." Clare's voice was very steadfast. 
 
 " Nonsense, I tell you. How can you know ? " 
 
 " Richard is one year and nine months older than me, 
 mama." 
 
 Mrs. Doria fought the fact by years and finally by months. 
 Clare was too strong for her. 
 
 " Singular child ! " she mentally apostrophized the girl 
 who scornfully rejected straws while drowning. 
 
PEOCESSION OF THE CAKE. 293 
 
 " But there's the religion still ! " she comforted herself, 
 and sat down to cogitate. 
 
 The men smiled, and looked vacuous. 
 
 Music was proposed. There are times when soft music 
 hath not charms ; when it is put to as base uses as Imperial 
 Caesar's dust and is simply taken to fill horrid pauses. 
 AjQgelica Forey thumped the piano, and sang : " I'm a 
 laughing Oitana, Jia — ha ! ha — ha ! " Nobody believed her. 
 Matilda Forey and her cousin Mary Branksburne wedded 
 their voices, and songfully incited all young people to Haste 
 to the hower that love has built, and defy the wise ones of the 
 world ; but the wise ones of the world were in a majority 
 there, and very few places of assembly will be found where 
 they are not ; so the glowing appeal of the British ballad- 
 monger passed into the bosom of the emptiness he addressed. 
 Clare was asked to entertain the company. The singular 
 child calmly marched to the instrument, and turned over the 
 exquisitely appropriate illustrations to the British ballad- 
 monger's repertory. 
 
 " Sing this, dear," said Angelica. " This is pretty : ' I 
 know I have not loved in vain ! ' Eh ? don't you like that ? 
 or this : ' His hnew not that I watched his ways' What's this 
 correction in the lines. . . ? 'J thought he Tcnew not I wore — ' 
 ' It's that Clarence ! Really it's a shame how he treats our 
 books. And here again : ' When I heard he was married.' 
 Spliced ! he has written in. One of his dreadful slang words ! 
 I'll serve him out, though. Oh ! he is too absurd. Look : 
 ' I dare not breathe his name.' He has written : ' For it is not 
 pretty — Tomkins! ' Clarence has no idea of sentiment." 
 
 But Clarence candidly revealed the estimation in which 
 the British balladmonger is held by the applausive sons of 
 Britain (not enamoured of the fair cantatrice), who murmur 
 " Beautiful ! Charming song ! " and nightly receive drawing- 
 room lessons of disgust at hearts, and bosoms, and bowers, 
 that may partly account for their reticence and gaucherie 
 when hearts, and bosoms, and bowers, are things of earnest 
 with them. 
 
 Clare rejected all pathetic anatomy, and sang a little Irish 
 air. Her duty done, she marched from the piano. Mothers 
 are rarely deceived by their daughters in these matters ; but 
 Clare deceived her mother; and Mrs. Doria only persisted in 
 feeling an agony of pity for her chUd, that she might the 
 
294 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED TEVEEEL. 
 
 more -warrantably pity herself — a not uncommon form of tte 
 emotion, for ttere is no juggler like that heart the ballad- 
 monger puts into our mouths so boldly. Remember that she 
 saw years of self-denial, years of a ripening scheme, rendered 
 fruitless in a minute, and by the System which had almost 
 reduced her to the condition of constitutional hypocrite. She 
 had enough of bitterness to brood over, and some excuse for 
 self-pity. 
 
 Still, even when she was cooler, Mrs. Doria's energetic 
 nature prevented her from giving up. Straws were straws, 
 and the frailer they were the harder she clutched them. 
 
 She rose from her chair, and left the room, calling to 
 Adrian to follow her. 
 
 " Adrian," she said, turning upon him in the passage, 
 
 " you mentioned a house where this horrible cake where 
 
 he was this morning. I desire you to take me to that woman 
 immediately." 
 
 The wise youth had not bargained for personal servitude. 
 He had hoped he should be in time for the last act of the 
 opera that night, aftei enjoying the comedy of real life. 
 
 " My dear aunt " .... he was beginning to insinuate. 
 
 " Order a cab to be sent for, and get your hat," said Mrs. 
 Doria. 
 
 There was nothing for it but to obey. He stamped his 
 assent to the Pilgeim's dictum, that Women are practical 
 creatures, and now reflected on his own account that relation- 
 ship to a young fool may be a vexation and a nuisance. 
 However, Mrs. Doria compensated him. 
 
 What Mrs. Doria intended to do, the practical creature 
 did not plainly know ; but her energy positively demanded 
 to be used in some way or other, and her instinct directed 
 her to the offender on whom she could use it in wrath. She 
 wanted somebody to be angry with, somebody to abuse. 
 She dared not abuse her brother to his face : him she would 
 have to console. Adrian was a fellow-hypocrite to the Sys- 
 tem, and would, she was aware, bring her into painfully 
 delicate, albeit highly philosophic, ground by a discussion of 
 the case. So she drove to Bessy Berry's simply to inquire 
 whither her nephew had flown. 
 
 When a soft woman, and that soft woman a sinner, is 
 matched with a woman of energy, she does not show much 
 fight, and she meets no mercy. Bessy Berry's creditor came 
 
PEOCESSION OF THE CAKE. 295 
 
 to ter in female form that night. She then beheld it in all 
 its terrors. Hitherto it had appeared to her as a male, 
 a disembodied spirit of her imagination possessing male 
 attributes, and the peculiar male characteristic of being 
 moved, and ultimately silenced, by tears. As female, her 
 creditor was terrible indeed. Still, had it not been a late 
 hour, Bessy Berry would have died rather than speak openly 
 that her babes had sped to make their ne^t in the - Isle of 
 Wight. They had a long start, they were out of the reach 
 of pursuers, they were safe, and she told what she had to 
 tell. She told more than was wise of her to tell. She made 
 mention of her early service in the family, and of her little 
 pension. Alas ! her little pension ! Her creditor had come 
 expecting no payment — come, as creditors are wont in such 
 moods, just to take it out of her, to employ the familiar 
 term. At once Mrs. Doria pounced upon the pension. 
 
 " That, of course, you know is at an end," she said in the 
 calmest manner, and Berry did not plead for the little bit of 
 bread to her. She only asked a little consideration for her 
 feelings. 
 
 True admirers of women had better stand aside from the 
 scene. Undoubtedly it was very sad for Adrian to be com- 
 pelled to witness it. Mrs. Doria was not generous. The 
 Pilgrim may be wrong about the sex not growing ; but its 
 fashion of conducting warfare we must allow to be barbar- 
 ous, and according to what is deemed the pristine, or wild 
 cat, method. Ruin, nothing short of it, accompanied poor 
 Berry to her bed that night, and her character bled till 
 morning on her pillow. 
 
 The scene over, Adrian reconducted Mrs. Doria to her 
 home. Mice had been at the cake during her absence, 
 apparently. The ladies and gentlemen present put it on the 
 greedy mice, who were accused of having gorged and gone to 
 bed. 
 
 "I'm sure they're quite welcome," said Mrs. Doria. "It's 
 a farce, this marriage, and Adrian has quite come to my way 
 of thinking. I would not touch an atom of it. Why, they 
 were married in a married woman's ring ! Can that be 
 legal, as you call it ? Oh, I'm convinced ! Don't tell me. 
 Austin will be in town to-morrow, and if he is true to his 
 principles, he will instantly adopt measures to rescue his son 
 
296 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 from infamy. I want no legal adyice. I go upon common 
 sense, common decency. This marriage is false." 
 
 Mrs. Doria's fine scheme had become so much a part of her 
 life, that she could not give it up. She took Olare to her 
 bed, and caressed and wept over her, as she would not have 
 done had she known the singular child, saying, " Poor 
 Richard ! my dear poor boy ! we must save him, Clare ! we 
 must save him ! " Of the two the mother showed the 
 greater want of iron on this occasion. Clare lay in her arms 
 rigid and emotionless, with one of her hands tight-locked. 
 All she said was : " I knew it in the morning, mama." She 
 slept clasping Richard's nuptial ring. 
 
 By this time all specially concerned in the System knew 
 it. The honeymoon was shining placidly above them. Is 
 not happiness like another circulating medium ? When we 
 have a very great deal of it, some poor hearts are aching for 
 what is taken away from them. When we have gone out 
 and seized it on the highways, certain inscrutable laws are 
 sure to be at work to bring us to the criminal bar, sooner or 
 later. Who knows the honeymoon that did not steal some- 
 body's sweetness ? Richard Turpin went forth, singing : 
 " Money or life " to the world : Richard Feverel has done 
 the same, substituting " Happiness " for " Money," fre- 
 quently synonyms. The coin he wanted he would have, and 
 was just as much a highway robber as his fellow Dick, so 
 that those who have failed to recognize him as a hero before, 
 may now regard him in that light. Meanwhile the world 
 he has squeezed looks exceedingly patient and beautiful. 
 His coin chinks delicious music to him. Nature, and the 
 order of things on earth, have no warmer admirer than a 
 jolly brigand or a young man made happy by the Jews. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIY. 
 
 NURSING THE DEVIL. 
 
 And now the author of the System was on trial under the 
 eyes of the lady who loved him. What so kind as they ? 
 Tet are they very rigorous, those soft watchful woman's 
 
NURSING THE DEVIL. 297 
 
 eyes. If you fall below tlie measure they have made of you, 
 you -will feel it in the fulness of time. She cannot but show 
 you that she took you for a giant, and has had to come down 
 a bit. Ton feel yourself strangely diminishing in those 
 sweet mirrors, till at last they drop on you complacently 
 level. But, oh beware, vain man, of ever waxing enamoured 
 of that wonderful elongation of a male creature you saw re- 
 flected in her adoriag upcast orbs ! Beware of assisting to 
 delude her ! A woman who is not qiiite a fool will forgive 
 your being but a man, if you are surely that : she will haply 
 learn to acknowledge that no mortal tailor could have fitted 
 that figure she made of you respectably, and that practically 
 (though she sighs to think it) her ideal of you was on the 
 pattern of an overgrown charity-boy in the regulation jacket 
 and breech. For this she first scorns the narrow capacities 
 of the tailor, and then smiles at herself. But shouldst thou, 
 when the hour says plainly, Be thyself, and the woman is 
 willing to take thee as thou art, shouldst thou still aspire to 
 be that thing of shanks and wrists, wilt thou not seem con- 
 temptible as well as ridiculous ? And when the fall comes, 
 will it not be flat on thy face, instead of to the common 
 height of men ? Ton may fall miles below her measure of 
 you, and be safe : nothing is damaged save an overgrown 
 charity -boy ; but if you fall below the common height of 
 men, you must make up your mind to see her rustle her 
 gown, spy at the looking-glass, and transfer her allegiance. 
 The moral of which is, that if we pretend to be what we are 
 not, women, for whose amusement the farce is performed, 
 will fijid us out and punish us for it. And it is usually the 
 end of a sentimental dalliance. 
 
 Had Sir Austin given vent to the pain and wrath it was 
 natural he should feel, he might have gone to unphilosophic 
 excesses, and, however much he lowered his reputation as a 
 sage. Lady Blandish would have excused him : she would not 
 have loved him less for seeing him closer. But the poor 
 gentleman tasked his soul and stretched his muscles to act 
 up to her conception of him. He, a man of science in life, 
 who was bound to be surprised by nothing in nature, it was 
 not for him to do more than lift his eyebrows and draw in 
 his lips at the news delivered by Eipton Thompson, that ill 
 bird at Baynham. 
 
 All he said, after Ripton had handed the letters and 
 
298 THE OEDEAl OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 carried his penitential headache to bed, was : " Ton see, 
 Bmraeline, it is nseless to base any system on a human 
 being." 
 
 A very philosophical remark for one who has been busily 
 at work building for nearly twenty years. Too philoso- 
 phical to seem genuine. It revealed where the blow struck 
 sharpest. Richard was no longer the Richard of his crea- 
 tion — his pride and his joy — but simply a human being with 
 the rest. The bright star had sunk among the mass. 
 
 And yet, what had the young man done ? And in what 
 had the System failed ? 
 
 The lady could not but ask herself this, while she condoled 
 with the offended father. 
 
 " My friend," she said, tenderly taking his hand before 
 she retired, " I know how deeply you must be grieved. I 
 know what your disappointment must be. I do not beg of 
 you to forgive him now. Ton cannot doubt his love for this 
 young person, and according to his light, has he not behaved 
 honourably, and as you would have wished, rather than 
 bring her to shame ? Ton will think of that. It has been 
 an accident — a misfortune — a terrible misfortune" . . . 
 
 " The God of this world is in the machine — not out of it," 
 Sir Austin interrupted her, and pressed her hand to get the 
 good-night over. 
 
 At any other time her mind would have been arrested to 
 admire the phrase ; now it seemed perverse, vain, false, and 
 she was tempted to turn the meaning that was in it against 
 himself, much as she pitied him. 
 
 " Tou know, Emmeliue," he added, " I believe very little 
 in the fortune, or misfortune, to which men attribute their 
 successes and reverses. They are useful impersonations to 
 novelists ; but my opinion is sufficiently high of flesh and 
 blood to believe that we make our own history without 
 intervention. Accidents ? — Terrible misfortunes ? — ^What 
 are they ? — Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night," she said, looking sad and troubled. " When 
 I said, ' misfortune,' I meant, of course, that he is to blame, 
 but — shall I leave you his letter to me ?" 
 
 " I think I have enough to meditate upon," he replied, 
 coldly bowing. 
 
 " God bless you," she whispered. " And — may I say it ? 
 do not shut your heart." 
 
NDESINQ THE DEVIL. 299 
 
 He assured her that lie hoped not to do so, and the moment 
 she was gone he set about shutting it as tight as he could. 
 
 If, instead of saying, Base no system on a human being, 
 he had said, Never experimentalize with one, he would have 
 been nearer the truth of his own case. He had experi- 
 mented on humanity in the person of the son he loved as his 
 life, and at once, when the experiment appeared to have failed, 
 all humanity's failings fell on the shoulders of his son. 
 Richard's parting laugh in the train — it was explicable now : 
 it sounded in his ears like the mockery of this base nature 
 of ours at every endeavour to exalt and chasten it. The 
 young man had plotted this. From step to step Sir Austin 
 traced the plot. The curious mask he had worn since his 
 illness ; the selection of his incapable uncle Hippias for a 
 companion in preference to Adrian ; it was an evident, well- 
 perfected plot. That hideous laugh would not be silenced. 
 Base, like the rest, treacherous, a creature of passions using 
 his abilities solely to gratify them — never surely had humanity 
 such chances as in him ! A Manichsean tendency, from which 
 the sententious eulogist of nature had been struggling foi* 
 years (and which was partly at the bottom of the System), 
 now began to cloud and usurp dominion of his mind. As 
 he sat alone in the forlorn dead-hush of his library, he saw 
 the devil. 
 
 How are we to know when we are at the head and foun- 
 tain of the fates of them we love ? 
 
 There by the springs of Richard's future, his father sat : 
 and the devil said to him : " Only be quiet : do nothing : re- 
 solutely do nothing : your object now is to keep a brave face 
 to the world, so that all may know you superior to this human 
 nature that has deceived you. For it is the shameless decep- 
 tion, not the marriage, that has wounded you." 
 
 " Ay !" answered the baronet, " the shameless deception, 
 not the marriage ! wicked and ruinous as it must be ; a 
 destroyer of my tenderest hopes ! my dearest schemes ! Not 
 the marriage : — the shameless deception!" and he crumpled 
 up his son's letter to him, and tossed it into the fire. 
 
 How are we to distinguish the dark chief of the Ma- 
 niohseans when he talks our own thoughts to us ? 
 
 Further he whispered, " And your System : — if you would 
 be brave to the world, have courage to cast the dream of it 
 
300 THE OEDEAL 01" EICHAED FETEEEL. 
 
 out of you : relinquisli an impossible project ; see it as it is 
 — dead : too good for men. !" 
 
 " Ay !" muttered the baronet : " all who would save them 
 perish on the Cross !" 
 
 And so he sat nursiag the devil. 
 
 By and by he took his lamp, and put on the old cloak and 
 cap, and went to gaze at Ripton. That exhausted debauchee 
 and youth without a destiny slept a dead sleep. A handker- 
 chief was bound about his forehead, and his helpless sunken 
 chin and snoring nose projected up the pillow, made him 
 look absurdly piteous. The baronet remembered how often 
 he had compared his boy with this one : his own bright boy ! 
 And where was the difference between them ? 
 
 " Mere outward gilding !" said his familiar. 
 
 " Tes," he responded, " I dare say this one never positively 
 plotted to deceive his father : he followed his appetites un- 
 checked, and is internally the sounder of the two." 
 
 Ripton, with his sunken chin and snoring nose under the 
 light of the lamp, stood for human nature, honest, however 
 abject. 
 
 " Miss Random, I fear very much, is a necessary establish- 
 ment ! " whispered the monitor. 
 
 " Does the evil in us demand its natural food, or it corrupts 
 the whole ? " ejaculated Sir Austin. " And is no angel of 
 avail till that is drawn off ? And is that our conflict — to see 
 whether we can escape the contagion of its embrace, and 
 come uncomipted out of that P " 
 
 " The world is wise in its way," said the voice. 
 
 " Though it look on itself through Port wine ? " he sug- 
 gested, remembering his lawyer Thompson. 
 
 " Wise in not seeking to be too wise," said the voice. 
 
 " And getting intoxicated on its drug of comfort! " 
 
 " Human nature is weak." 
 
 " And Miss Random is an establishment, and Wild Oats an 
 institution ! " 
 
 " It always has been so." 
 
 " And always will be ? " 
 
 " So I fear ! in spite of your very noble efforts." 
 
 " And leads — whither f And ends — where ? " 
 
 Richard's laugh, taken up by horrid reverberations, as it 
 were through the lengths of the Lower Halls, replied. 
 
 This colloquy of two voices in a brain was concluded by 
 
NURSING THE DEVIL. 301 
 
 Sir Austin asking again if there were no actual difference 
 between tlie flower of his hopes and yonder drunken weed, 
 and receiving for answer that there was a decided dissimi- 
 larity in the smell of the couple ; becoming cognizant of 
 which he retreated. 
 
 Sir Austin did not battle with the tempter. He took him 
 into his bosom at once, as if he had been ripe for him, and 
 received his suggestions, and bowed to his dictates. Because 
 he suffered, and decreed that he would suffer silently, and be 
 the only sufferer, it seemed to him that he was great-minded 
 in his calamity. He had stood against the worM. The world 
 had beaten him. What then ? He must shut his heart and 
 mask his face ; that was all. To be far in advance of the 
 mass, is as fruitless to mankind, he reflected, as straggling in 
 the rear. For how do we know that they move behind us at 
 all, or move in our track ? What we win for them is lost ; 
 and where we are overthrown we lie ! 
 
 It was thus that a fine mind and a fine heart at the bounds 
 of a nature not great, chose to colour his retrogression and 
 countenance his shortcoming ; and it was thus that he set 
 about ruining the work he had done. He might well say, as 
 he once did, that there are hours when the clearest soul 
 becomes a cunning fox. For a grief that was private and 
 peculiar, he unhesitatingly cast the blame upon humanity ; 
 just as he had accused it in the period of what he termed his 
 own ordeal. How had he borne that ? By masking his face. 
 And he prepared the ordeal for his son by doing the same. 
 This was by no means his idea of a man's duty in tribulation, 
 about which he could be strenuously eloquent. But it was his 
 instinct so to act, and in times of trial great natures alone are 
 not at the mercy of their instincts. Moreover it would cost 
 him pain to mask his face ; pain worse than that he endured 
 when there still remained an object for him to open his heart 
 to in proportion ; and he always reposed upon the Spartan 
 comfort of bearing pain and being passive. " Do nothing," 
 said the devil he nursed ; which meant in his case, " Take 
 me into you and don't cast me out." Excellent and sane, I 
 think, is the outburst of wrath to men, when it stops short of 
 slaughter. For who that locks it up to eat in solitary, can 
 say that it is consumed ? Sir Austin had as weak a digestion 
 for wrath, as poor Hippias for a green duckling. Instead of 
 eating it, it ate him. The wild beast in him was not the less 
 
302 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FETEEEL. 
 
 deadly because it did not roar, and the devil in him not the 
 less active because he resolved to do nothing. 
 
 He sat at the springs of Richard's future, in the forlorn 
 dead-hush of his library there, hearing the cinders click in 
 the extinguished fire, and that humming stillness in which 
 one may fancy one hears the midnight Fates busily stirring 
 their embryos. The lamp glowed mildly on the bust of 
 Chatham. 
 
 Toward morning a gentle knock fell at his door. Lady 
 Blandish glided in. With hasty step she came straight to 
 him, and took both his hands. 
 
 " My friend," she said, speaking tearfully, and trembling, 
 " I feared I should find you here. I could not sleep. How 
 is it with you ? " 
 
 " Well, Emmeline ! well ! " he replied, torturing his brows 
 to fix the mask. 
 
 He wished it had heen Adrian who had come to him. He 
 had an extraordinary longing for Adrian's society. He knew 
 that the wise youth would divine how to treat him, and he 
 mentally confessed to just enough weakness to demand a 
 certain kind of management. Besides Adrian, he had not a 
 doubt, would accept him entirely as he seemed, and not 
 pester him in any way by trying to unlock his heart; 
 whereas, a woman, he feared, would be waxing too womanly, 
 and swelling from tears and supplications to a scene, of all 
 things abhorred by him the most. So he rapped the floor 
 with his foot, and gave the lady no very welcome face when 
 he said it was well with him. 
 
 She sat down by his side, still holding one hand firmly, 
 and softly detaining the other. 
 
 " Oh, my friend ! may I believe you ? May I speak to 
 yon ? " She leaned close to him. " Tou know my heart. I 
 have no better ambition than to be your friend. Surely I 
 divide your grief, and may I not claim your confidence ? 
 Who has wept more over your great and dreadful sorrows ? 
 I would not have come to you, but I do believe that sorrow 
 shared relieves the burden, and it is now that you naay feel a 
 woman's aid, and something of what a woman could be to 
 you." ... 
 
 " Be assured," he gravely said, " I thank you, Emmeline, 
 for your intentions." 
 
 " No, no ! not for my intentions ! And do not thank me. 
 
WTIESING THE DEVIL. 303 
 
 Think of him . . . think of your dear boy . . . Our 
 Richard, as ■we have called him. — Oh ! do not think it a 
 foolish superstition of mine, but I have had a thought this 
 night that has kept me in torment till I rose to speak to you. 
 • . . Tell me first you have forgiven him." 
 
 " A father bears no malice to his son, Emmeline." 
 
 " Tour heart has forgiven him ? " 
 
 " My heart has taken what he gave." 
 
 " And quite forgiven him ? " 
 
 " You will hear no complaints of mine." 
 
 The lady paused despondingly, and looked at him in a 
 wistful manner, saying with a sigh, " Tes ! I know how 
 noble you are, and different from others ! " 
 
 He drew one of his hands from her relaxed hold. 
 
 " Tou ought to be in bed, Emmeline." 
 
 "I cannot sleep." 
 
 " Go, and talk to me another time.'' 
 
 "No, it must be now. Tou have helped me when I 
 struggled to rise into a clearer world, and I think, humble 
 as I am, I can help you now. I have had a thought this 
 night that if you do not pray for him and bless him ... it 
 will end miserably. My friend, have you done so ? " 
 
 He was stung and offended, and could hardly help show- 
 ing it in spite of his mask. 
 
 " Have you done so", Austin ? " 
 
 " This is assuredly a new way of committing fathers to 
 the follies of their sons, Emmeline ! " 
 
 " N"o, not that. But will you pray for yoxir boy, and bless 
 him, before the day comes ? " 
 
 He restrained himself to pronounce his words calmly : — 
 " And I must do this, or it will end in misery ? How else 
 can it end ? Can I save him from the seed he has sown ? 
 Consider, Emmeline, what you say. He has repeated his 
 cousin's sin. Tou see the end of that . . ." 
 
 " Oh, so different ! This young person is not, is not of the 
 class poor Austin Wentworth allied himseH to. Indeed it is 
 different. And he — ^be just and admit his nobleness. I 
 fancied you did. This young person has great beauty, she 
 has the elements of good breeding, she — indeed I think, had 
 she been in another position, you would not have looked 
 upon her unfavourably." 
 
304 THE OEDEAl OF EIOHAED PBYEEEL. 
 
 " She may be too good for my son ! " Tlie baronet spoke 
 with, sublime bitterness. 
 
 " No woman is too good for Richard, and you know it." 
 
 " Pass her." 
 
 " Yes, I will speak only of him. He met her by a fatal 
 accident. "We thought his love dead, and so did he till he 
 saw her again. He met her, he thought we were plotting 
 against him, he thought he should lose her for ever, and in 
 the madness of an hour he did this." . . . 
 
 "My Emmeline pleads bravely for clandestine matches." 
 
 " Ah ! do not trifle, my friend. Say : would you have had 
 him act as young men in his position generally do to young 
 women beneath them ? " 
 
 Sir Austin did not like the question. It probed him very 
 severely. 
 
 " You mean," he said, " that fathers must fold their arms, 
 and either submit to infamous marriages, or have these 
 creatures ruined." 
 
 " I do not mean that," exclaimed the lady, striving for 
 what she did mean, and how to express it. " I mean that 
 ... he loved her. Is it not a madness at his age ? But 
 what I chiefly mean is — save him from the consequences. 
 No, you shall not withdraw your hand. Think of his pride, 
 his sensitiveness, his great wild nature — wild when he is set 
 wrong : think, how intense it is, set upon love ; think, my 
 friend, do not forget his love for you." 
 
 Sir Austin smiled an admirable smile of pity. 
 
 " That I should save him, or any one, from consequences, 
 is asking more than the order of things will allow to you, 
 Emmeline, and is not in the disposition of this world. I 
 cannot. Consequences are the natural offspring of acts. My 
 child, you are talking sentiment, which is the distraction of 
 our m.odern age in everything — a phantasmal vapour dis- 
 torting the image of the life we live. You ask me to give 
 him a golden age in spite of himself. All that could be 
 done, by keeping him in the paths of virtue and truth, I did. 
 He is become a man, and as a man he must reap his own 
 sowing." 
 
 The baffled lady sighed. He sat so rigid : he spoke so 
 securely, as if wisdom were to him more than the love of his 
 son. And yet he did love his son. Feeling sure that he 
 loved his son while he spoke so loftily, she reverenced him 
 
NTJESniG THE DEVIL. 305 
 
 stil], baffled as slie was, and. sensible tkat sbe bad been 
 quibbled witb. 
 
 " AH I ask of you is to open your beart to bim," sbe 
 said. 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 " Call bim a man, — be is, and must ever be tbe cbild of 
 yoTLT education, my friend." 
 
 " Tou would console me, Emmeline, witb tbe prospect 
 tbat, if be ruins bimself , be spares tbe world of young women. 
 Tes, tbat is sometbing ! tbat is sometbing ! " 
 
 Closelr sbe scanned tbe mask. It was impenetrable. He 
 could meet ber eyes, and respond to tbe pressure of ber 
 band, and smile, and not sbow wbat be felt. N^or did be 
 deem it bypocritical to seek to maintain bis elevation in ber 
 soft soul, by simulating supreme pbilosopby over offended 
 love. Nor did be know tbat be bad an angel witb bim 
 tben : a blind angel, and a weak one, but one wbo struck 
 upon bis cbance. 
 
 " Am I pardoned for coming to you ? " sbe said, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Surely I can read my Emmeline's intentions," be gently 
 replied. 
 
 " Very poor ones. I feel my weakness. I cannot utter 
 balf I.bave been tbinking. Ob, if I could ! " 
 
 " Tou speak very well, Emmeline." 
 
 " At least, I am pardoned ! " 
 
 " Surely so." 
 
 " And before I leave you, dear friend, sball I be forgiven ? 
 — may I beg it ? — will you bless bim ? " 
 
 He was again silent. 
 
 " Pray for bim, Austin ! pray for bim ere tbe nigbt is 
 over." 
 
 As sbe spoke sbe slid down to bis feet and pressed bis 
 band to ber bosom. 
 
 Tbe baronet was startled. In very dread of tbe soft fit 
 tbat wooed bim, be pusbed back his cbair, and rose, and 
 went to tbe window. 
 
 " It's day already ! " be said witb assumed vivacity 
 tbrowing open tbe sbutters, and displaying tbe young ligbt 
 on tbe lawn. 
 
 Lady Blandisb dried ber tears as sbe knelt, and tben 
 joined bim, and glanced up silently at Ricbard's moon 
 
 X 
 
306 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 standing in wane toward tlie west. She hoped it was be- 
 cause of her having been prematnTe in pleading so earnestly, 
 that she had failed to move him, and she accused herself 
 more than the baronet. But in acting as she had done, she 
 had treated him as no common man, and she was compelled 
 to perceive that his heart was at present hardly superior to 
 the hearts of ordinary men, however composed his face 
 might be, and apparently serene his wisdom. From that 
 moment she grew critical of him, and began to study her 
 idol — a process dangerous to idols. He, now that she seemed 
 to have relinquished the painful subject, drew to her, and as 
 one who wished to smooth, a foregone roughness, murmured : 
 " God's rarest blessing is, after all, a good woman ! My 
 Emmeline bears her sleepless night well. She does not 
 shame the day." He gazed down on her with a fondling 
 tenderness. 
 
 " I could bear many, many !" she replied, meeting his 
 eyes, " and you would see me look better and better, if . . . 
 if only . . ." but she had no encouragement to end the 
 Bentence. 
 
 Perhaps he wanted some mute form of consolation ; perhaps 
 the handsome placid features of the dark-eyed dame touched 
 him : at any rate their Platonism was advanced by his put- 
 ting an arm about her. She felt the arm and talked of the 
 morning. 
 
 Thus proximate, they by and by both heard something 
 very like a groan behind them, and looking round, beheld 
 the Saurian eye. Lady Blandish smiled, but the baronet's 
 discomposure was not to be concealed. By a strange fatality 
 every stage of their innocent loves was certain to have a 
 human beholder. 
 
 " Oh, I'm sure I beg pardon," Benson mumbled, arresting 
 his head in a melancholy pendulosity. He was ordered out 
 of the room. 
 
 " And I think I shall follow him, and try to get forty 
 winks," said Lady Blandish. They parted with a quiet 
 squeeze of hands. 
 
 The baronet then called in Benson. 
 
 " Get me my breakfast as soon as you can," he said, re- 
 gardless of the aspect of injured conscience Benson sombrely 
 presented to him. " I am going to town early. And, Ben- 
 son," he added, "you will also go to town this afternoon, or 
 
CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE. 307 
 
 to-morrow, if it suits you, and take your book witli you to 
 Mr. Thompson. You will not return here. A provision will 
 be made for you. Tou can go." 
 
 The heavy butler essayed to speak, but the tremendous 
 blow and the baronet's gesture choked him. At the door he 
 made another efEort which shook the rolls of his loose skin 
 pitiably. An impatient signal sent him out dumb, — and 
 Raynham was quit of the one believer in the Great Shaddock 
 dogma. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXY. 
 
 CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE. 
 
 It was the month of July. The Solent ran up green 
 waves before a full-blowing South-wester. Gay little yachts 
 bounded out like foam, and flashed their sails, light as sea- 
 nymphs. A crown of deep summer blue topped the flying 
 mountains of cloud. 
 
 By an open window that looked on the brine through nod- 
 ding roses, our young bridal pair were at breakfast, regaling 
 worthily both of them. Had the Scientific Humanist ob- 
 served them, he could not have contested the fact that, as a 
 couple who had set up to be father and mother of Britons, 
 they were doing their duty. Files of egg-cups with disinte- 
 grated shells, bore witness to it, and they were still at work, 
 hardly talking from rapidity of exercise. Both were dressed 
 for an expedition. She had her bonnet on, and he his yacht- 
 ing-hat. His sleeves were turned over at the wrists, and her 
 gown showed its lining on her lap. At times a chance word 
 might spring a laugh, but eatiug was the business of the 
 hour, as I would have you to know it always will be where 
 Cupid is in earnest. Tribute flowed in to them from the 
 subject land. Neglected lies Love's penny- whistle on which 
 they played so prettily, and charmed the spheres to hear 
 them. What do they care for the spheres, who have one 
 another ? Come, eggs ! come, bread and butter ! come, tea 
 with sugar in it and milk ! and welcome, the jolly hours. 
 That is a fair interpretation of the music in them just now. 
 Yonder instrument was good only for the overture. After 
 all, what finer aspiration can lovers have, than to be frea 
 
 x2 
 
308 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 man and woman in the heart of plenty ? And is it not a 
 glorioTia level to have attained ? Ah, wretched Scientiiio 
 Humanist! not to be by and mark the admirable sight of 
 iihese young creatures feeding. It would have been a spell 
 to exorcise the Manichee, methinks. 
 
 The mighty performance came to an end, and then, with a 
 flourish of his table-napkin, husband stood over wife, who 
 met him on the confident budding of her mouth. The poetry 
 of mortals is their daily prose. Is it not a glorious level to 
 have attained ? A short, quick-blooded kiss, radiant, fresh, 
 and honest as Aurora, and then Richard says vrithout lack of 
 cheer, " No letter to-day, my Lucy ! " whereat her sweet eyes 
 dwell on him a little seriously, but he cries, " Never mind ! 
 he'll be coming down himself some morning. He has only to 
 know her, and all's well ! eh ? " and so saying he puts a hand 
 beneath her chin, and seems to frame her fair face in fancy, 
 she smiling up to be looted at. 
 
 " But one thing I do want to ask my darling," says Lucy, 
 and dropped into his bosom with hands of petition. " Take 
 me on board his yacht with him to-day — not leave me with 
 those people ! Will he ? I'm a good sailor, he knows ! " 
 
 "The best afloat!" laughs Richard, hugging her, "but, 
 you know, you darling bit of a sailor, they don't allow more 
 than a certain number on board for the race, and if they hear 
 you've been with me, there'll be cries of foul play ! Besides, 
 there's Lady Judith to talk to you about Austin, and Lord 
 Mountfalcon's compliments for you to listen to, and Mr. 
 Morton to take care of you." 
 
 Lucy's eyes fixed sideways an instant. 
 
 " I hope I don't frown and blush as I did ? " she said, 
 screwing her pliable brows up to him winningly, and he bent 
 his cheek against hers, and murmured something delicious. 
 
 " And we shall be separated for — how many hours ? one, 
 two, three hours ! " she pouted to his flatteries. 
 
 " And then I shall come on board to receive my bride's 
 congratulations . ' ' 
 
 " And then my husband will talk all the time to Lady 
 Judith." 
 
 " And then I shall see my wife frowning and blushing at 
 Lord Mountfalcon." 
 
 " Am I so foolish, Richard ? " she forgot her trifling to ask 
 
CONQUEST OP AN EPICURE. 309 
 
 in an earnest way, and had another Aurorean kiss, just 
 brushing the dew on her lips, for answer. 
 
 After hiding a month in shyest shade, the pair of happy 
 sinners had wandered forth one day to look on men and 
 marvel at them, and had chanced to meet Mr. Morton of 
 Poor Hall, Austin Wentworth's friend, and Ralph's uncle. 
 Mr. Morton had once been intimate with the baronet, but had 
 given him up for many years as impracticable and hopeless, 
 for which reason he was the more inclined to regard 
 Richard's misdemeanour charitably, and to lay the faults of 
 the son on the father ; and thinking society to be the one 
 thing requisite to the young man, he had introduced him to 
 the people he knew in the island ; among others to the Lady 
 Judith Felle, a fair young dame, who introduced him to 
 Lord Mountfalcon, a puissant nobleman; who introduced 
 him to the yachtsmen beginning to congregate ; so that in a 
 few weeks he found himself in the centre of a brilliant com- 
 pany, and for the first time in his life tasted what it was to 
 have free intercourse with his fellow-creatures of both sexes. 
 The son of a System was, therefore, launched ; not only 
 through the surf, but in deep waters. 
 
 Now the baronet had so far compromised between the 
 recurrence of his softer feelings and the suggestions of his 
 new familiar, that he had determined to act toward Richard 
 with justness. The world called it magnanimity, and even 
 Lady Blandish had some thoughts of the same kind when 
 she heard that he had decreed to Richard a handsome allow- 
 ance, and had scouted Mrs. Doria's proposal for him to con- 
 test the legality of the marriage ; but Sir Austin knew well 
 he was simply just in not withholding money from a youth 
 so situated. And here again the world deceived him by 
 embellishing his conduct. For what it is to he just to whom 
 we love ! He knew it was not magnanimous, but the cry of 
 the world somehow fortified him in the conceit that in deal- 
 ing perfect justice to his son he was doing all that was 
 possible, because so much more than common fathers would 
 have done. He had shut his heart. 
 
 Consequently Richard did not want money. What he 
 wanted more, and did not get, was a word from his father, 
 and though he said nothing to sadden his young bride, she 
 felt how much it preyed upon him to be at variance with the 
 man whom, now that he had offended him and gone against 
 
310 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 him, lie would have fallen on his knees to ; the man who waa 
 as no other man to him. She heard him of nights when she 
 lay by his side, and the darkness, and the tears, and the 
 broken mutterings, of those nights clothed the figure of the 
 strange stem man in her mind. Not that it affected the 
 appetites of the pretty pair. We must not expect that of 
 Cupid enthroned, and in condition; under the influence of 
 sea-air, too. The files of egg-cups laugh at such an idea. 
 Still the worm did gnaw them. Judge, then, of their delight 
 when, on this pleasant morning, as they were issuing from 
 the garden of their cottage to go down to the sea, they 
 caught sight of Tom Bakewell rushing up the road with a 
 portmanteau on his shoulders, and, some distance behind 
 him, discerned Adrian. 
 
 " It's all right ! " shouted Richard, and ran off to meet 
 him, and never left his hand tUl he had hauled him up, firing 
 questions at him all the way, to where Lucy stood. 
 
 " Lucy ! this is Adrian, my cousin." Isn't he an angel ? 
 
 his 'eyes seemed to add ; while Lucy's clearly answered, 
 " That he is ! " 
 
 The full-bodied angel ceremoniously bowed to her, and 
 acted with reserved unction the benefactor he saw in their 
 greetings. " I think we are not strangers," he was good 
 enough to remark, and very quickly let them know he had 
 not breakfasted; on hearing which they hurried him into 
 the house, and Lucy put herself in motion to have him 
 served. 
 
 " Dear old Rady," said Richard, tugging at his hand 
 again, "how glad I am you've come! I don't mind telling 
 you we've been horridly wretched." 
 
 " Six, seven, eight, niae eggs," was Adrian's comment on 
 a survey of the breakfast- table. 
 
 " Why wouldn't he write ? Why didn't he answer one of 
 m.y letters ? But here you are, so I don't mind now. He 
 wants to see us, does he ? We'll go up to-night. I've a 
 match on at eleven ; my little yacht — I've called her the 
 * Blandish ' — against Fred Currie's ' Begum.' I shall beat, 
 but whether I do or not, we'll go up to-night. What's the 
 news ? What are they all doing ? " 
 
 " My dear boy ! " Adrian returned, sitting comfortably 
 down, " let me put myself a little more on an equal footing 
 with you before I undertake to reply. Half that number of 
 
CONQUEST OF AN EPICUEE. 311 
 
 eggs will he sufficient for an unmarried man, and then we'll 
 talk. They're all very well, as well as I can recollect after 
 the shaking my total yacuity has had this morning. I came 
 over hy the first boat, and the sea, the sea has made m.e love 
 mother earth, and desire of her fruits." 
 
 Richard fretted restlessly opposite his cool relative. 
 
 " Adrian ! what did he say when he heard of it ? I want 
 to know exactly what words he said." 
 
 " Well says the sage, my son ! ' Speech is the small 
 change of Silence.' He said less than I do." 
 
 " That's how he took it ! " cried Richard, and plunged in 
 meditation. 
 
 Soon the table was cleared, and laid out afresh, and Lucy 
 preceded the maid bearing eggs on the tray, and sat down 
 nnbonneted, and like a thorough-bred housewife, to pour out 
 the tea for him. 
 
 " Now we'll commence," said Adrian, tapping his egg 
 with meditative cheerfulness ; but his expression soon 
 changed to one of pain, all the more alarming for hia 
 benevolent efforts to conceal it. Could it be possible the 
 egg was bad ? oh, horror ! Lucy watched him, and waited 
 in trepidation. 
 
 " This egg has boiled three minutes and three quarters," 
 he observed, ceasing to contemplate it. 
 
 " Dear, dear! " said Lucy, "I boiled them myself exactly 
 that time. Richard likes them so. And you like them hard, 
 Mr. Harley ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, I like them soft. Two minutes and a 
 half, or three-quarters at the outside. An egg should never 
 rashlyverge upon hardness — never. Three minutes is the 
 excess of temerity." 
 
 " If Richard had told me ! If I had only known ! " the 
 lovely little hostess interjected ruefully, biting her lip. 
 
 " We mustn't expect Tiim to pay attention to such matters," 
 said Adrian, trying to smile. 
 
 " Hang it ! there are more eggs in the house," cried 
 Richard, and pulled savagely at the bell. 
 
 Lucy jumped up, saying, " Oh, yes ! I will go and boU 
 some exactly the time you like. Pray let me go, Mr. 
 Harley." 
 
 Adrian restrained her departure with a motion of his 
 
312 THE OEDBAl 01" EICHAED lEVBElL. 
 
 hamd. " No," lie said, " I will be ruled by Eicbard's tastes, 
 and Heaven grant me bis digestion ! " 
 
 Lucy tbrew a sad look at Riobard, who stretcbed on a 
 sofa, and left tbe burden of tbe entertainment entirely to 
 ber. Tbe eggs were a melancboly beginning, but ber ardour 
 to please Adrian would not be damped, and sbe deeply 
 admired bis resignation. If sbe failed in pleasing tbis 
 glorious berald of peace, no matter by wbat small misadven- 
 ture, sbe apprebended calamity ; so tbere sat tbis fair dove 
 witb brows at work above ber serious smiling blue eyes, 
 covertly studying every as]3ect of tbe plump-faced epicure, 
 tbat sbe migbt learn to propitiate bimi. " He sball not tbink 
 me timid and stupid," tbougbt tbis brave girl, and indeed 
 Adrian was astonisbed to find tbat sbe could botb cbat and 
 be useful, as well as look ornamental. Wben be bad finisbed 
 one egg, bebold, two fresh ones came in, boiled according to 
 his prescription. Sbe had quietly given ber orders to tbe 
 maid, and be bad them without fuss. Possibly bis look of 
 dismay at tbe offending eggs bad not been altogether in- 
 voluntary, and her woman's instinct, inexperienced as she 
 was, may have told ber tbat be bad come prepared to be not 
 very well satisfied with anything in love's cottage. There 
 was mental faculty in those pliable brows to see through, 
 and combat, an unwitting wise youth. 
 
 How much she had achieved already she partly divined 
 wben Adrian said : " I think now I'm in case to answer your 
 questions, m.y dear boy — thanks to Mrs. Richard," and be 
 bowed to ber bis first direct acknowledgment of her position. 
 Lucy thrilled with pleasure. 
 
 " Ah ! " went Richard, and settled easily on his back. 
 
 " To begin, the Pilgrim has lost his Note-book, and has 
 been persuaded to offer a reward which sball maintain the 
 happy finder thereof in an asylum for life. Benson — super- 
 lative Benson — ^has turned his shoulders upon Raynham. 
 None know whither he has departed. It is believed that 
 the sole surviving member of the sect of the Shaddock- 
 Dogmatists is under a total eclipse of Woman." 
 
 "Benson gone?" Richard exclaimed. "What a tre- 
 mendous time it seems since I left Raynham ! " 
 
 " So it is, my dear boy. The honeymoon is Mahomet's 
 minute ; or say, the Persian King's water-pail that you read 
 of in the story : Tou dip your head in it, and wben you draw 
 
CONQUEST OP AN EPICURE. 313 
 
 it out, you discover that you tave lived a life. To resume : 
 your uncle Algernon still roams in pursuit of the lost one — I 
 should say, hops. Tour uncle Hippias has a new and most 
 perplexing symptom; a determination of bride-cake to the 
 nose. Ever since your generous present to him, though he 
 declares he never consumed a morsel of it, he has been 
 under the distressing illusion that his nose is enormous, and 
 I assure you he exhibits quite a maidenly timidity in follow- 
 ing it — through a doorway, for instance. He complains of 
 its terrible weight. I have conceived that Benson invisible 
 might be sitting on it. His hand, and the doctor's, are in 
 hourly consultation with it, but I fear it will not grow 
 smaller. The Pilgrim has begotten upon it a new Aphorism : 
 that Size is a matter of opinion. It is the last in the Note- 
 book, and if they do with Note-books as it is the fashion 
 to treat novels — turn from the commencement to the con- 
 clusion — the happy finder will have rapidly qualified himself 
 to appreciate the full meaning of the reward." 
 
 " Poor uncle Hippy ! " said Richard, " I wonder he doesn't 
 believe in magic. There's nothing supernatural to rival the 
 wonderful sensations he does believe in. Good God ! fancy 
 coming to that ! " 
 
 " I'm sure I'm very sorry," Lucy protested, " but I can't 
 help laughing." 
 
 Charming to the wise youth her pretty laughter sounded. 
 
 " The Pilgrim has your notion, Richard. Whom does he 
 not forestall ? ' Confirmed dyspepsia is the apparatus of 
 illusions,' and he accuses the Ages that put faith in sorcery, 
 of universal indigestion, which may have been the case, 
 owing to their infamous cookery. He says again, if you 
 remember, that our own Age is travelling back to darkness 
 and ignorance through dyspepsia. He lays the seat of 
 wisdom in the centre of our system, Mrs. Richard : for which 
 reason you will understand how sensible I am of the vast 
 obligation I am under to you at the present moment, for 
 your especial care of mine." 
 
 Richard looked on at Lucy's little triumph, attributing 
 Adrian's subjugation to her beauty and sweetness. She had 
 latterly received a great many compliments on that score, 
 which she did not care to hear, and Adrian's homage to a 
 practical quality was far pleasanter to the young wife, who 
 shrewdly guessed that her beauty would not help her much 
 
314 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 in the struggle slie liad now to maintain. Adrian continu- 
 ing to lecture on the excelling virtues of wise cookery, a 
 thouglit struck her: Where, where had she tossed Mrs. 
 Berry's book ? 
 
 " So that's all about the home-people ? " said Richard. 
 
 "All!" replied Adrian. "Or stay: you know Clare's 
 going to be married ? Not ? Tour Aunt Helen " 
 
 " Oh, bother my Aunt Helen ! What do you think she had 
 the impertinence to write — but never mind ! Is it to Ralph ? " 
 
 " Tour Aunt Helen, I was going to say, my dear boy, is an 
 extraordinary woman. It was froia her originally that the 
 Pilgrim first learnt to call the female the practical animal. 
 He studies us all, you know. The Pilgeim's Sceip is the 
 abstract portraiture of his surrounding relatives. Well, 
 your Aunt Helen " 
 
 " Mrs. Doria Battledoria ! " laughed Richard. 
 
 " being foiled in a little pet scheme of her own — call 
 
 it a System if you like — of some ten or fifteen years' stand- 
 ing-, with regard to Miss Clare " — — 
 
 " The fair Shuttlecockiana ! " 
 
 " instead of fretting like a man, and questioning Pro- 
 vidence, and turning herself and everybody else inside out, 
 and seeing the world upside down, what does the practical 
 animal do ? She wanted to marry her to somebody she 
 couldn't marry her to, so she resolved instantly to marry her 
 to somebody she could marry her to : and as old gentlemen 
 enter into these transactions with the practical animal the 
 most readily, she fixed upon an old gentleman ; an unmarried 
 old gentleman, a rich old gentleman, and now a captive old 
 gentleman. The ceremony takes place in about a week 
 from the present time. No doubt you will receive your invi- 
 tation in a day or two." 
 
 " And that cold, icy, wretched Clare has consented to 
 marry an old man ! " groaned Richard. " I'll put a stop to 
 that when I go to town." 
 
 " Don't," said Adrian. 
 
 Richard got up and strode about the room. Then he 
 bethought him it was time to go on board and make 
 preparations. 
 
 " I'm off," he said. "Adrian, you'll take her. She goes 
 in the Empress, Mountfalcon's vessel. He starts us. A 
 little schooner-yacht — such a beauty ! I'll have one like her 
 
CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE. 315 
 
 some day. Good-bye, darling ! " he wMspered to Lucy, and 
 his hand and eyes lingered on her, and hers on him, seeking 
 to make up for the priceless kiss they were debarred from. 
 But she quickly looked away from him as he held her : — 
 Adrian was silent : his brows were up, and his mouth 
 dubiously contracted. He spoke at last. 
 
 " Go on the water ? " 
 
 "Yes. It's only to St. Helen's. Short and sharp." 
 
 " Do you grudge me the nourishment my poor system has 
 just received, my son ? " 
 
 " Oh, bother your system ! Put on your hat, and come 
 along. " I'll put you on board in my boat." 
 
 " Richard ! I have already paid the penalty of them who 
 are condemned to come to an island. I will go with you to 
 the edge of the sea, and I will meet you there when you 
 return, and take up the Tale of the Tritons : but, though I 
 forfeit the pleasure of Mrs. Richard's company, -I refuse to 
 quit the land." 
 
 " Yes, oh, Mr. Harley ! " Lucy broke from her husband, 
 " and I will stay with you, if you please. I don't want to 
 go among those people, and we can see it all from the shore. 
 Dearest ! I don't want to go. You don't mind ? Of course, 
 I will go if you wish, but I would so much rather stay;" and 
 she lengthened her plea in her attitude and look to melt the 
 discontent she saw gathering. 
 
 Adrian protested that she had much better go ; that he 
 could amuse himself very well till their return, and so forth ; 
 but she had schemes in her pretty head, and held to it to be 
 allowed to stay in spite of Lord Mountfalcon's disappoint- 
 ment, cited by Richard, and at the great risk of vexing her 
 darling, as she saw. Richard pished, and glanced contempt- 
 uously at Adrian. He gave way ungraciously. 
 
 " There, do as you like. Get your things ready to leave 
 this evening. No, I'm not angry. "^ — Who could be ? he 
 seemed as he looked up from her modest fondling to ask 
 Adrian, and seized the indemnity of a kiss on her forehead, 
 which, however, did not immediately disperse the shade of 
 annoyance he felt. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " he exclaimed. " Such a day as this, 
 and a fellow refuses to come on the water ! Well, come 
 along to the edge of the sea." Adrian's angelic quality had 
 quite worn oS to him. He never thought of devoting him- 
 
316 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FEYEEEL. 
 
 self to make the most of the material there was : but some- 
 body else did, and that fair somebody succeeded wonderfully 
 in a few short hours. She induced Adrian to reflect that 
 the baronet had only to see her, and the family muddle 
 would be smoothed at once. He came to it by degrees ; still 
 the gradations were rapid. Her manner he liked ; she waa 
 certainly a nice picture : best of all, she was sensible. He 
 forgot the farmer's niece in her, she was so very sensible. 
 She appeared really to understand that it was a woman's 
 duty to know how to cook. 
 
 But the difficulty was, by what means the baronet could 
 be brought to consent to see her. He had not yet consented 
 to see his son, and Adrian, spurred by Lady Blandish, had 
 ventured something in coming down. He was not inclined, 
 to venture more. The small debate in his mind ended by 
 his throwing the burden on time. Time would bring the 
 matter about. Christians as well as Pagans are in the habit 
 of phrasing this excuse for folding their arms ; "forgetful," 
 says Tb.e Pilgrim's Scrip, "that the Devil's imps enter inta 
 no sach armistice." 
 
 As she loitered along the shore with her amusing com- 
 panion, Lucy had many things to think of. There was her 
 darling's match. The yachts were started by pistol-shot by 
 Lord Mountfalcon on board the Empress, and her little heart 
 beat after Richard's straining sails. Then there was the 
 strangeness of walking with a relative of Richard's, one who 
 had lived by his side so long. And the thought that perhaps 
 this night she would have to appear before the dreaded 
 father of her husband. 
 
 " Mr. Harley ! " she said, " is it true — are we to go to- 
 night ? And me," she faltered, " will he see me ? " 
 
 "Ah! that is what I wanted to talk to you about," said 
 Adrian. " I made some reply to our dear boy which he has 
 slightly misinterpreted. Our second person plural is liable 
 to misconstruction by an ardent mind. I said ' see you,' 
 and he supposed— now, Mrs. Richard, I am sure you will 
 understand me. Just at present perhaps it would be advise- 
 able — when the father and son have settled their accounts, 
 the daughter-in-law can't be a debtor." . . . 
 
 Lucy threw up her blue eyes. A half-cowardly delight at 
 the chance of a respite from the awful interview made her 
 quickly apprehensive. 
 
CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE. 317 
 
 " Mr. Harley ! you think lie should go alone first ? " 
 
 " Well, that is my notion. But the fact is, he is such an 
 excellent husband that T fancy it will require more than a 
 man's power of persuasion to get him to go." 
 
 " But I will persuade him, Mr. Harley." 
 
 " Perhaps, if you would . . ." 
 
 " There is nothing I would not do for his happiness," 
 murmured Lucy. 
 
 The wise youth pressed her hand with lymphatic approba. 
 tion. They walked on till the yachts had rounded the 
 point. 
 
 " Is it to-night, Mr. Harley ? " she asked with some 
 trouble in her voice now that her darling was out of sight. 
 
 " I don't imagine your eloquence even will get him to leave 
 you to-night," Adrian replied gallantly. " Besides, I must 
 speak for myself. To achieve the passage to an island is 
 «nough for one day. No necessity exists for any hurry, 
 except in the brain of that impetuous boy. Tou must cor- 
 rect it, Mrs. Richard. Men are made to be managed, and 
 women are born managers. Now, if you were to let him 
 know that you don't want to go to-night, and let him guess, 
 after a day or two, that you would very much rather . . . 
 you might affect a peculiar repugnance. By taking it on 
 yourself, you see, this wild young man will not require such 
 frightful efforts of persuasion. Both his father and he are 
 exceedingly delicate subjects, and his father unfortunately 
 is not in a position to be managed directly. It's a strange 
 office to propose to you, but it appears to devolve upon you 
 to manage the father through the son. Prodigal having 
 made his peace, you, who have done all the work from a dis- 
 tance, naturally come into the circle of the paternal smile, 
 knowing it due to you. I see no other way. If Richard 
 suspects that his father objects for the present to welcome 
 his daughter-in-law, hostilities will be continued, the breach 
 will be widened, bad will grow to worse, and I see no end 
 to it." 
 
 Adrian looked in her face, as much as to say : Now are 
 you capable of this piece of heroism ? And it did seem hard 
 to her that she should have to tell Richard she shrank from 
 any trial. But the proposition chimed in with her fears 
 and her wishes : she thought the wise youth very wise : the 
 poor child was not insensible to his flattery, and the subtler 
 
318 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FEVEEEl. 
 
 flattery of making herseK in some measure a sacrifice to tte 
 home she had disturbed. She agreed to simulate as Adrian 
 had suggested. 
 
 Victory is the commonest heritage of the hero, and when 
 Richard came on shore proclaiming that the Blandish had 
 beaten the Begum by seven minutes and three-quarters, he 
 was hastily kissed and congratulated by his bride with her 
 fingers among the leaves of Dr. Kitchener, and anxiously 
 questioned about wine. 
 
 " Dearest ! Mr. Harley wants to stay with us a little, and 
 he thinks we ought not to go immediately — that is, before 
 he has had some letters, and I feel ... I would so much 
 rather ..." 
 
 "Ah! that's it, you coward!" said Richard. "Well, then, 
 to-morrow. We had a splendid race. Did you see us ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I saw you and was sure my darling would 
 win." And again she threw on him the cold water of that 
 solicitude about wine. " Mr. Harley must have the best, 
 you know, and we never drink it, and I'm so silly, I don't 
 know good wine, and if you would send Tom where he can 
 get good wine. I have seen to the dinner." 
 
 " So that's why you didn't come to meet me ?" 
 
 " Pardon me, darling." 
 
 " Well, I do, but Mountfalcon doesn't, and Lady Judith 
 thinks you ought to have been there." 
 
 " Ah, but my heart was with you !" 
 
 Richard put his hand to feel for the little heart : her 
 eyelids softened, and she ran away. 
 
 It is to say much of the dinner that Adrian found no fault 
 with it, and was in perfect goodhumour at the conclusion of 
 the service. He did not abuse the wine they were able to 
 procure for him, which was also much. The coffee, too, had 
 the honour of passing without comment. These were sound 
 first steps toward the conquest of an epicure, and as yet 
 Cupid did not grumble. 
 
 After coffee they strolled out to see the sun set from Lady 
 Judith's grounds. The wind had dropped. The clouds had 
 rolled from the zenith, and ranged in amphitheatre with 
 distant flushed bodies over sea and land : Titanic crimson 
 head and chest rising from the wave faced Hyperion falling. 
 There hung Briareus with deep-indented trunk and ravined 
 brows, stretching all his hands up to unattainable blue 
 
CONQUEST OP AN EPICTJEE. 319 
 
 summits. North-west the range had a rich white glow, as 
 if shining to the moon, and westward, streams of amber, 
 melting into upper rose, shot out from the dipping disk. 
 
 " What Sandoe calls the passion-flower of heaven," said 
 Richard under his breath to Adrian, who was serenely 
 chanting Greek hexameters, and answered, in the swing of 
 the caesura, " He might as well have said cauliflower." 
 
 Lady Judith, with a black lace veil tied over her head, met 
 them in the walk. She was tall and dark; dark-haired, 
 dark-eyed, sweet and persuasive in her accent and manner. 
 "A second edition of the Blandish," thinks Adrian. She 
 welcomed him as one who had claims on her affability. She 
 kissed Lucy protectingly, and remarking on the wonders of 
 the evening, appropriated her husband. Adrian and Lucy 
 found themselves walking behind them. 
 
 The sun was under. All the spaces of the sky were alight, 
 and Richard's fancy flamed. 
 
 " So you're not intoxicated with your immense triumph 
 this morning ?" said Lady Judith. 
 
 " Don't laugh at me. When it's over I feel ashamed of 
 the trouble I've taken. Look at that glory ! — I'm sure you 
 despise me for it." 
 
 " Was I not there to applaud you ? I only think such 
 energies should be turned into some deflnitely useful channel. 
 But you must not go into the Army." 
 
 " What else can I do ?" 
 
 " Ton are fit for so mach that is better." 
 
 " I never can be anything like Austin." 
 
 " But I think you can do more." 
 
 " Well I thank you for thinking it, Lady Judith. Some- 
 thing I will do. A man must deserve to live, as you say." 
 
 " Sauces," Adrian was heard to articulate distinctly in the 
 rear, " Sauces are the top tree of this science. A woman 
 who has mastered sauces sits on the apex of civilization." 
 
 Briareus reddened duskily seaward. The west was all a 
 burning rose. 
 
 " How can men see such sights as those, and live idle ?" 
 Richard resumed. "I feel ashamed of asking my men to 
 work for me. — Or I feel so now." 
 
 " Not when you're racing the Begum, I think. There's no 
 necessity for you to turn democrat like Austin. Do you 
 write now ?" 
 
320 THE OEDEAL OJT EICHAED lETEEEL. 
 
 " No. What is writing like mine ? It doesn't deceive 
 me. I know it's only the excuse I'm making to myself for 
 remaining idle. I haven't written a line since — lately." 
 
 " Because you are so happy." 
 
 " No, not because of that. Of course I'm very happy . . ." 
 He did not finish. 
 
 Vague, shapeless ambition had replaced love in yonder 
 skies. No Scientific Humanist was by to study the natural 
 development, and guide him. This lady would hardly be 
 deemed a very proper guide to the undirected energies of 
 the youth, yet they had established relations of that nature. 
 She was five years older than he, and a woman, which may 
 explain her serene presumption. 
 
 The cloud-giants had broken up : a brawny shoulder 
 smouldered over the sea. 
 
 "We'll work together in town, at all events," said Richard. 
 " Why can't we go about together at night and find out 
 people who want help ?" 
 
 Lady Judith smiled, and only corrected his nonsense by 
 saying, " I think we mustn't be too romantic. Tou will be- 
 come a knight- errant, I suppose. Tou have the charac- 
 teristics of one." 
 
 " Especially at breakfast," Adrian's unnecessarily emphatic 
 gastronomical lessons to the young wife here came in. 
 
 ■' Tou must be our champion," continued Lady Judith : 
 the rescuer and succourer of distressed dames and damsels. 
 "We want one badly." 
 
 "Tou do," said Richard earnestly: "from what I hear: 
 frgm what I know !" His thoughts flew off with him as 
 knight-errant hailed shrilly at exceeding critical moments 
 by distressed dames and damsels. Images of airy towers 
 hung around. His fancy performed miraculous feats. The 
 towers crumbled. The stars grew larger, seemed to throb 
 with lustre. His fancy crumbled with the towers of the 
 air, his heart gave a leap, he turned to Lucy. 
 
 "My darling ! what have you been doing ?" And as if to 
 comprsnsate her for his little knight-errant infidelity, he 
 pressed very tenderly to her. 
 
 "We have been engaged in a charming conversation on 
 domestic cookery," interposed Adrian. 
 
 " Cookery ! such an evening as this ?" His face was a 
 handsc me likeness of Hippias at the presentation of bride- 
 cake. 
 
CONQUEST OF AN EPIOUEE. 321 
 
 " Dearest ! you know it's very useful," Lucy mirttfully 
 pleaded. 
 
 " Indeed I quite agree with you, ciiild," said Lady Judith, 
 " and I think you have the laugh of us. I certainly will 
 learn to cook some day." 
 
 " Woman's mission, in so many words," ejaculated Adrian. 
 
 " And pray, what is man's ?" 
 
 " To taste thereof, and pronounce thereupon." 
 
 " Let us give it up to them," said Lady Judith to Richard. 
 " Tou and I never will make so delightful and beautifally 
 balanced a world of it." 
 
 Richard appeared to have grown perfectly willing to give 
 everything up to the fair face, his bridal Hesper. 
 
 Next day Lacy had to act the coward anew, and as she 
 did so, her heart sank to see how painfully it affected him 
 that she should hesitate to go with him to his father. He 
 was patient, gentle ; he sat down by her side to appeal to 
 her reason, and used all the arguments he could think of to 
 persuade her. 
 
 " If we go together and make him see us both : if he sees 
 he has nothing to be ashamed of in you — rather everything 
 to be proud of ; if you are only near him, you will not have 
 to speak a word, and I'm certain — as certain as that I live- 
 that in a week we shall be settled happily at Raynham. I 
 know my father so well, Lucy. Nobody knows him but I." 
 
 Lucy asked whether Mr. Harley did not. 
 
 " Adrian ? Not a bit. Adrian only knows a part of 
 people, Lucy ; and not the best part." 
 
 Lucy was disposed to think more highly of the object of 
 her conquest. 
 
 " Is it he that has been frightening you, Lucy ?" 
 
 " No, no, Richard ; oh, dear no !" she cried, and looked at 
 him more tenderly because she was not quite truthful. 
 
 " He doesn't know my father at all, said Richard. But 
 Lucy had another opinion of the wise youth, and secretly 
 maintained it. She could not be won to imagine the baronet 
 a man of human mould, generous, forgiving, full of pas- 
 sionate love at heart, as Richard tried to picture him, and 
 thought him, now that he beheld him again through Adrian's 
 embassy. To her he was that awful figure, shrouded by the 
 midnight. "Why are you so harsh?" she had heard 
 
 T 
 
322 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEYBKEL. 
 
 Ricliard cry more tlian once. She was sure that Adrian 
 must be right. 
 
 " Well, I tell you I won't go without you," said Richard, 
 and Lucy begged for a little more time. 
 
 Cupid now began to grumble, and with cause. Adrian 
 positively refused to go on the water unless that element 
 were smooth as a plate. The South-west still joked boister- 
 ously at any comparison of the sort ; the days were magnifi- 
 cent ; Richard had yachting engagements ; and Lucy always 
 petitioned to stay to keep Adrian company, conceiving it her 
 duty as hostess. Arguing with Adrian was an absurd idea. 
 If Richard hinted at his retaining Lucy, the wise youth 
 would remark ; " It's a wholesome interlude to your extremely 
 Cupidinous behaviour, my dear boy." 
 
 Richard asked his wife what they could possibly find to 
 talk about. 
 
 " All manner of things," said Lucy ; " not only cookery. 
 He is so amusing, though he does make fun of The Pilgrim's 
 ScBiP, and I think he ought not. And then, do you know, 
 darling — you won't think me vain ? — I think he is beginning 
 to like me a little." 
 
 Richard laughed at the humble mind of his Beauty. 
 
 " Doesn't everybody like you, admire you ? Doesn't Lord 
 Mountfalcon, and Mr. Morton, and Lady Judith ? " 
 
 " But he is one of your family, Richard." 
 
 " And they all will, if she isn't a coward." 
 
 " Ah, no ! " she sighs, and is chidden. 
 
 The conquest of an epicure, or any young wife's conquest 
 beyond her husband, however loyally devised for their mutual 
 happiness, may be costly to her. Richard in his hours of 
 excitement was thrown very much with Lady Judith. He 
 consulted her regarding what he termed Lucy's cowardice. 
 Lady Judith said : I think she's wrong, but you must learn 
 to humour little women." 
 
 " Then would you advise me to go up alone ? " he asked, 
 with a cloudy forehead. 
 
 " What else can you do ? Be reconciled yourself as 
 quickly as you can. Tou can't drag her like a captive, you 
 know ? " 
 
 It is not pleasant for a young husband, fancying his bride 
 the peerless flower of Creation, to learn that he must humour 
 a little woman in her. It was revolting to Richard. 
 
CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE. 323 
 
 " What I fear," he said, " is that my father will make it 
 smooth with me, and not acknowledge her : so that when- 
 ever I go to him, I shall have to leave her, and tit for tat — an 
 ahominable existence, like a ball on a billiard-table. I won't 
 bear that ignominy. And this I know, I know ! she might 
 prevent it at once, if she would only be brave, and face it. 
 You, yon. Lady Judith, you wouldn't be a coward ? " 
 
 " Where my old lord tells me to go, I go," the lady coldly 
 replied. " There's not much merit in that. Pray don't cite 
 me. Women are born cowards, you know." 
 
 " Bat I love the women who are not cowards." 
 
 " The little thing — your wife has not refused to go ?" 
 
 " No — ^but tears ! Who can stand tears ? " 
 
 Lucy had come to drop them. Unaccustomed to have his 
 will thwarted, and urgent where he saw the thing to do so 
 clearly, the young husband had spoken strong words : and 
 she, who knew that she would have given her life by inches 
 for him ; who knew that she was playing a part for his 
 happiness, and hiding for his sake the nature that was 
 worthy his esteem ; the poor little martyr had been weak a 
 moment. 
 
 She had Adrian's support. The wise youth was very 
 •comfortable. He liked the air of the Island, and he liked 
 being petted. " A nice little woman ! a very nice little 
 •woman ! " Tom Bakewell heard him murmur to himself 
 according to a habit he had ; and his air of rather succulent 
 patronage as he walked or sat beside the innocent Beauty, 
 with his head thrown back and a smile that seemed always 
 to be in secret communion with his marked abdominal pro- 
 minence, showed that she was gaining part of what she 
 played for. Wise youths who buy their loves, are not un- 
 willing, when opportunity offers, to try and obtain the com- 
 modity for nothing. Examinations of her hand, as for some 
 occult purpose, and ujictuous pattings of the same, were not 
 infrequent. Adrian waxed now and then Anacreontic in his 
 ■compliments. Lucy would say : " That's worse than Lord 
 Mountfalcon." 
 
 " Better English than the noble lord deigns to employ — 
 allow that ? " quoth Adrian. 
 
 " He is very kind," said Lucy. 
 
 " To all, save to our noble vernacular," added Adrian. 
 ■" He seems to scent a rival to his dignity there." 
 
 t2 
 
324 THE OKDEAL OF RICHAED FEVEKEL. 
 
 It may be that Adrian scented a rival to his lymphatic 
 emotions. 
 
 " We are at our ease here in excellent society," he ■wrote' 
 to Lady Blandish. " I am bound to confess that the Huron 
 has a happy fortune, or a superlative instinct. Blindfold he 
 has seized upon a suitable mate. She can look at a lord, and 
 cook for an epicure. Besides Dr. Kitchener, she reads and 
 comments on The Pilgeim's Scbip. The ' Love ' chapter, of 
 course, takes her fancy. That picture of Woman, ' Brawn 
 hy Beverence and coloured by Love,' she thinks beautiful, and 
 repeats it, tossing up pretty eyes. Also the lover's petition : 
 ' Give me purity to he worthy the good in her, and grant her 
 patience to reach the good in me.' 'Tis quite taking to hear 
 her lisp it. Be sure that I am repeating the petition ! I 
 make her read me her choice passages. She has not a bad 
 voice. 
 
 " The Lady Judith I spoke of is Austin's Miss Menteith 
 married to the incapable old Lord Telle, or Fellow, as the 
 wits here call him. Lord Mountfalcon is his cousin, and 
 her — what ? She has been trying to find out, but they have 
 both got over their perplexity, and act respectively the bad 
 man reproved and the chaste counsellor ; a position in which 
 our young couple found them, and haply diverted its perils. 
 They have quite taken them in hand. Lady Judith under- 
 takes to cure the fair Papist of a pretty, modest trick of 
 frowning and blushing when addressed, and his lordship 
 directs the exuberant energies of the original man. 'Tis 
 thus we fulfil our destinies, and are content. Sometimes 
 they change pupils ; my lord educates the little dame, and 
 my lady the hope of Raynham. Joy and blessings unto all ! 
 as the German poet sings. Lady Judith accepted the hand 
 of her incapable lord that she might be of potent service to 
 her fellow-creatures. Austin, you know, had great hopes of 
 her. 
 
 " I have for the first time in my career a field of lords to 
 study. I think it is not without meaning that I am intro- 
 duced to it by a yeoman's niece. The language of the twO' 
 social extremes is similar. I find it to consist in an instinct- 
 ively lavish use of vowels and adjectives. My lord and 
 Parmer Blaize speak the same tongue, only my lord's has 
 lost its backbone, and is limp, though fluent. Their pursuits 
 are identical; but that one has money, or, as the Pilgrim 
 
CONQUEST OF AN EPICUEE. 325 
 
 terms it, vantage, and the other has not. Their ideas seem 
 to hare a special relationship in the peculiarity of stopping 
 where they have begun. Young Tom Blaize with vantage 
 would be Lord Mountfalcon. Even in the character of their 
 parasites I see a resemblance, though I am bound to confess 
 that the Hon. Peter Brayder, who is my lord's parasite, is by 
 no means noxious. 
 
 " This sounds dreadfully democrat. Pray don't be alarmed. 
 The discovery of the affinity between the two extremes of the 
 Royal British Oak has made me thrice conservative. I see 
 now that the national love of a lord is less subservience than 
 a form of self-love ; putting a gold-lace hat on one's image, as 
 it were, to bow to it. I see, too, the admirable wisdom of 
 ■our system :— could there be a finer balance of power than 
 in a community where men intellectually nil, have lawful 
 vantage and a gold-lace hat on ? How soothing it is to 
 intellect — that noble rebel, as the Pilgrim has it — to stand, 
 and bow, and know itself superior ! This exquisite compen- 
 sation maintains the balance : whereas that period antici- 
 pated by the Pilgrim, when science shall have produced an 
 intellectual aristocracy, is indeed horrible to contemplate. 
 For what despotism is so black as one the mind cannot 
 challenge ? 'Twill be an iron age. Wherefore, madam, I 
 cry, and shall continue to cry. 'Vivehori Mountfalcon ! long 
 may he sip his Burgundy I long may the bacon-fed carry him 
 ■on their shoulders ! ' 
 
 "Mr. Morton (who does me the honour to call me Young 
 Mephisto, and Socrates missed) leaves to-morrow to get 
 Master Ralph out of a scrape. Our Richard has just been 
 ■elected member of a Club for the promotion of nausea. Is he 
 happy ? you ask. As much so as one who has had the misfor- 
 -tune to obtain what he wanted can be. Speed is his passion. 
 He races from point to point. In emulation of Leander 
 and Don Juan, he swam, I hear, to the opposite shores 
 the other day, or some world-shaking feat of the sort : him- 
 self the Hero whom he went to meet : or, as they who pun 
 say, his Hero was a Bet. A pretty little domestic episode 
 ■occurred this morning. He finds her abstracted in the fire 
 of his caresses : she turns shy and seeks solitude : green 
 jealousy takes hold of him : he lies in wait, and discovers 
 her with his new rival — a veteran edition of the culinary 
 Doctor ! Blind to the Doctor's great national services, deaf 
 
326 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 to her wild music, he grasps the intruder, dismembers him, 
 and performs upon him the treatment he has recommended 
 for dressed cucumber. Tears and shrieks accompany the 
 descent of the gastronome. Down she rushes to secure the 
 cherished fragments : he follows : they find him, true to 
 his character, alighted and straggling over a bed of bloonaing 
 flowers. Tet ere a fairer flower can gather him, a heel 
 black as Pluto stamps him into earth, flowers and all : — 
 happy burial ! Pathetic tribute to his merit is watering his 
 grave, when by saunters my Lord Mountf alcon. ' What's 
 the mattah ? ' says his lordship, soothing his moustache. 
 They break apart, and 'tis left to me to explain from the 
 window. My lord looks shocked, Richard is angry with her 
 for having to be ashamed of himself. Beauty dries her eyes, 
 and after a pause of general foolishness, the business of life 
 is resumed. I may add that the Doctor has just been dug 
 up, and we are busy, in the enemy's absence, renewing old 
 ^son with enchanted threads. By the way, a Papist priest 
 has blest them." 
 
 A month had passed when Adrian wrote this letter. H& 
 was very comfortable ; so of course he thought Time was 
 doing his duty. Not a word did he say of Richard's return^ 
 and for some reason or other neither Richard or Lucy spoke 
 of it now. 
 
 Lady Blandish wrote back : " His father thinks he has 
 refused to come to him. By your utter silence on the sub- 
 ject, I fear that it must be so. Make him come. Bring him 
 by force. Insist on his coming. Is he mad ? He must 
 come at once." 
 
 To this Adrian replied, after a contemplative comfortable 
 lapse of a day or two, which might be laid to his efforts to- 
 adopt the lady's advice, " The point is that the half man 
 declines to come without the whole man. The terrible 
 question of sex is our obstruction." 
 
 Lady Blandish was in despair. She had no positive- 
 assurance that the baronet would see his son ; the mask put 
 them all in the dark ; but she thought she saw in Sir Austin 
 irritation that the offender, at least when the opening to 
 come and make his peace seemed to be before him, should 
 let days and weeks go by. She saw through the mask suffi- 
 ciently not to have any hope of his consenting to receive the 
 couple at present ; she was sure that his equanimity was fie- 
 
olaeb's maeeiagb. 327 
 
 titious ; but she pierced no farther, or she might have 
 started and asked herself, Is this the heart of a woman ? 
 
 The lady at last wrote to Richard. She said: "Come 
 instantly, and come alone." Then Richard, against his 
 judgement, gave way. " My father is not the man I thought 
 him ! " he exclaimed sadly, and Lucy felt his eyes saying to 
 her : _" And you, too, are not the woman I thought you." 
 Nothing could the poor little heart reply but strain to his 
 bosom and sleeplessly pray in his arms all the night. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 claeb's maeeiage. 
 
 Three weeks after Richard arrived in town, his cousin 
 Clare was married, under the blessings of her energetic 
 mother, and with the approbation of her kinsfolk, to the 
 husband that had been expeditiously chosen for her. The 
 gentleman, though something more than twice the age of his 
 bride, had no idea of approaching senility for many long con- 
 nubial years to come. Backed by his tailor and his hair- 
 dresser, he presented no such bad figure at the altar, and 
 none would have thought that he was an ancient admirer of 
 his bride's mama, as certainly none knew he had lately pro- 
 posed for Mrs. Doria before there was any question of her 
 daughter. These things were secrets ; and the elastic and 
 happy appearance of Mr. John Todhunter did not betray 
 them at the altar. Perhaps he would rather have married 
 the naother. He was a man of property, well born, tolerably 
 well educated, and had, when Mis. Doria rejected him for 
 the first time, the reputation of being a fool — which a 
 wealthy man may have in his youth ; but as he lived on, 
 and did not squander his money — amassed it, on the con- 
 trary, and did not seek to go into Parliament, and did other 
 negative wise things, the world's opinion, as usual, veered 
 completely round, and John Todhunter was esteemed a 
 shrewd, sensible man — only not brilliant ; that he was bril- 
 liant could not be said of him. In fact, the man could 
 hardly talk, and it was a fortunate provision that no im. 
 
328 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 promptu deliveries were required of him in the marriage- 
 service. 
 
 Mis. Doria had her own reasons for being in a hurry. She 
 had discovered something of the strange impassive nature of 
 her child ; not from any confession of Clare's, but from signs 
 a mother can read when her eyes are not resolutely shut. 
 She saw with alarm and anguish Clare had fallen into the 
 pit she had been digging for her so laboriously. In vain she 
 entreated the baronet to break the disgraceful, and, as she 
 said, illegal alliance his son had contracted. Sir Austin 
 would not even stop the little pension to poor Berry. " At 
 least you will do that, Austin," she begged pathetically. 
 " Ton will show your sense of that horrid woman's con- 
 duct ? " He refused to offer up any victim to console her. 
 Then Mrs. Doria told him her thoughts, — and when an out- 
 raged energetic lady is finally brought to exhibit these pain- 
 fully hoarded treasures, she does not use half words as a 
 medium. His System, and his conduct generally, were 
 denounced to him, without analysis. She let him under- 
 stand that the world laughed at him; and he heard this 
 from her at a time when his mask was still soft and liable to 
 be acted on by his nerves. " Tou are weak, Austin ! weak, 
 I tell you ! " she said, and, like all angry and self-interested 
 people, prophecy came easy to her. In her heart she accused 
 him of her own fault, in imputing to him the wreck of her 
 project. The baronet allowed her to revel in the proclama- 
 tion of a dire future, and quietly counselled her to keep 
 apart from him, which his sister assured him she would do. 
 
 But to be passive in calamity is the province of no woman. 
 Mark the race at any hour. " What revolution and hubbub 
 does not that little instrument, the needle, avert from us ! " 
 says The Pilgeim's Sceip. Alas, that in calamity women 
 cannot stitch ! Now that she saw Clare wanted other than 
 iron, it struck her she must have a husband, and be made 
 secure as a woman and a wife. This seemed the thing to do : 
 and, as she had forced the iron down Clare's throat, so she 
 forced the husband, and Clare gulped at the latter as she had 
 at the former. On the very day that Mrs. Doria had this 
 new track shaped out before her, John Todhunter called at 
 the Foreys. " Old John ! " sang out Mrs. Doria, " show him 
 up to me. I want to see him particularly." He sat with 
 her alone. He was a man multitudes of women would have 
 
glare's makeiagb. 329 
 
 married — wlioiii will they not ? — and who would have mar- 
 ried any presentable woman : but women do want asking, 
 and John never had the word. The rape of such men is left 
 to the practical animal. So John sat alone with his old 
 flame. He had become resigned to her perpetual lamenta- 
 tion and living Suttee for his defunct rival. But, ha ! what 
 meant those soft glances now — addressed to him ? His 
 tailor and his hairdresser gave youth to John, but they had 
 not the art to bestow upon him distinction, and an undis- 
 tinguished man what woman looks at ? John was an indis- 
 tinguishable man. For that reason he was dry wood to a 
 soft glance. He was quickly incandescent. He proposed, 
 at the close of an hour's conflagration, thus : " Aren't you 
 ever going to change your state, Helen ?" 
 
 " Oh no ! never, indeed ! " the fair widow replied. 
 
 " Then it's a shame," muttered John, thinking how many 
 children and cries of " Papa " this woman — to whom he fan- 
 cied he had been constant, utterly devoted — owed him. 
 
 Ere he could fall back upon his accustomed resignation, 
 Mrs. Doria had assured the man that she knew of no one who 
 would make so good a husband, no one she would like so 
 well to have related to her. 
 
 " And you ought to be married, John : you know you 
 ought." 
 
 " But if I can't have her ? " returned John, staring stupidly 
 at her enigmatical forefinger. 
 
 " Well, well ! might you not have something better ? " 
 
 Mr. Todhunter gallantly denied the possibility of that. 
 
 " Something younger is something better, John. No. I'm 
 not young, and I intend to remain what I am. Put me by. 
 Tou must marry a young woman, John. Ton are well pre- 
 served — younger than most of the young men of our day. 
 Tou are eminently domestic, a good son, and will be a good 
 husband and good father. Some one you must marry. — 
 What do you think of Clare for a wife for you ? " 
 
 At first John Todhunter thought it would be very much 
 like his marrying a baby. However, he listened to it, and 
 that was enough for Mrs. Doria. " I'll do the wooing for 
 you, John," she said. 
 
 She did more. She went down to John's mother, and 
 consulted with her on the propriety of the scheme of wedding 
 her daughter to John in accordance with his proposition 
 
330 THE OEDEAL OF EICHARD FEVEKEL. 
 
 Mrs. Todliiiiiter's jealousy of any disturbing force in the- 
 influence slie lield over her son Mrs. Doria knew to be one of 
 the causes of John's remaining constant to the impression 
 she had aforetime produced on him. She spoke so kindly 
 of John, and laid so much stress on the ingrained obedience 
 and passive disposition of her daughter, that Mrs. Todhunter 
 was led to admit she did think it almost time John should 
 be seeking a mate, and that he — all things considered — 
 would hardly find a fitter one. And this, John Todhunter — 
 old John no more — heard to his amazement when, a day or 
 two subsequently, he instanced the probable disapproval of 
 his mother. 
 
 The match was arranged. Mrs. Doria did the wooing. It 
 consisted in telling Clare that she had come to years when 
 marriage was desireable, and that she had fallen into habits 
 of moping which might have the worse effect on her future 
 life, as it had on her present health and appearance, and 
 which a husband would cure. Eichard was told by Mrs. 
 Doria that Clare had instantaneously consented to accept 
 Mr. John Todhunter as lord of her days, and with more than 
 obedience — with alacrity. At all events, when Richard spoke 
 to Clare, the strange passive creature did not admit con- 
 straint on her inclinations. Mrs. Doria allowed Richard to 
 speak to her. She laughed at his futile endeavours to undo 
 her work, and the boyish sentiments he uttered on the sub- 
 ject. " Let us see, child," she said, " let us see which turns 
 out the best ; a marriage of passion, or a marriage of common 
 sense." 
 
 Heroic efforts were not wanting to arrest the union. 
 Richard made repeated journeys to Hounslow, where Ralph 
 was quartered, and if Ralph could have been persuaded tO' 
 carry off a young lady who did not love him, from the bride- 
 groom her mother averred she did love, Mrs. Doria might 
 have been defeated. But Ralph in his cavalry quarters was 
 cooler than Ralph in the Bursley meadows. " Women are 
 oddities, Dick," he remarked, running a finger right and left 
 along his upper lip. " Best leave them to their own freaks. 
 She's a dear girl, though she don't talk: I like her for that. 
 If she cared for me I'd go the race. She don't, and never 
 did. It's no use asking a girl twice. She knows whether 
 she cares a fig for a fellow. My belief, Mr. Dick, is, that 
 she's in love with you, if it's anybody." 
 
clahe's maeriaqe. 331 
 
 The hero quitted him with some contempt, saying to him- 
 self, " I believe he's nothing more than an embroidered, 
 jacket now." But as Ralph Morton was a young man, and 
 he had determined that John Todhunter was an old man, he 
 sought another private interview with Clare, and getting 
 her alone, said : " Clare, I've come to you for the last time. 
 Will you marry Ralph Morton ? " 
 
 To which Clare replied, " I cannot marry two husbands, 
 Richard." 
 
 " Will you refuse to marry this old man ? " 
 
 " I must do as mama wishes." 
 
 " Then you're going to marry an old man — a man yon 
 don't love, and can't love ! Oh, good God ! do you know 
 what you're doing ? " He flung about in a fury. "Do you 
 know what it is ? Clare !" he caught her two hands violently, 
 " have you any idea of the horror you're going to commit ?" 
 
 She shrank a little at his vehemence, but neither blushed 
 nor stammered : answering : " I see nothing wrong in doing 
 what mama thinks right, Richard." 
 
 " Tour mother ! I tell yon it's an infamy, Clare ! It's a 
 miserable sin ! I tell you, if I had done such a thing I would 
 not live an hour after it. And coldly to prepare for it ! to be 
 busy about your dresses ! They told me when I came in that 
 you were with the milliner. To be smiling over the horrible 
 outrage ! decorating yourself !".... He burst into tears. 
 
 " Dear Richard," said Clare, " you will make me very un- 
 happy." 
 
 " That one of my blood should be so debased ! " he cried, 
 brushing angrily at his face. " Unhappy ! I beg you to 
 feel for yourself, Clare. But I suppose," and he said it 
 scornfully, " girls don't feel this sort of shame." 
 
 She grew a trifle paler. 
 
 " Next to mama, I would wish to please you, dear 
 Richard." 
 
 " Have you no will of your own ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 She looked at him softly ; a look he interpreted for the 
 meekness he detested in her. 
 
 " No, I believe you have none ! " he added. " And what 
 can I do ? I can't step forward and stop this accursed mar- 
 riage. If you would but say a word I would save you ; but 
 you tie my hands. And they expect me to stand by and see 
 it done ! " 
 
332 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 " Will you not be there, Richard ? " said Clare, following 
 the question with her soft eyes. It was the same voice that 
 had so thrilled him on his marriage-morn. 
 
 " Oh, my darling Clare ! " he cried in the kindest way he 
 had ever used to her, " if you knew how I feel this ! " and 
 now as he wept she wept, and came insensibly into his arms. 
 " My darling Clare ! " he repeated. 
 
 She said nothing, but seemed to shudder, weeping. 
 
 " Tou will do it, Clare ? Ton will be sacrificed ? So 
 lovely as you are, too ! Oh ! to think of that mouth being 
 
 given over to curses of hell ! to think 
 
 Clare ! you cannot be quite blind. If I dared speak to you, 
 and tell you all Look up. Can you still consent ? " 
 
 " I must not disobey mama," Clare murmured, without 
 looking up from the nest her cheek had made on his bosom. 
 
 " Then kiss me for the last time," said Richard. " I'll 
 never kiss you after it, Clare." 
 
 He bent his head to meet her mouth, and she threw her 
 arms wildly round him, and kissed him convulsively, and 
 clung to his lips, shutting her eyes, her face suffused with a 
 burning red. 
 
 Then he left her, unaware of the meaning of those passion- 
 ate kisses. 
 
 Argument with Mrs. Doria was like firing paper-pellets 
 against a stone wall. To her indeed the young married 
 hero spoke almost indecorously, and that which his delicacy 
 withheld him from speaking to Clare. He could provoke 
 nothing more responsive from the practical animal than 
 " Pooh-pooh ! Tush, tush ! and Piddlededee ! " 
 
 " Really," Mrs. Doria said to her intimates, " that boy's 
 education acts like a disease on him. He cannot regard any- 
 thing sensibly. He is for ever in some mad excess of his 
 fancy, and what he will come to at last heaven only knows ! 
 I sincerely pray that Austin will be able to bear it." 
 
 Threats of prayer, however, that harp upon their sincerity, 
 are not very well worth having. Mrs. Doria had embarked 
 in a practical controversy, as it were, with her brother. 
 Doubtless she did trust he would be able to bear his sorrows 
 to come, but one who has uttered prophecy can barely help 
 hoping to see it fulfilled : she had prophesied much grief to 
 the baronet. 
 
 Poor John Todhunter, who would rather have married the 
 
CLARE'S MAEEIAGE. 333 
 
 mother, and liad none of your heroic notions about the 
 saored necessity for loTe in marriage, moved as one guiltless 
 of offence, and that deserves his happiness. Mrs. Doria 
 shielded him. from the hero. To see him smile at Clare's 
 obedient figure, and try not to look paternal, was touching. 
 
 Meantime Clare's marriage served one purpose. It com- 
 pletely occupied Richard's mind, and prevented him from 
 chafing at the vexation of not finding his father ready to 
 meet him when he came to town. A letter had awaited 
 Adrian at the hotel, which said, " Detain him till you hear 
 further from me. Take him about with you into every form 
 of society." No more than that. Adrian had to extemporize 
 that the baronet had gone down to Wales on pressing busi- 
 ness, and would be back in a week or so. For ulterior 
 inventions and devices wherewith to keep the young gentle- 
 m^an in town, he applied to Mrs. Doria. " Leave him to me," 
 said Mrs. Doria, " I'll manage him." And she did. 
 
 " Who can say," asks The Pilgrim's Sceip, " when he is 
 not walking a puppet to some woman ? " 
 
 Mrs. Doria would hear no good of Lucy. " I believe," she 
 observed, as Adrian ventured a shrugging protest in her 
 behalf, — " it is my firm opinion that a scullery-maid would 
 turn any of you men round her little finger — only give her 
 time and opportunity." By dwelling on the arts of women, 
 she reconciled it to her conscience to do her best to divide 
 the young husband from his wife till it pleased his father 
 they should live their unhallowed union again. Without 
 compunction, or a sense of incongruity, she abused her 
 brother and assisted the fulfilment of his behests. 
 
 So the puppets were marshalled by Mrs. Doria, happy, or 
 sad, or indifferent. Quite against his set resolve and the tide 
 of his feelings, Richard found himself standing behind Clare 
 in the church — the very edifice that had witnessed his own 
 marriage, and heard, " I, Clare Doria, take thee John Pem- 
 berton," clearly pronounced. He stood with black brows dis- 
 secting the arts of the tailor and hairdresser on unconscious 
 John. The back, and much of the middle, of Mr. Tod- 
 hunter's head was bald ; the back shone like an egg-shell, 
 but across the middle the artist had drawn two long dabs of 
 hair from the sides, and plastered them cunningly, so that 
 all save wilful eyes would have acknowledged the head to be 
 covered. The man's only pretension was to a respectable 
 
334 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 juvenility. He had a good chest, stout limbs, a face inclined 
 to be jolly. Mrs. Doria had no cause to be put out of coun- 
 tenance at all by the exterior of her son-in-law : nor was she. 
 Her splendid hair and gratified smile made a light in the 
 church. Playing puppets must be an immense pleasure to 
 the practical animal. The Forey bridesmaids, five in num- 
 ber, and one Miss Doria, their cousin, stood as girls do stand 
 at these sacrifices, whether happy, sad, or indifferent ; a smile 
 on their lips and tears in attendance. Old Mrs. Todhunter, 
 an exceedingly small ancient woman, was also there. " I 
 can't have my boy John married without seeing it done," she 
 said, and throughout the ceremony she was muttering audible 
 encomiums on her boy John's manly behaviour. 
 
 The ring was affixed to Clare's finger ; there was no ring 
 lost in this common-sense marriage. John had his disen- 
 gaged hand at his waistcoat-pocket, and the instant the 
 clergyman bade him employ it, he drew the ring out, and 
 dropped it on the finger of the cold passive hand in a busi- 
 ness-like way, as one who had studied the matter. Mrs. 
 Doria glanced aside at Richard. Richard observed Clare 
 spread out her fingers that the operations might be the more 
 easily effected. 
 
 He did duty in the vestry a few minutes, and then said to 
 his aunt : 
 
 " Now I'll go." 
 
 " You'll come to the breakfast, child ? The Toreys " 
 
 He cut her short. " I've stood for the family, and I'll 
 do no more. I won't pretend to eat and make merry over 
 
 "Richard!" 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
 She had attained her object, and she wisely gave way. 
 
 " "Well. Go and kiss Clare, and shake his hand. Pray, 
 pray be civil." 
 
 She turned to Adrian, and said : " He is going. Tou 
 must go with him, and find some means of keeping him, or 
 he'll be running off to that woman. Now, no words — go !" 
 
 Richard bade Clare farewell. She put up her mouth to 
 liim humbly, but he kissed her on the forehead. 
 
 " Do not cease to love me," she said in a quavering whisper 
 in his ear. 
 
 Mr. Todhunter ood beaming and endangering the art of 
 
Clare's maeeiage. 335 
 
 the hairdresser with his pocket-handkerchief. Now he posi- 
 tively was married, he thought he would rather have the 
 daughter than the mother, which is a reverse of the order 
 of human thankfulness at a gift of the Gods. 
 
 " Richard, my boy !" he said heartily, " congratulate me." 
 
 " I should be happy to, if I could, ' sedately replied the 
 hero, to the consternation of those around. Nodding to the 
 bridesmaids and bowing to the old lady, he passed out. 
 
 Adrian, who had been behind him, deputed to watch for 
 a possible unpleasantness, just hinted to John : " Tou know, 
 poor fellow, he has got into a mess with his marriage." 
 
 " Oh ! ah ! yes !" kindly said John, " poor fellow !" 
 
 All the puppets then rolled off to the breakfast. 
 
 Adrian hurried after Richard in an extremely discontented 
 state of mind. Not to be at the breakfast and see the best of 
 the fun, disgusted him. However, he remembered that he 
 was a philosopher, and the strong disgust he felt was only 
 expressed in concentrated cynicism on every earthly matter 
 engendered by the conversation. They walked side by side 
 into Kensington Gardens. The hero was mouthing away to 
 himself, talking by fits. 
 
 Presently he faced Adrian, crying : " And I might have 
 stopped it ! I see it now ! I might have stopped it by going 
 straight to him, and asking him if he dared marry a girl 
 who did not love him. And I never thought of it. Good 
 heaven ! I feel this miserable affair on my conscience." 
 
 " Ah !" went Adrian. " An unpleasant cargo for the con- 
 science, that ! I would rather carry anything on mine than 
 a married couple. Do you purpose going to him now ?" 
 
 The hero soliloquized : " He's not a bad sort of man. . . ." 
 
 " "Well, he's not a Cavalier," said Adrian, " and that's 
 why you wonder your aunt selected him, no doubt ? He's 
 decidedly of the Roundhead type, with the Puritan extracted, 
 or inoffensive, if latent." 
 
 " There's the double infamy !" cried Richard, " that a man 
 you can't call bad, should do this damned thing !" 
 
 " "Well, it's hard we can't find a villain." 
 
 " He would have listened to me, I'm sure." 
 
 " Go to him now, Richard, my son. Go to him now. It's 
 not yet too late. Who knows ? If he really has a noble 
 elevated superior mind — though not a Cavalier in person, he 
 may be one at heart — he might, to please you, and since you 
 
336 THE OEDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 put such stress upon it, abstain . . . perhaps vrith some 
 loss of dignity, but never mind. And the request might be 
 singular, or seem so, but everything has happened before in 
 this world, you know, my dear boy. And what an infinite 
 consolation it is for the eccentric, that reflection !" 
 
 The hero was impervious to the wise youth. He stared at 
 him as if he were but a speck in the universe he visioned. 
 
 It was provoking that Richard should be Adrian's best 
 subject for cynical pastime, in the extraordinary heterodoxies 
 he started, and his worst in the way he took it ; and the wise 
 youth, against his will, had to feel as conscious of the young 
 man's imaginative mental armour, as he was of his muscular 
 physical. 
 
 " The same sort of day !" mused Richard, looking up. " I 
 suppose my father's right. "We make our own fates, and 
 nature has nothing to do with it." 
 
 Adrian yawned. 
 
 " Some difference in the trees, though," Richard continued 
 abstractedly. 
 
 " Growing bald at the top," said Adrian. " Do they 
 suggest the bridegroom to you ?" 
 
 " Will you believe that my aunt Helen compared the 
 conduct of that wretched slave Clare to Lucy's, who, she 
 had the cruel insolence to say, entangled me into marriage ?" 
 the hero broke out loudly and rapidly. " Tou know — I told 
 you, Adrian — how I had to threaten and insist, and how she 
 pleaded, and implored me to wait." 
 
 "Ah! hum!" went Adrian. 
 
 " Don't you remember my telling you ?" Richard was 
 earnest to hear her exonerated. 
 
 " Pleaded and implored, my dear boy ? Oh, no doubt she 
 did. Where's the lass that doesn't." 
 
 " Call my wife by another name, if you please." 
 
 " The generic title can't be cancelled because of your 
 having married one of the body, my son." 
 
 " She did all she could to persuade me to wait !" empha- 
 sized Richard. 
 
 Adrian shook his head with a deplorable smile. 
 
 " Come, come, my good Ricky ; not all ! not all !" 
 
 Richard bellowed : " What more could she have done ?" 
 
 " She could have shaved her head, for instance." 
 
 This happy shaft did stick. With a furious exclamation 
 
olake's maeeiagb. 337 
 
 Eiiciard shot in front, Adrian following him ; and asking him 
 (merely to have his assumption verified), whether he did not 
 think she might have shaved her head ? and, presuming her 
 to have done so, whether, in candour, he did not think he 
 would have waited — at least till she looked less of a rank 
 lunatic ? 
 
 After a minute or so, the wise youth was but a fly buzzing 
 about Richard's head. Three weeks of separation from 
 Lucy, and an excitement deceased, caused him to have soft 
 yearnings for the dear lovely home-face. He told Adrian it 
 was his intention to go down that night. Adrian imme- 
 diately became serious. He was at a loss what to invent to 
 detain him, beyond the stale fiction that his father was 
 coming to-morrow. He rendered homage to the genius of 
 woman in these straits. " My aunt," he thought, " would 
 have the lie ready ; and not only that, but she would take 
 care it did its work." 
 
 At this juncture the voice of a cavalier in the Row hailed 
 them, proving to be the Honourable Peter Brayder, Lord 
 Mountfalcon's parasite. He greeted them very cordially; 
 and Richard, remembering some fun they had in the Island, 
 asked him to dine with them ; postponing his return till the 
 next day. Lucy was his. It was even sweet to dally with 
 the delight of seeing her. 
 
 The Hon. Peter was one who did honour to the body he 
 belonged to. Though not so tall as a West of London foot- 
 man, he was as shapely ; and he had a power of making his 
 voice insinuating, or arrogant, as it suited the exigencies of 
 his profession. He had not a rap of money in the world ; 
 yet he rode a horse, lived high, expended largely. The 
 world said that the Hon. Peter was salaried by his Lord- 
 ship, and that, in common with that of Parasite, he exercised 
 the ancient companion profession. This the world said, and 
 still smiled at the Hon. Peter ; for he was an engaging 
 fellow, and where he went not Lord Mountfalcon would 
 not go. 
 
 They had a quiet little hotel dinner, ordered by Adrian, 
 and made a square at the table, Ripton Thompson being the 
 fourth. Richard sent down to his office to fetch him, and 
 the two friends shook hands for the first time since the great 
 deed had been executed. Deep was the Old Dog's delight to 
 hear the praises of his Beauty sounded by such aristocratic 
 
 Z 
 
338 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 lips as the Hon. Peter Brayder's. All tkrough the dinnep 
 he was throwing out hints and small queries to get a fuller 
 account of her ; and when the claret had circulated, he spok© 
 a word or two himself, and heard the Hon. Peter eulogize 
 his taste, and wish him a bride as beautiful ; at which 
 Ripton blushed, and said, he had no hope of that, and 
 the Hon. Peter assured him marriage did not break the 
 mould. 
 
 After the wine the Hon. Peter took his cigar on the 
 balcony, and found occasion to get some conversation with 
 Adrian alone. 
 
 " Our young friend here — made it all right with the 
 governor ? " he asked carelessly. 
 
 " Oh yes ! " said Adrian. But it struck him that Brayder 
 might be of assistance in showing Richard a little of the 
 ' society in every form ' required by his chief's prescript. 
 " That is," he continued, " we are not yet permitted an 
 interview with the august author of our being, and I have 
 rather a difficult post. 'Tis mine both to keep him here, and 
 also to find him the opportunity to measure himself with 
 his fellow-man. In other words, his father wants him to see- 
 something of life before he enters upon housekeeping. Now 
 I am proud to confess that I'm hardly equal to the task. 
 The demi, or damnedmonde — if it's that he wants him tO' 
 observe — is one that I have not got the walk to." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " laughed Brayder. " Tou do the keeping, I 
 oiler to parade the demi. I must say, though, it's a queer 
 notion of- the old gentleman." 
 
 " It's the continuation of a philosophic plan," said 
 Adrian. 
 
 Brayder followed the curvings of the whifE of his cigar 
 with his eyes, and ejaculated, " Infahnally philosophic ! " 
 
 " Has Lord Mountfalcon left the island ? " Adrian in- 
 quired. 
 
 " Mount ? to tell the truth I don't know where he is. 
 Chasing some light craft, I suppose. That's poor Mount's 
 weakness. It's his ruin, poor fellow ! He's so confoundedly 
 in earnest at the game." 
 
 " He ought to know it by this time, if fame speaks true," 
 remarked Adrian. 
 
 " He's a baby about women, and always will be," said 
 Brayder. " He's been once or twice wanting to marry them. 
 
OLAEB'S MAEEtiGE. 339 
 
 Now -fcliere's a -woman — you've heard of Mrs. Mount ? All 
 the world knows her. — If that woman hadn't scandalized." — 
 The young man joined them, and checked the communica- 
 tion. Brayder winked to Adrian, and pitifully indicated the 
 presence of an innocent. 
 
 " A married man, you know," said Adrian. 
 
 " Yes, yes !— but we won't shock him," Brayder observed, 
 patting Richard on the back. He appeared to study the 
 young man while they talked. 
 
 Next morning Richard was surprised by a visit from his 
 aunt. Mrs. Doria took a seat by his side, and spoke as 
 follows : 
 
 " My dear nephew. Now you know I have always loved 
 you, and thought of your welfare as if you had been my own 
 child. More than that, I fear. Well, now, you are thinking 
 of returning to — to that place — are you not ? Yes. It is as 
 I thought. Very well now, let me speak to you. You are in 
 a much more dangerous position than you imagine. I don't 
 deny your father's afEection for you. It would be absurd to 
 deny it. But you are of an age now to appreciate his 
 character. Whatever you may do he will always give you 
 money. That you are sure of. That you know. Very well. 
 But you are one to want more than money : you want his 
 love. Richard, I am convinced you will never be happy, 
 whatever base pleasures you may be led into, if he should 
 withhold his love from you. Now, child, you know you have 
 grievously offended him. I wish not to animadvert on your 
 conduct. — You fancied yourself in love, and so on, and you 
 were rash. The less said of it the better now. But you 
 naust now — it is your duty now to do something — to do 
 everything that lies in your power to show him you repent. 
 No interruptions ! Listen to me. You must consider him. 
 Austin is not like other men. Austin requires the most 
 delicate management. You must — whether you feel it or no 
 — ^present an appearance of contrition. I counsel it for the 
 good of all. He is just like a woman, and where his feelings 
 are offended he wants utter subservience. He has you in 
 town, and he does not see you — now you know that he 
 and I are not in communication : we have likewise our differ- 
 ences : — Well, he has you in town, and he holds aloof : — ho 
 is trying you, my dear Richard. No : he is not at Raynham : 
 I do not know where he is. He is trying you, chUd, and vou 
 
 z2 
 
340 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FBVEEEI,, 
 
 must be patient. Tou must convince Mm that you do not 
 care utterly for your own gratification. If this person — I 
 ■wish to speak of her with respect, for your sake — well, if she 
 loves you at all — if, I say, she loves you one atom, she will 
 repeat my solicitations for you to stay and patiently wait 
 here till he consents to see you. I tell you candidly, it's 
 your only chance of ever getting him to receive her. 
 That you should know. And now, Richard, I may add that 
 there is something else you should know. You should know 
 that it depends entirely upon your conduct now, whether 
 you are to see your father's heart for ever divided from 
 you, and a new family at Raynham. Tou do not understand? 
 I will explain. Brothers and sisters are excellent things for 
 young people, but a new brood of them can hardly be accept- 
 able to a young man. In fact, they are, and must be, 
 aliens. I only tell you what I have heard on good authority. 
 Don't you understand now ? Foolish boy ! if you do not 
 humour him, he will marry Lady Blandish. Oh ! I am sure 
 of it. I know it. And this you will drive him to. I do not 
 warn you on the score of your prospects, but of your feelings. 
 I should regard such a contingency, Richard, as a final 
 division between you. Think of the scandal ! but alas, that 
 is the least of the evils." 
 
 It was Mrs. Doria's object to produce an impression, and 
 avoid an argument. She therefore left him as soon as she 
 had, as she supposed, made her mark on the young man. 
 Richard was very silent during the speech, and save for an 
 exclamation or so, had listened attentively. He pondered on 
 what his aunt said. He loved Lady Blandish, and yet he 
 did not wish to see her Lady Feverel. Mrs. Doria laid 
 painful stress on the scandal, and though he did not give his 
 mind to this, he thought of it. He thought of his mother. 
 Where was she? But most his thoughts recurred to his 
 father, and something akin to jealousy slowly awakened his 
 heart to him. He had given him up, and had not latterly 
 felt extremely filial ; but he could not bear the idea of a 
 division in the love of which he had ever been the idol 
 and sole object. And such a man, too ! so good ! so gener- 
 ous ! If it was jealousy that roused the young man's heart 
 to his father, the better part of love was also revived in it. 
 He thought of old days : of his father's forbearance, his own 
 wilfulness. He looked on himself, and what he had done, 
 
A DmNEE-PAETY AT RICHMOND. 341 
 
 with tte eyes of such a man. He determined to do all he 
 could to regain his favour. 
 
 Mrs. Doria learnt from Adrian in the evening that her 
 nephew intended waiting in town another week. 
 
 "That will do," smiled Mrs. Doria. "He will be more 
 patient at the end of a week." 
 
 "Oh! does patience beget patience?" said Adrian. "I 
 was not aware it was a propagating virtue. I surrender him 
 to you. I sha'rt be able to hold him in after one week more. 
 I assure you, my dear aunt, he's already . . ." 
 
 " Thank you, no explanation," Mrs. Doria begged. 
 
 When Richar-d saw her next, he was informed that she 
 had received a most satisfactory letter from Mrs. John Tod- 
 hunter : quite a glowing account of John's behaviour : but 
 on Richard's desiring to know the words Clare had written, 
 Mrs. Doria objected to be explicit, and shot into worldly 
 gossip. 
 
 " Clare seldom glows," said Richard. 
 
 " No, I mean for Tier," his aunt remarked. " Don't look 
 like your father child." 
 
 " I should like to have seen the letter,'' said Richard. 
 
 Mrs. Doria did not propose to show it. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 A DINNEE-PAETY AT EICHMOND, 
 
 A Lady driving a pair of greys was noticed by Richard in 
 his rides nd walks. She passed him rather obviously and 
 often. She was very handsome ; a bold beauty, with shining 
 black hair, red lips, and eyes not afraid of men. The hair 
 •was bru bed from her temples, leaving one of those fine reck- 
 less outlines which the action of driving, and the pace, ad- 
 mirabl set off. She took his fancy. He liked the air of 
 petulant gallantry about her, and mused upon the picture, 
 rare o him, of a glorious dashing woman. He thought, too, 
 she ' coked at him. He was not at the time inclined to be 
 vain, or he might have been sure she did. Once it struck 
 him she nodded slightly. 
 
 He asked Adrian one day in the park — who she was. 
 
342 THE OKDEAL OF EICHAED FEVBEEL. 
 
 " I don't know her," said Adrian. " Probably a superior 
 priestess of Papbos." 
 
 "Now that's my idea of Bellona," Eichard exclaimed. 
 " Not the fury they paint, but a spirited, dauntless, eager, 
 looking creature like that." 
 
 " Bellona ?" returned the wise youth. " I don't think her 
 hair was black. Red, wasn't it ! I shouldn't compare her 
 to Bellona ; though, no doubt, she's as ready to spill blood. 
 Look at her ! She does seem to scent carnage. I see your 
 idea. No ; I should liken her to Diana emerged from the 
 tutorship of Master Endymion, and at nice play among the 
 gods. Depend upon it — they tell us nothing of the matter 
 — Olympus shrouds the story — but you may be certain that 
 when she left the pretty shepherd she had greater vogue 
 than Venus up aloft. 
 
 Brayder joined them. 
 
 " See Mrs. Mount go by ?" he said. 
 
 " Oh, that's Mrs. Mount !" cried Adrian. 
 
 "Who's Mrs. Mount ?" Richard inquired. 
 
 " A sister to Miss Random, my dear boy." 
 
 " Like to know her ?" drawled the Hon. Peter. 
 
 Richard replied indifferently, "No," and Mrs. Mount 
 passed out of sight and out of the conyersation. 
 
 The young man wrote submissive letters to his father. 
 " I have remained here waiting to see you now five weeks," 
 he wrote. " I have written to you three letters, and you do 
 not reply to them. Let me tell you again how sincerely I 
 desire and pray that you will come, or permit me to come to 
 you and throw myself at your feet, and beg my forgiveness, 
 and hers. She as earnestly implores it. Indeed, I am very 
 wretched, sir. Believe me, there is nothing I would not do 
 to regain your esteem and the love I fear I have unhappily 
 forfeited. I will remain another week in the hope of hearing 
 from you, or seeing you. I beg of you, sir, not to drive me 
 mad. Whatever you ask of me I will consent to." 
 
 "Nothing he would not do!" the baronet commented as 
 he read. " There is nothing he would not do ! He will 
 remain another week and give me that final chance ! And 
 it is I who drive him mad ! Already he is beginning to cast 
 his retribution on my shoulders." 
 
 Sir Austin had really gone down to Wales to be out of 
 the way. A Shaddock-Dogmatist does not meet misfortune 
 
A DINNEK-PAETY AT EICHMOND. 343 
 
 •witlioiit hearing of it, and the author of The Pilgrim's Sceip 
 in trouble found London too hot for him. He quitted London 
 to take refuge among the mountains ; living there in solitary 
 commune with a virgin Note-book. 
 
 Some indefinite scheme was in his head in this treatment 
 of his son. Had he construed it, it would have looked ugly; 
 and it settled to a vague principle that the young man should 
 he tried and tested. 
 
 " Let him learn to deny himself something. Let him live 
 ■with his equals for a term. If he loves me he will read my 
 wishes." Thus he explained his principle to Lady Blandish. 
 
 The lady wrote: "Tou speak of a term. Till when? May 
 I name one to him ? It is the dreadful uncertainty that 
 reduces him to despair. That, and nothing else. Pray be 
 •explicit." 
 
 In return, he distantly indicated Richard's majority. 
 
 How could Lady Blandish go and ask the young man to 
 wait a year away from his wife ? Her instinct began to 
 •open a wide eye on the idol she worshipped. 
 
 When people do not themselves know what they mean, 
 they succeed in deceiving and imposing upon others. Not 
 only was Lady Blandish mystified ; Mrs. Doria, who pierced 
 into the recesses of everybody's mind, and had always been 
 in the habit of reading oS her brother from infancy, and had 
 never known herself to be once wrong about him, she con- 
 fessed she was quite at a loss to comprehend Austin's prin- 
 ciple. " For principle he has," said Mrs. Doria; " he never 
 acts without one. But what it is I cannot at present per- 
 ceive. If he would write, and command the boy to await 
 his return, all would be clear. He allows us to go and fetch 
 him, and then leaves us all in a quandary. It must be some 
 woman's influence. That is the only way to account for it." 
 
 "Singular!" interjected Adrian, "what pride women 
 have in their sex ! Well, I have to tell you, my dear aunt, 
 -that the day after to-morrow I hand my charge over to your 
 keeping. I can't hold him in an hour longer. I've had to 
 leash him with lies till my invention's exhausted. I petition 
 to have them put down to the chief's account, but when the 
 stream runs dry I can do no more. The last was, that I had 
 heard from him desiring me to have the South-west bedroom 
 Teady for him on Tuesday proximate. ' So ! ' says my son, 
 jl'll wait till then,' and from the gigantic effort he exhibited 
 
344 THE OEDEAL OF RICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 in coming to it, I doubt any human power's getting him to 
 wait longer." 
 
 " We must, we must detain him," said Mrs. Doria. " If we 
 do not, I am convinced Austin will do something rash that he 
 will for ever repent. He will marry that woman, Adrian. 
 Mark my words. Now with any other young man . . . But 
 Richard's education ! that ridiculous System ! . . . Has he 
 no distraction ? nothing to amuse him ? " 
 
 " Poor boy ! I suppose he wants his own particular play- 
 fellow." 
 
 The wise youth had to bow to a reproof. 
 
 " I tell you, Adrian, he will marry that woman." 
 
 " My dear aunt ! Can a chaste man do aught more com- 
 mendable ? " 
 
 " Has the boy no object we can induce him to follow ? — If 
 he had but a profession ! " 
 
 " What say you to the regeneration of the streets of Lon- 
 don, and the profession of moral-scavenger, aunt ? I assure 
 you I have served a month's apprenticeship with him. We 
 sally forth on the tenth hour towards night. A female 
 passes. I hear him groan. ' Is she one of them, Adrian ? ' 
 I am compelled to admit she is not the saint he deems it the 
 portion of every creature weai-ing petticoats to be. Another 
 groan ; an evident internal, ' It cannot be — and yet ! ' . . . 
 that we hear on the stage. Rollings of eyes : impious ques- 
 tionings of the Creator of the universe ; savage mutterings 
 against brutal males ; and then we meet a second young 
 person, and repeat the performance — of which I am rather 
 tired. It would be all very well, but he turns upon me, 
 and lectures me because I don't hire a house, and furnish it 
 for all the women one meets to live in in purity. Now that's 
 too much to ask of a quiet man. Master Thompson has 
 latterly relieved me, I'm happy to say." 
 
 Mrs. Doria thought her thoughts. 
 
 " Has Austin written to you since yon were in town ? " 
 
 " Not an Aphorism ! " returned Adrian. 
 
 " I must see Richard to-morrow morning," Mrs. Doria 
 ended the colloquy by saying. 
 
 The result of her interview with her nephew was, that 
 Richard made no allusion to a departure on the Tuesday ; 
 and for many days afterward he appeared to have an absorb. 
 ing business on his hands : but what it was Adrian did not 
 
A DINNEE-PAETY AT RICHMOND. 345 
 
 then learn, and his admiration of Mrs. Doria's genius for 
 management rose to a very high pitch. 
 
 On a morning in October they had an early visitor in the 
 person of the Hon. Peter, whom they had not seen for a week 
 or more. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, flourishing his cane in his most 
 affable manner, " I've come to propose to you to join us in a 
 little dinner-party at Richmond. Nobody's in town, you 
 know. London's as dead as a stock-fish. Nothing but the 
 scrapings to offer you. But the weather's fine: I fiatter 
 myself you'll find the company agreeable. What says my 
 friend Peverel ?" 
 
 Richard begged to be excused. 
 
 " No, no : positively you must come," said the Hon. 
 Peter. "I've had some trouble to get them together to 
 relieve the dnlness of your incarceration. Richmond's 
 within the rules of your prison. Tou can be back by night. 
 Moonlight on the water — lovely woman. We've engaged a 
 city-barge to pull us back. Eight oars — ^I'm not sure it isn't 
 sixteen. Come — the word!" 
 
 Adrian was for going. Richard said he had an appoint, 
 ment with Ripton. 
 
 " You're in for another rick, you two," said Adrian. 
 "Arrange that we go. Tou haven't seen the cockney's 
 Paradise. Abjure Blazes, and taste of peace, my son." 
 
 After some persuasion, Richard yawned wearily, and got 
 up, and threw aside the care that was on him, saying, " Very 
 well. Just as you like. We'll take old Rip with us." 
 
 Adrian consulted Brayder's eye at this. The Hon. Peter 
 briskly declared he should be delighted to have Peverel's 
 friend, and offered to take them all down in his drag. 
 
 " If you don't get a match on to swim there with the tide 
 — eh, Peverel, my boy ?" 
 
 Richard replied that he had given up that sort of thing, 
 at which Brayder communicated a queer glance to Adrian, 
 and applauded the youth. 
 
 Richmond was under a still October sun. The pleasant 
 landscape, bathed in Autumn, stretched from the foot of the 
 hill to a red horizon haze. The day was like none that 
 Richard vividly remembered. It touched no link in the 
 
346 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FBVEEEL. 
 
 chain of his recollection. It was quiet, and belonged to the 
 spirit of the season. 
 
 Adrian had divined the character of the scrapings they 
 were to meet. Brayder introduced them to one or two of 
 the men, hastily and in rather an undervoice, as a thing to 
 get over. They made their bow to the first kaot of ladies 
 they encountered. Propriety was observed strictly, even to 
 severity. The general talk was of the weather. Here and 
 there a lady would seize a button-hole, or any little bit of 
 the habiliments, of the man she was addressing ; and if it 
 came to her to chide him, she did it with more than a fore- 
 finger. This, however, was only here and there, and a 
 privilege of intimacy. 
 
 Where ladies are gathered together, the Queen of the 
 assemblage may be kaown by her Court of males. The 
 Queen of the present gathering leaned against a corner of 
 the open window, surrounded by a stalwart Court, in whom 
 a practised eye would have discerned guardsmen, and Bipton, 
 with a sinking of the heart, apprehended lords. They were 
 fine men, offering inanimate homage. The trim of their 
 whiskerage, the cut of their coats, the high-bred indolence 
 in their aspect, eclipsed Bipton's sense of self-esteem. But 
 they kindly looked over him. Occasionally one committed 
 a momentary outrage on him with an eye-glass, seeming to 
 cry out in a voice of scathing scorn, " Who's this ?" and 
 Bipton got closer to his hero to justify his humble preten- 
 sions to existence and an identity in the shadow of him. 
 Richard gazed about. Heroes do not always know what to 
 say or do ; and the cold bath before dinner in strange com- 
 pany is one of the instances. He had recognised his superb 
 Bellona in the lady by the garden window. For Brayder 
 the men had nods and jokes, the ladies a pretty playfulness. 
 He was very busy, passing between the groups, chatting, 
 laughing, taking the feminine taps he received, and some- 
 times returning them in sly whispers. Adrian sat down and 
 crossed his legs, looking amused and benignant. 
 
 " Whose dinner is it ?" Bipton heard a mignonne beauty 
 ask of a cavalier. 
 
 " Mount's, I suppose," was the answer. 
 
 " Where is he ? Why don't he come ?" 
 
 " An affaire, I fancy." 
 
A DINKEK-PAPiTY AT RICHMOND. 347 
 
 " There lie is again ! How sliamefully lie treats Mrs. 
 Mount !" 
 
 " She don't seem to cry over it." 
 
 Mrs. Mount was flashing her teeth and eyes with laughter 
 at one of her Court, who appeared to be Fool. 
 
 Dinner was announced. The ladies proclaimed extrava- 
 gant appetites. Brayder posted his three friends. Ripton 
 found himself under the lee of a dame with a bosom. On 
 the other side of him was the mignonne. Adrian was at the 
 lower end of the table. Ladies were in profusion, and he 
 had his share. Brayder drew Richard from seat to seat. 
 A happy man had established himself next to Mrs. Mount. 
 Him Brayder hailed to take the head of the table. The 
 happy man objected, Brayder continued urgent, the lady 
 tenderly insisted, the happy man grimaced, dropped into 
 the post of honour, strove to look placable. Richard 
 usurped his chair, and was not badly welcomed by his 
 neighbour. 
 
 Then the dinner commenced, and had all the attention of 
 the company, till the flying of the first champagne-cork gave 
 the signal, and a hum began to spread. Sparkling wine that 
 looseneth the tongue, and displayeth the verity, hath also 
 the quality of colouring it. The ladies laughed high ; 
 Richard only thought them gay and natural. They flung 
 back in their chairs and laughed to tears ; Ripton thought 
 only of the pleasure he had in their society. The cham- 
 pagne-corks continued a regular flle-firing. 
 
 " Where have you been lately ? I haven't seen you in the 
 park," said Mrs. Mount to Richard. 
 
 "No," he replied, "I've not been there." The question 
 seemed odd : she spoke so simply that it did not impress 
 him. He emptied his glass, and had it filled again. 
 
 The Hon. Peter did most of the open talking, which 
 related to horses, yachting, opera, and sport generally : who 
 was ruined ; by what horse, or by what woman. He told 
 one or two of Richard's feats. Fair smiles rewarded the hero. 
 
 " Do you bet ? " said Mrs. Mount. 
 
 " Only on myself," returned Richard. 
 
 "Bravo ! " cried his Bellona, and her eye sent a lingering 
 delirious sparkle across her brimming glass at him. 
 
 " I'm sure you're a safe one to back," she added, and 
 Beemed to scan his points approvingly. 
 
348 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEl. 
 
 Richard's clieeks mounted bloom. 
 
 "Don't you adore champagne ? " quoth the dame with a 
 bosom to Ripton. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " answered Ripton, with more candour than 
 accuracy, " I always drink it." 
 
 "Do you indeed?" said the enraptured bosom, ogling- 
 him. " Tou would be a friend, now ! I hope you don't 
 object to a lady joining you now and then. Champagne's 
 my folly.'' 
 
 A laugh was circling among the ladies of whom Adrian 
 was the centre ; first low, and as he continued some narra- 
 tion, peals resounded, till those excluded from the fun de- 
 manded the cue, and ladies leaned behind gentlemen to take 
 it up, and formed an electric chain of laughter. Each one, 
 as her ear received it, caught up her handkerchief, and 
 laughed, and looked shocked afterwards, or looked shocked 
 and then spouted laughter. The anecdote might have been 
 communicated to the bewildered cavaliers, but coming to a 
 lady of a dem.urer cast, she looked shocked without laugh- 
 ing, and reproved the female table, in whose breasts it was 
 consigned to burial : but here and there a man's head was 
 seen bent, and a lady's mouth moved, though her face was 
 not turned toward him, and a man's broad laugh was pre- 
 sently heard, while the lady gazed unconsciously before her, 
 and preserved her gravity if she could escape any other 
 lady's eyes ; failing in which handkerchiefs were simultane- 
 ously seized, and a second chime arose, till the tickling force 
 subsided to a few chance bursts. 
 
 What nonsense it is that my father writes about women ! 
 thought Richard. He says they can't laugh, and don't un- 
 derstand humour. It comes, he reflected, of his shutting 
 himself from the world. And the idea that he was seeing 
 the world, and feeling wiser, flattered him. He talked 
 fluently to his dangerous Bellona. He gave her some re- 
 miniscences of Adrian's whimsies. 
 
 " Oh ! " said she, " that's your tutor, is it ! " She eyed the 
 young man as if she thought he must go far and fast. 
 
 Ripton felt a push. " Look at that," said the bosom, 
 fuming utter disgust. He was directed to see a manly arm 
 round the waist of the mignonne. " Now that's what I 
 don't like in company," the bosom inflated to observe with 
 
A DINNEE-PABTY AT EIOHMOND. 349 
 
 snflScient empliasis. " She always will allow it with every- 
 body. Give her a nudge." 
 
 Ripton protested that he dared not ; upon which she said, 
 " Then. I will ; " and inclined her sumptuous bust across his 
 lap, breathing wine in his face, and gave the nudge. The 
 mignonne turned an inquiring eye on Ripton ; a mischievous 
 spark shot from it. She laughed, and said; "Aren't you 
 satisfied with the old girl ? " 
 
 " Impudence ! " muttered the boSom, growing grander and 
 redder. 
 
 " Do, do fill her glass, and keep her quiet — she drinks 
 port when there's no more champagne," said the mignonne. 
 
 The bosom revenged herself by whispering to Ripton 
 Bcandal of the mignonne, and between them he was enabled 
 to form a correcter estimate of the company, and quite 
 recovered from his original awe ; so much so as to feel a 
 touch of jealousy at seeing his lively little neighbour still 
 held in absolute possession. 
 
 Mrs. Mount did not come out much ; but there was a defe- 
 rential manner in the bearing of the men toward her, which 
 those haughty creatures accord not save to clever women ; 
 and she contrived to hold the talk with three or four at the 
 head of the table while she still had passages aside with 
 Richard. 
 
 The port and claret went very well after the champagne. 
 The ladies here did not ignominiously surrender the field to 
 the gentlemen ; they maintained their position with honour. 
 Silver was seen far out on Thames. The wine ebbed, and 
 the laughter. Sentiment and cigars took up the wondrous 
 tale. 
 
 " Oh, what a lovely night ! " said the ladies, looking 
 above. 
 
 " Charming," said the gentlemen, looking below. 
 
 The faint-smelling cool Autumn air was pleasant after the 
 feast. Fragrant weeds burned bright about the garden. 
 
 " We are split into couples," said Adrian to Richard, who 
 was standing alone, eyeing the landscape. " 'Tis the influence 
 of the moon! Apparently we are in Cyprus. How has my 
 son enjoyed himself ? How likes he the society of Aspasia ? 
 I feel like a wise Greek to-night." 
 
 Adrian was jolly, and rolled comfortably as he talked. 
 Ripton had been carried off by the sentimental bosom. He 
 
350 THE OKDEAL OF RICHARD FEYEREL. 
 
 came up to them and wMspered : " By Jove, Ricky ! do you 
 know wliat sort of women these are? " 
 
 Richard said he thought them a nice sort. 
 
 " Puritan ! " exclaimed Adrian, slapping Ripton on th& 
 back. "Why didn't you get tipsy, sir? Don't you ever 
 intoxicate yourself except at lawful marriages ? Reveal tO' 
 us what you have done with the portly dame ?" 
 
 Ripton endured his bantering that he might hang about 
 Richard, and watch over him. He was jealous of his inno- 
 cent Beauty's husband being in proximity with such women. 
 Murmuring couples passed them to and fro. 
 
 " By Jove, Ricky ! " Ripton favoured his friend with 
 another hard whisper, " there's a woman smoking !" 
 
 "And why not, O Riptonus?" said Adrian. "Art un- 
 aware that woman cosmopolitan is woman consummate ? and 
 dost grumble to pay the small price for the splendid gem ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't like women to smoke," said plain Ripton. 
 
 " Why mayn't they do what men do ?" the hero cried im- 
 petuously. " I hate that contemptible narrow-mindedness.. 
 It's that that makes the ruin and horrors I see. Why mayn't 
 they do what men do ? I like the women who are brave 
 enough not to be hypocrites. By heaven! if these women are 
 bad, I like them better than a set of hypocritical creatures 
 who are all show, and deceive you in the end." 
 
 " Bravo ! " shouted Adrian. " There speaks the regene- 
 rator." 
 
 Ripton, as usual, was crushed by his leader. He had no 
 argument. He still thought women ought not to smoke ; 
 and he thought of one far away, lonely by the sea, who was 
 perfect without being cosmopolitan. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Scrip remarks that : " Young men take 
 joy in nothing so much as the thinking women Angels : and 
 nothing sours men of experience more than knowing that all 
 are not quite so." 
 
 The Aphorist would have pardoned Ripton Thompson his 
 first Random extravagance, had he perceived the simple 
 warm-hearted worship of feminine goodness Richard's young 
 bride had inspired in the breast of the youth. It might 
 possibly have taught him to put deeper trust in nature. 
 
 Ripton thought of her, and had a feeling of sadness. He 
 wandered about the grounds by himself, went thi'ough an 
 open postern, and threw himself down among some bushes 
 
A DINNER-PAETY AT RICHMOND. 351 
 
 on the slope of the hill. Lying there, and meditating, he 
 became aware of voices conversing. 
 
 " What does he want ? " said a woman's voice. " It's 
 another of his villanies, I know. Upon my honour, Brayder, 
 when I think of what I have to reproach him for, I think I 
 must go mad, or kill him." 
 
 " Tragic ! " said the Hon. Peter. " Haven't you revenged 
 yourself, Bella, pretty often ? Best deal openly. This is a 
 commercial transaction. Tou ask for money, and you are 
 to have it — on the conditions : double the sum, and debts 
 paid." 
 
 " He applies to me !" 
 
 " Tou know, my dear Bella, it has long been all up between 
 you. I think Mount has behaved very well, considering all 
 he knows. He's not easily hoodwinked, you know. He resigns 
 himself to his fate, and follows other game." 
 
 " Then the condition is that I am to seduce this young 
 man ?" 
 
 " My dear Bella ! you strike your bird like a hawk. I 
 didn't say seduce. Hold him in — play with him. Amuse 
 him." 
 
 " I don't understand half-measures." 
 
 " Women seldom do." 
 
 " How I hate you, Brayder !" 
 
 " I thank your ladyship." 
 
 The two walked farther, and the result of the colloquy 
 was shut from Bipton. He left the spot in a serious mood, 
 apprehensive of something dark to the people he loved, 
 though he had no idea of what the Hon. Peter's stipulatio'- 
 involved. 
 
 On the voyage back to town, Richard was again selecte 
 to sit by Mrs. Mount. Brayder and Adrian started the ]okej» 
 The pair of parasites got on extremely well together. Soft 
 fell the plash of the oars; softly the moonlight curled around 
 them; softly the banks glided by. The ladies were in a state 
 of high sentiment. They sang without request. All deemed 
 the British balladmonger an appropriate interpreter of their 
 emotions. After good wine, and plenty thereof, fair throats 
 will make men of taste swallow that remarkable composer 
 Eyes, lips, hearts; darts and smarts and sighs; beauty, dutyj. 
 bosom, blossom; false one, farewell! To this pathetic strain 
 they melted. Mrs. Mount, though strongly requested^ 
 
352 THE OKDBAL OF EICHAED FEVEKEL. 
 
 declined to sing. She preserved her state. Under the 
 tall aspens of Brentford-ait, and on they swept, the white 
 moon in their wake. Richard's hand lay open by his side. 
 Mrs. Mount's little white hand by misadventure fell into it. 
 It was not pressed, or soothed for its fall, or made intimate 
 with eloquent fingers. It lay there like a bit of snow on the 
 cold ground. A yellow leaf wavering down from the aspens 
 struck Richard's cheek, and he drew away the very hand to 
 throw back his hair and smooth his face, and then folded his 
 arms, unconscious of offence. He was thinking ambitiously 
 of his life: his blood was untroubled: his brain calmly 
 working. 
 
 "Which is the more perilous?" is a problem put by the 
 PiLGEiM : "To meet the temptings of Eve, or to pique her?" 
 
 Mrs. Mount stared at the young man as at a curiosity, and 
 turned to flirt with one of her Court. The Guardsmen were 
 mostly sentimental. One or two rattled, and one was such 
 a good-humoured fellow that Adrian could not make him 
 ridiculous. The others seemed to give themselves up to a 
 silent waxing in length of limb. However far they sat 
 removed, everybody was entangled in their legs. Pursuing 
 his studies, Adrian came to the conclusion that the same 
 close intellectual and moral a£B.nity which he had discovered 
 to exist between our nobility and our yeomanry, is to be 
 observed between the Guardsman class, and that of the 
 <;orps de ballet : they both live by the strength of their legs, 
 where also their wits, if they do not altogether reside there, 
 are principally developed : both are volage ; vnne, tobacco, 
 and the moon, influence both alike ; and admitting the one 
 marked difference that does exist, it is, after all, pretty 
 nearly the same thing to be coquetting and sinning on two 
 legs as on the point of a toe. 
 
 A long Guardsman with a deep bass voice sang a doleful 
 song about the twining tendrils of the heart ruthlessly torn, 
 but required urgent persuasions and heavy trumpeting of 
 his lungs to get to the end : before he had accomplished it, 
 Adrian had contrived to raise a laugh in his neighbourhood, 
 so that the company was divided, and the camp split: jollity 
 returned to one-half, while sentiment held the other. Ripton, 
 blotted behind the bosom, was only lucky in securing a 
 higher degree of heat than was possible for the rest. " Are 
 you cold ?" she would ask, smiling charitably. 
 
A DINNER-PAETY AT RICHMOND. 353 
 
 " I am," said the mignonne, as if to excuse her conduct, 
 whicli was still evident to the decorous fat one, though more 
 removed therefrom. 
 
 " Ton always appear to be," she sniffed and snapped. 
 
 " Won't you warm two, Mrs. Mortimer ?" said the naughty 
 little woman. 
 
 Disdain prevented any further notice of her. Those 
 familiar with the ladies enjoyed their sparring, which was 
 frequent. The mignonne was heard to whisper : " That poor 
 fellow will certainly be baked." 
 
 Very prettily the ladies took and gave warmth, for the air 
 on the water was chill and misty. Adrian had beside him 
 the demure one who had stopped the circulation of his anec- 
 dote. She in nowise objected to the fair exchange, but said 
 " Hush ! " betweenwhiles. 
 
 Past Kew and Hammersmith, on the cool smooth water ; 
 across Putney reach ; through Battersea bridge ; and the City 
 grew around them, and the shadows of great mill-factories 
 slept athwart the moonlight. 
 
 AH the ladies prattled sweetly of a charming day when they 
 alighted on land. Several cavaliers crushed for the honour 
 of conducting Mrs. Mount to her home. 
 
 " My brougham's here ; I shall go alone," said Mrs. Mount. 
 " Some one arrange my shawl." 
 
 She turned her back to Richard, who had a view of a 
 delicate neck as he manipulated with the bearing of a mailed 
 knight. 
 
 "Which way are you going ?" she asked carelessly, and, 
 to his reply as to the direction, said : " Then I can give you 
 a lift," and she took his arm with a matter-of-course air, 
 and walked up the stairs with him. 
 
 Ripton saw what had happened. He was going to follow, 
 the portly dame retained him, and desired him to get her a 
 cab. 
 
 " Oh you happy fellow! " said the bright-eyed mignonne, 
 passing by. 
 
 Ripton procured the cab, and stuffed it full without having 
 to get into it himself. 
 
 " Try and let him come in too ? " said the persecuting 
 creature, again passing. 
 
 " Take liberties with your men — you sha'n't with me," 
 retorted the angry bosom, and drove off. 
 
 2a 
 
354 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 " So she's been and gone and run away and left Mm. after 
 all Hs tronble!" cried the pert little thing, peering into 
 Ripton's eyes. "Now you'll never be so foolish as to pin 
 your faith to fat women again. There ! he shall be made 
 happy another time." She gave his nose a comical tap, and 
 tripped away with her possessor. 
 
 Ripton rather forgot his friend for some minutes : Random 
 thoughts laid hold of him. Cabs and carriages rattled past. 
 He was sure he had been among members of the nobility that 
 day, though when they went by him now they only recog- 
 nized him with an effort of the eyelids. He began to think 
 of the day with exultation, as an event. Recollections of the 
 m.ignonne were captivating. " Blue eyes — just what I like ! 
 And such a little impudent nose, and red lips, pouting — the 
 very thing I like ! And her hair ? darkish, I think — say, 
 brown. And so saucy, and light on her feet. And kind she 
 is, or she wouldn't have talked to me like that." Thus, 
 with a groaning soul, he pictured her. His reason volun- 
 tarily consigned her to the aristocracy as a natural appan- 
 age : but he did amorously wish that Fortune had made a 
 lord of him. 
 
 Then his mind reverted to Mrs. Mount, and the strange 
 conversation he had heard on the hill. He was not one to 
 suspect anybody positively. He was timid of fixing a sus- 
 picion. It hovered indefinitely, and clouded people, without 
 stirring him to any resolve. Still the attentions of the lady 
 toward Richard were queer. He endeavoured to imagine 
 they were in the nature of things, because Richard was so 
 handsome that any woman must take to him. " But he's 
 married," said Ripton, " and he mustn't go near these people 
 if he's married." Not a high morality, perhaps : better than 
 none at all : better for the world were it practised more. He 
 thought of Richard along with that sparkling dame, alone 
 with her. The adorable beauty of his dear bride, her pure 
 heavenly face, swam before him. Thinking of her, he lost 
 sight of the mignonne who had made him giddy. 
 
 He walked to Richard's hotel, and up and down the street 
 there, hoping every minute to hear his step ; sometimes 
 fancying he might have returned and gone to bed. Two 
 o'clock struck. Ripton could not go away. He was sure he 
 should not sleep if he did. At last the cold sent him home- 
 ward, and leaving the street, on the moonlight side of Picca- 
 
A DIiraER-PAETY AT RICHMOND. 355 
 
 <dilly he met his friend patrolling with his head up and that 
 swing of the feet proper to men who are chanting verses. 
 
 " Old Rip ! " cried Richard cheerily. " What on earth 
 are yon doing here at this hour of the morning ? " 
 
 Ripton muttered of his pleasure at meeting him. " I 
 wanted to shake your hand before I went home." 
 
 Richard smiled on him in an amused kindly way. " That 
 all ? Tou may shake my hand any day, like a true man as 
 you are, old Rip ! I've been speaking about you. Do you 
 know, that — Mrs. Mount — never saw you all the time at 
 Richmond, or in the boat !" 
 
 " Oh !" Ripton said, well assured that he was a dwarf : 
 '" Tou saw her safe home ?" 
 
 "Tes. I've been there for the last couple of hours — 
 talking. She talks capitally: she's wonderfully clever. 
 She's very like a man, only much nicer. I like her." 
 
 " But, Richard, excuse me — I'm sure I don't mean to 
 ofEend you — but now you're married .... perhaps you 
 couldn't help seeing her home, but I think you really indeed 
 oughtn't to have gone upstairs." 
 
 Ripton delivered this opinion with a modest impressive- 
 ness. 
 
 " What do you mean?" said Richard. " Tou don't sup- 
 pose I care for any woman but my little darling down 
 there." He laughed. 
 
 " JSTo ; of course not. That's absurd. What I mean is, 
 that people perhaps will — you know, they do — they say all 
 manner of things, and that makes unhappiness, and ... I 
 do wish you were going home to-morrow, Ricky. I mean, 
 to your dear wife." Ripton blushed and looked away as he 
 spoke. 
 
 The hero gave one of his scornful glances. " So you're 
 anxious about my reputation. I hate that way of looking 
 on women. Because they have been once misled — look how 
 much weaker they are ! — because the world has given them 
 an ill fame, you would treat them as contagious, and keep 
 away from them for the sake of your character !" 
 
 " It would be different with me," quoth Ripton. 
 
 " How ?" asked the hero. 
 
 " Because I'm worse than you," was all the logical 
 •explanation Ripton was capable of. 
 
 " I do hope yon will go home soon," he added. 
 2a2 
 
356 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAKD FETEKEL. 
 
 " Tes," said Richard, '' and I, so do I hope so. But I've 
 work to do now. I dare not, I cannot, leave it. Lucy 
 would be the last to ask me ; — ^You saw her letter yesterday. 
 Now listen to me, Rip. I want to make you be just to 
 women." 
 
 Then he read Ripton a lecture on erring women, speaking 
 of them as if he had known them and studied them for 
 years. Clever, beautiful, but betrayed by love, it was the 
 first duty of all true men to cherish and redeem them. " We- 
 turn them into curses. Rip ; these divine creatures." And 
 the world suffered for it. That — that was the root of all 
 the evil in the world ! 
 
 " I don't feel anger or horror at these poor women. Rip f 
 It's strange. I knew what they were when we came home 
 in the boat. But I do — it tears my heart to see a young 
 girl given over to an old man — a man she doesn't love. 
 That's shame! — Don't speak of it." 
 
 Forgetting to contest the premiss, that all betrayed women 
 are betrayed by love, Ripton was silenced. He, like most 
 young men, had pondered somewhat on this matter, and was 
 inclined to be sentimental when he was not hungry. They 
 walked in the moonlight by the railings of the park. 
 Richard harangued at leisure, while Ripton's teeth chat- 
 tered. Chivalry might be dead, but there was still some- 
 thing to do, went the strain. The lady of the day had not 
 been thrown in the hero's path without an object, he said ; 
 and he was sadly right there. He did not express the thing 
 clearly ; nevertheless Ripton understood him to mean that 
 he intended to rescue that lady from further transgressions, 
 and show a certain scorn of the world. That lady, and then 
 other ladies unknown, were to be rescued. Ripton was to- 
 help. He and Ripton were to be the knights of this enter- 
 prise. When appealed to, Ripton acquiesced, and shivered. 
 Not only were they to be knights, they would have to be 
 Titans, for the powers of the world, the spurious ruling 
 Social Gods, would have to be defied and overthrown. And 
 Titan number one flung up his handsome bold face as if to 
 challenge base Jove on the spot ; and Titan number two 
 strained the upper button of his coat to meet across his 
 pocket-handkerchief on his chest, and warmed his fingers 
 under his coat-tails. The moon had fallen from her high 
 seat and was in the mists of the West, when he was allowed 
 
MES. BEERY ON MATEIMONT. 357 
 
 to seek his blankets, and the cold acting on his friend's 
 eloquence made Ripton's flesh very contrite. The poor 
 fellow had thinner blood than the hero ; but his heart was 
 good. By the time he had got a little warmth about him, 
 his heart gratefully strove to encourage him in the concep- 
 tion of becoming a knight and a Titan ; and so striving 
 Eipton fell asleep and dreamed. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVin. 
 
 MRS. BEEET ON MATEIMONT. 
 
 Behold the hero embarked in the redemption of an erring 
 beautiful woman. 
 
 " Alas ! " writes the Pilgeim at this very time to Lady 
 Blandish, " I cannot get that legend of the Serpent from me, 
 the more I think. Has he not caught you, and ranked you 
 foremost in his legions ? For see : till you were fashioned, 
 the fruits hung immobile on the boughs. They swayed 
 before us, glistening and cold. The hand must be eager 
 that plucked them. They did not come down to us, and 
 smile, and speak our language, and read our thoughts, and 
 know when to fly, when to follow ! how surely to have us ! 
 
 " Do but mark one of you standing openly in the track of 
 the Serpent. What shall be done with her ? I fear the 
 world is wiser than its judges ! Turn from her, says the 
 world. By day the sons of the world do. It darkens, and 
 they dance together downward. Then comes there one of 
 the world's elect who deems old counsel devilish; indiffer- 
 ence to the end of evil worse than its pursuit. He comes to 
 reclaim her. From deepest bane will he bring her back to 
 highest blessing. Is not that a bait already ? Poor fish ! 
 'tis wondrous flattering. The Serpent has slimed her so 
 to secure him ! With slow weary steps he draws her into 
 light : she clings to him ; she is human ; part of his work, 
 and he loves it. As they mount upward, he looks on her 
 more, while she, it may be, looks above. What has touched 
 
358 THE OEDEAL 0¥ EICHARD FEVEEEL. 
 
 him ? What has passed out of her, and into him ? The- 
 Serpent langhs below. At the gateways of the Sun they 
 fall together ! " 
 
 This alliterative prodnction was written without any sense 
 of the peril that makes prophecy. 
 
 It suited Sir Austin to write thus. It was a channel tO' 
 his acrimony moderated through his philosophy. The letter 
 was a reply to a vehement entreaty from Lady Blandish for 
 him to come up to Richard and forgive him thoroughly : 
 Richard's name was not mentioned in it. 
 
 " He tries to he more than he is," thought the lady : and 
 she began insensibly to conceive him less than he was. 
 
 The baronet was conscious of a certaiu false gratification, 
 in his son's apparent obedience to his wishes, and complete 
 submission ; a gratification he chose to accept as his due, 
 without dissecting or accounting for it. The intelligence 
 reiterating that Richard waited, and still waited ; Richard's 
 letters, and more his dumb abiding and practical penitence ;, 
 vindicated humanity sufficiently to stop the course of viru- 
 lent aphorisms. He could speak, we have seen, in sorrow 
 for this frail nature of ours that he had once stood forth to- 
 champion. " But how long will this last ? " he demanded 
 with the air of Hippias. He did not reflect how long it had 
 lasted. Indeed, his indigestion of wrath had made of him a> 
 m.oral Dyspepsy. 
 
 It was not mere obedience that held Richard from the 
 arms of his young wife : nor was it this new knightly enter- 
 prise he had presumed to undertake. Hero as he was, a 
 youth, open to the insane promptings of hot blood, he was 
 not a fool. There had been talk between him and Mrs. 
 Doria of his mother. Now that he had broken from his 
 father, his heart spoke for her. She lived, he knew : he 
 knew no more. Words painfully hovering along the borders 
 of plain speech had been communicated to him, filling him 
 with moody imaginings. If he thought of her, the red was 
 on his face, though he could not have said why. But now, 
 after canvassing the conduct of his father, and throwing 
 him aside as a terrible riddle, he asked Mrs. Doria to tell 
 him of his other parent. As softly as she could she told the 
 story. To her the shame was past : she could weep for the- 
 poor lady. Richard dropped no tears. Disgrace of this. 
 
MES. BEERY ON MATEIMONY. 359 
 
 kind is always present to a son, and, educated as he had 
 been, these tidings were a vivid fire in his brain. He 
 resolved to hunt her out, and take her from the man. Here 
 was -work set to his hand. All her dear husband did was 
 right to Lucy. She encouraged him to stay for that pur- 
 pose, thinking it also served another. There was Tom 
 Bakewell to watch over Lucy : there was work for him to 
 do. Whether it would please his father he did not stop to 
 consider. As to the justice of the act let us say nothing. 
 
 On Ripton devolved the humbler task of grubbing for 
 Sandoe's place of residence ; and as he was unacquainted 
 with the name by which the poet now went in private, his 
 endeavours were not immediately successful. The friends 
 met in the evening at Lady Blandish's town-house, or at the 
 Foreys', where Mrs. Doria procured the reverer of the Royal 
 Martyr, and staunch conservative, a favourable reception. 
 Pity, deep pity for Richard's conduct Ripton saw breathing 
 out of Mrs. Doria. Algernon Feverel treated him with a 
 sort of rough commiseration, as a young fellow who had 
 spoilt his luck. Pity was in Lady Blandish's eyes, though 
 for a different cause. She doubted if she ' did well in 
 seconding his father's unwise scheme — supposing him to 
 have a scheme. She saw the young husband encompassed 
 by dangers at a critical time. Not a word of Mrs. Mount 
 had been breathed to her, but the lady had some knowledge 
 of life. She touched on delicate verges to the baronet in 
 her letters, and he understood her well enough. " If he 
 loves this person to whom he has bound himself, what fear 
 for him ? Or are you coming to think it something that 
 bears the name of love because we have to veil the rightful 
 appellation ?" So he responded remote among the moun- 
 tains. She tried very hard to speak plainly. Finally he 
 came to say that he denied himself the pleasure of seeing 
 his son specially, that he for a time might be put to the test 
 the lady seemed to dread. This was almost too much for 
 Lady Blandish. Love's charity boy so loftily serene now 
 that she saw him half denuded — a thing of shanks and wrists 
 — was a trial for her true heart. 
 
 Going home at night Richard would laugh at the faces 
 made about his marriage. " We'll carry the day, Rip, my 
 Lucy and I ! or I'll do it alone — what there is to do." He 
 slightly adverted to a natural want of courage in women. 
 
360 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 which Ripton took to indicate that his Beauty was deficient 
 in that quality. Up leapt the Old Dog; "I'm sure there 
 never was a braver creature upon earth, Richard ! She's 
 as brave as she's lovely, I'll swear she is ! Look how 
 she behaved that day ! How her voice sounded ! She 
 was trembliug . . . Brave ? She'd follow you into battle, 
 Richard !" 
 
 And Richard rejoined : " Talk on, dear old Rip ! She's 
 my darling love, whatever she is ! And she is gloriously 
 lovely. No eyes are like hers. And when I make them 
 bashful — by heaven ! I'll go down to-morrow m.orning the 
 first thing." 
 
 Ripton only wondered the husband of such a treasure could 
 remain apart from it. So thought Richard for a space. 
 
 " But if I go, Rip," he said despondently, "if I go for a 
 day even I shall have undone all my work with my father. 
 She says it herself — you saw it in her last letter." 
 
 " Yes," Ripton assented, and the words " Please remember 
 me to dear Mr. Thompson," fluttered about the Old Dog'a 
 heart. 
 
 It came to pass that Mrs. Berry, having certain business 
 that led her through Kensington Gardens, spied a figure that 
 she had once dandled in long clothes, and helped make a 
 man of, if ever woman did. He was walking under the trees 
 beside a lady, talking to her not indifEerently. The gentle- 
 man was her bridegroom and her babe. " I know his back," 
 said Mrs. Berry, as if she had branded a mark on it in 
 infancy. But the lady was not her bride. Mrs. Berry 
 diverged from the path, and got before them on the left 
 flank ; she stared, retreated, and came round upon the right. 
 There was that in the lady's face which Mrs. Berry did not 
 like. Her innermost question was, why he was not walking 
 with his own wife ? She stopped in front of them. They 
 broke, and passed about her. She hemmed ! at Richard's 
 elbow. The lady presently made a laughing remark to him, 
 whereat he turned to look, and Mrs. Berry bobbed. She 
 had to bob a second time, and then he remembered the 
 worthy creature, and hailed her Penelope, shaking her hand 
 so that he put her in countenance again. Mrs. Berry was 
 eztremely agitated. He dismissed her, promising to call 
 upon her in the evening. She heard the lady slip out some- 
 
MKS. BEEEY ON MATRIMONY. 361 
 
 thing from a side of her lip, and they both laughed as she 
 toddled off to a sheltering tree to wipe a corner of each eye. 
 " I don't like the looks of that woman," she said, and re- 
 peated it resolutely. 
 
 " Why doesn't he walk arm-in-arm with her ?" was her 
 next inquiry. " Where's his wife ?" succeeded it. After 
 many interrogations of the sort, she arrived at naming the 
 lady a bold-faced thing ; adding subsequently, brazen. The 
 lady had apparently shown Mrs. Berry that she wished to 
 get rid of her, and had checked the outpouring of her 
 emotions on the breast of her babe. " I know a lady when 
 I see one," said Mrs. Berry. " I haven't lived with 'em for 
 nothing ; and if she's a lady bred and born, I wasn't married 
 in the church alive." 
 
 Then, if not a lady, what was she ? Mrs. Berry desired 
 to know. " She's imitation lady, I'm sure she is !" Berry 
 vowed. " I say she don't look proper." 
 
 Establishing the lady to be a spurious article, however, 
 what was one to think of a married man in company with 
 such? "Oh no! it ain't that!" Mrs. Berry returned 
 immediately on the charitable tack. " Belike it's some one 
 of his acquaintance 've married her for her looks, and he've 
 just met her. . . . Why it 'd be as bad as my Berry !" the 
 relinquished spouse of Berry ejaculated, in horror at the 
 idea of a second man being so monstrous in wickedness. 
 " Just coupled, too !" Mrs. Berry groaned on the suspicious 
 side of the debate. " And such a sweet young thing for his 
 wife ! But no, I'll never believe it. Not if he tell me so 
 himself ! And men don't do that," she whimpered. 
 
 Women are swift at coming to conclusions in these mat- 
 ters ; soft women exceedingly swift : and soft women who 
 have been betrayed are rapid beyond measure. Mrs. Berry 
 had not cogitated long ere she pronounced distinctly and 
 without a shadow of dubiosity : " My opinion is — married 
 or not married, and wheresomever he pick her up — she's 
 nothin' more nor less than a Bella Donna !" as which poi- 
 sonous plant she forthwith registered the lady in the 
 botanical note-book of her brain. It would have astonished 
 Mrs. Mount to have heard her person so accurately hit off 
 at a glance. 
 
 In the evening Richard made good his promise, accom- 
 panied by Ripton. Mrs. Berry opened the door to them. 
 
362 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 She could not wait to get Mm into tlie parlour. " Tou're 
 my own blessed babe ; and I'm as good as your mother, — 
 though I didn't suck ye, bein' a maid !" she cried, falling 
 into his arms, while Richard did his best to support the 
 unexpected burden. Then reproaching him tenderly for his 
 guile — at mention of which Ripton chuckled, deeming it his 
 own most honourable portion of the plot — Mrs. Berry led 
 them into the parlour, and revealed to Richard who she- 
 w^as, and how she had tossed him, and hugged him, and 
 kissed him all over, when he was only that big — showing 
 him her stumpy fat arm. " I kissed ye from head to tail, I 
 did," said Mrs. Berry, " and you needn't be ashamed of it. 
 It's be hoped you'll never have nothin' worse come t' ye, my 
 dear!" 
 
 Richard assured her he was not a bit ashamed, but warned 
 her that she must not do it now, Mrs. Berry admitting it 
 was out of the question now, and now that he had a wife, 
 moreover. The young men laughed, and Ripton laughing 
 over-loudly drew on himself Mrs. Berry's attention : " But 
 that Mr. Thompson there — however he can look me in the 
 face after his inn'cence ! helping blindfold an old woman ! — 
 though I ain't sorry for what I did — that I'm free for to say, 
 and it's over, and blessed be all ! Amen ! So now where is 
 she and how is she, Mr. Richard, my dear — it's only cuttin' 
 off the ' s ' and you are as you was. — Why didn't ye bring 
 her with ye to see old Berry ?" 
 
 Richard hurriedly explained that Lucy was still in the 
 Isle of Wight. 
 
 " Oh ! and you've left her for a day or two ?" said Mrs. 
 Berry. 
 
 " Good God ! I wish it had been a day or two," cried 
 Richard. 
 
 " Ah ! and how long have it been p" asked Mrs. Berry, 
 her heart beginning to beat at his manner of speaking. 
 
 " Don't talk about it," said Richard. 
 
 " Oh ! you never been dudgeonin' already ? Oh ! you 
 haven't been peckin' at one another yet ?" Mrs. Berry 
 exclaimed. 
 
 Ripton interposed to tell her such fears were unfounded. 
 
 " Then how long ha' you been divided ?" 
 
 In a guilty voice Ripton stammered " since September." 
 
 " September !" breathed Mrs. Berry, counting on her 
 
MES. BEERY ON MATRIMONY. 363' 
 
 fingers, " September, October, Nov — two months and more [ 
 nigh three ! A young married husband away from the wife 
 of his bosom nigh three months ! Oh my ! Oh my ! what 
 do that mean ?" 
 
 " My father sent for me — I'm waiting to see him," said 
 Richard. A few more words helped Mrs. Berry to compre- 
 hend the condition of afiairs. Then Mrs. Berry spread her 
 lap, flattened out her hands, fixed her eyes, and spoke. 
 
 " My dear young gentleman ! — I'd like to call ye my darlin' 
 babe ! I'm going to speak as a mother to ye, whether ye 
 likes it or no ; and what old Berry says, you won't mind, for • 
 she's bad ye when there was no conventionals about ye, and 
 she has the feelin's of a mother to you, though humble her 
 state. If there's one that know matrimony it's me, my dear, 
 though Berry did give me no more but nine months of it : 
 and I've known the worst of matrimony, which, if you wants 
 to be woful wise, there it is for ye. For what have been my 
 gain ? That man gave me nothin' but his name ; and Bessy 
 Andrews was as good as Bessy BeiTy, though both is ' Bs,' 
 and says he, you was ' A,' and now you's ' B,' so you're my 
 A B, he says, write yourself down that, he says, the bad 
 man, with his jokes ! — ^Berry went to service." Mrs. Berry's 
 softness came upon her. " So I tell ye. Berry went to ser- 
 vice. He left the wife of his bosom forlorn and he went to 
 service ; because he were al'ays an ambitious man, and 
 wasn't, so to speak, happy out of his uniform — which was 
 his livery — not even in my arms : and he let me know it. 
 He got among them kitchen sluts, which was my mournin' 
 ready made, and worse than a widow's cap to me, which is 
 no shame to wear, and some say becoming. There's no man 
 as ever lived know better than my Berry how to show his 
 legs to advantage, and gals look at 'em. I don't wonder 
 now that Berry was prostrated. His temptations was 
 strong, and his flesh was weak. Then what I say is, that 
 for a young married man — ^be he whomsoever he may be — 
 to be separated from the wife of his bosom — a young sweet 
 thing, and he an innocent young gentleman ! — so to sunder, 
 in their state, and be kep' from each other, I say it's as bad 
 as bad can be ! For what is matrimony, my dears ? "We're 
 told it's a holy Ordnance. And why are ye so comfortable 
 in matrimony ? For that ye are not a sinnin' ! And they 
 that severs ye they tempts ye to stray : and you learn too- 
 
364 THE OEDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 late the meaniti' o' them blessin's of the priest— as it was 
 ordained. Separate — what comes ? Fust it's like the cir- 
 culation of your blood a-stoppin' — all goes wrong. Then 
 there's misunderstandings — ye've both lost the key. Then, 
 behold ye, there's birds 'o prey hoverin' over each on ye, 
 and it's which'll be snapped up fust. Then — Oh, dear ! Oh, 
 dear ! it be like the devil come into the world again." Mrs. 
 Berry struck her hands and moaned. " A day I'll give ye : 
 I'll go so far as a week : but there's the outside. Three 
 months dwellin' apart ! That's not matrimony, it's divorcin' ! 
 what can it be to her but widowhood ? widowhood with no 
 cap to show for it ! And what can it be to you, my dear ? 
 Think ! you been a bachelor three months ! and a bachelor 
 man," Mrs. Berry shook her head most dolefully, " he ain't 
 a widow woman. I don't go to compare you to Berry, my 
 dear young gentleman. Some men's 'arts is vagabonds born 
 • — they must go astray — it's there natur' to. But all men 
 are men, and I know the foundation of 'em, by reason of my 
 woe." 
 
 Mrs. Berry paused. Richard was respectfully attentive to 
 the sermon. The truth in the good creature's address was 
 not to be disputed, or despised, notwithstanding the inclina- 
 tion to laugh provoked by her quaint way of putting it. 
 Eipton nodded encouragingly at every sentence, for he saw 
 her drift, and wished to second it. 
 
 Seeking for an illustration of her meaning, Mrs. Berry 
 solemnly continued : " We all know what checked prespira- 
 tion is." But neither of the young gentlemen could resist 
 this. Out they burst in a roar of laughter. 
 
 " Laugh away," said Mrs. Berry. " I don't mind ye. I 
 say again, we all do know what checked prespiration is. It 
 fly to the lungs, it gives ye mortal inflammation, and it 
 carries ye off. Then 1 say checked matrimony is as bad. 
 It fly to the heart, and it carries off the virtue that's in ye, 
 and you might as well be dead ! Them that is joined it's 
 their salvation not to separate ! It don't so much matter 
 before it. That Mr. Thompson there — if he go astray, it 
 ain't from the blessed fold. He hurt himself alone — not 
 double, and belike treble, for who can say now what may 
 be ? There's time for it. I'm for holding back young 
 people so that they knows their minds, howsomever they 
 rattles about their hearts. I ain't a speeder of matrimony, 
 
MIIS. BERET ON MATEIMONT. 365 
 
 and good's my reason ! but where it's been done — wbere 
 they're lawfully joined, and their bodies made one, I do 
 say this, that to put division between 'em then, it's to 
 make wanderin' comets of 'em — creatures without a object, 
 and no soul can say what thev's erood for but to rush 
 about!" 
 
 Mrs. Berry here took a heavy breath, as one who has said 
 her utmost for the time being. 
 
 " My dear old girl," Richard went up to her and applaud- 
 ing her on the shoulder, " you're a very vrise old woman. 
 But you mustn't speak to me as if I wanted to stop here. 
 I'm compelled to. I do it for her good chiefly." 
 
 " It's your father that's doin' it, my dear ?" 
 
 " Well, I'm waiting his pleasure." 
 
 " A pretty pleasure ! puttin' a snake in the nest of young 
 turtle-doves ! And why don't she come up to you ?" 
 
 " Well, that you must ask her. The fact is, she's a little 
 timid girl — she wants me to see him first, and when I've 
 made all right, then she'll come." 
 
 "A little timid girl!" cried Mrs. Berry. " Oh, lor', how 
 she must ha' deceived ye to make ye think that ! Look at 
 that ring," she held out her finger, " he's a stranger : he's 
 not my lawful ! Ton know what ye did to me, my dear. 
 Could I get my own wedding-ring back from her ? ' No !' 
 Bays she, firm as a rock, ' he said, viith this ring 1 thee wed ' — 
 I think I see her now, with her pretty eyes and lovesome 
 locks — a darlin' ! — And that ring she'd keep to, come life, 
 come death. And she must ha' been a rock for me to give in 
 to her in that. For what's the consequence ? Here am I," 
 Mrs. Berry smoothed down the back of her hand mournfully, 
 " here am I in a strange ring, that's like a strange man 
 holdin' of me, and me a wearin' of it just to seem decent, 
 
 and f eelin' all over no better than a b a big — that nasty 
 
 name I can't abide ! — I tell yon, my dear, she ain't soft, no ! 
 — except to the man of her heart ; and the best of women's 
 too soft there — more's our sorrow ! " 
 
 " Well, well !" said Richard, who thought he knew. 
 
 " I agree with you, Mrs. Berry," Ripton struck in, "Mrs. 
 Richard would do anything in the world her husband asked 
 her, I'm quite sure." 
 
 " Bless you for your good opinion, Mr. Thompson ! Why, 
 see her ! she ain't frail on her feet ; she looks ye straight in 
 
366 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEYEEEL. 
 
 the eyes ; she ain't one of your hang-down misses. Look 
 how she behaved at the ceremony !" 
 
 "Ah!" sighed Ripton. 
 
 " And if yon'd ha' seen her when she spoke to me about 
 my ring ! Depend upon it, my dear Mr. Richard, if she 
 blinded you about the nerve she've got, it was somethin' she 
 thought she ought to do for your sake, and I wish I'd been 
 by to counsel her, poor blessed babe ! — And how much longer, 
 now, can ye stay divided from that darlin' ?" 
 
 Richard paced up and down uneasily. 
 
 "A father's will," urged Mrs. Berry, "that's a son's law; 
 but he mustn't go again' the laws of his natur' to do it." 
 
 " Just be quiet at present — talk of other things, there's a 
 good woman," said Richard. 
 
 Mrs. Berry meekly folded her arms. 
 
 " How strange, now, our meetin' like this ! meetin' at all, 
 too !" she remarked contemplatively. "It's them advertise- 
 Bcients ! They brings people together from the ends of the 
 earth, for good or for bad. I often say, there's more lucky 
 accidents, or unlucky ones, since advertisements was the 
 rule, than ever there was before. They make a number of 
 romances, depend upon it ! Do you walk much in the 
 Gardens, my dear ?" 
 
 " Now and then," said Richard. 
 
 " Very pleasant it is there with the fine folks and flowers 
 and titled people," continued Mrs. Berry. " That was a 
 handsome woman you was a-walkin' beside, this mornin'." 
 
 " Very,'' said Richard. 
 
 " She was a handsom.e woman ! or I should say, is, for her 
 day ain't past, and she know it. I thought at first — by her 
 back — it might ha' been your aunt, Mrs. Forey ; for she do 
 step out well and hold up her shoulders : straight as a dart 
 she be ! but when I come to see her face — Oh, dear me ! says 
 I, this ain't one of the family. They none of 'em got such 
 bold faces — nor no lady as I know have. But she's a fine 
 woman — that nobody can gainsay." 
 
 Mrs. Berry talked further of the fine woman. It was a 
 liberty she took to speak in this disrespectful tone of her, 
 and Mrs. Berry was quite aware that she was laying herself 
 ■open to rebuke. She had her end in view. No rebuke was 
 uttered, and during her talk she observed intercourse passing 
 ibetween the eyes of the youjig men. 
 
MRS. BEERY ON MATRIMONY. 367 
 
 " Look here, Penelope," Richard stopped her at last. " Will 
 it make you comfortable if I tell you I'll obey the laws of my 
 mature and go down at the end of the week ?" 
 
 " I'll thank the Lord of heaven if you do !" she exclaimed. 
 
 " Very well, then — be happy — ^I will. Now listen. I 
 "want you to keep your rooms for me — those she had. I 
 •expect, in a day or two, to bring a lady here " 
 
 " A lady ?" faltered Mrs. Berry. 
 
 " Yes. A lady." 
 
 " May I make so bold as to ask what lady ? " 
 
 " Tou may not. Not now. Of course you will know." 
 
 Mrs. Berry's short neck made the best imitation it could of 
 :an offended swan's action. She was very angry. She said 
 she did not like bo many ladies, which natural objection 
 Richard met by saying that there was only one lady. 
 
 " And Mrs. Berry," he added, dropping his voice. " Tou 
 ^11 treat her as you did my dear girl, for she will reqaire 
 not only shelter but kindness. I would rather leave her with 
 you than with any one. She has been very unfortunate." 
 
 His serious air and habitual tone of command fascinated 
 the softness of Berry, and it was not until he had gone that 
 she spoke out. " IJnfort'nate ! He's going to bring me an 
 unf ort'uate female ! Oh ! not from my babe can I bear that ! 
 Never will I have her here ! I see it. It's that bold-faced 
 -woman he's got mixed up in, and she've been and made the 
 young man think he'll go for to reform her. It's one o' their 
 arts — that is ; and he's too innocent a young man to mean 
 :anythin' else. But I ain't a house of Magdalens — no ! and 
 sooner than have her here I'd have the roof fall over me, I 
 would." 
 
 She sat down to eat her supper on the sublime resolve. 
 
 In love, Mrs. Berry's charity was all on the side of the law, 
 and this is the case with many of her sisters. The Pilgrim 
 sneers at them for it, and would have us credit that it is 
 their admirable instinct which, at the expense of every virtue 
 save one, preserves the artificial barrier simply to impose 
 upon us. Men, I presume, are hardly fair judges, and should 
 stand aside and mark. 
 
 Early next day Mrs. Berry bundled off to Richard's hotel 
 to let him know her determination. She did not find him 
 -there. Returning homeward through the Park, she beheld 
 lim on horseback riding by the side of the identical lady. 
 
368 THE OEDEAL OP RIOHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 Tte sight of this pablic exposure shocked her more than the 
 secret walk under the trees. " You don't look near your 
 reform yet,'' Mrs. Berry apostrophized her. " Tou don't 
 look to me one that'd come the Fair Penitent till you've left 
 off bein' fair — if then yon do, which some of ye don't. Laugh 
 away and show yer airs ! Spite o' your hat and feather, and 
 your ridin'^habit, you're a Bella Donna." Setting her dowrt 
 again absolutely for such, whatever it might signify, Mrs. 
 Berry had a virtuous glow. 
 
 In the evening she heard the noise of wheels stopping at 
 the door. " Never ! " she rose from her chair to exclaim. 
 " He ain't rided her out in the mornin', and been and made 
 a Magdalen of her afore dark ? " 
 
 A lady veiled was brought into the house by Richard. 
 Mrs. Berry feebly tried to bar his progress in the passage. 
 He pushed past her, and conducted the lady into the parlour 
 without speaking. Mrs. Berry did not follow. She heard 
 him murmur a few sentences within. Then he came out. 
 All her crest stood up, as she whispered vigorously, " Mr. 
 Richard ! if that woman stay here, I go forth. My house 
 ain't a penitentiary for unfort'nate females, sir -" 
 
 He frowned at her curiously ; but as she was on the point 
 of renewing her indignant protest, he clapped his hand 
 across her mouth, and spoke words in her ear that had awful 
 import to her. She trembled, breathing low : " My God, 
 forgive me ! Lady Feverel is it ? Tour mother, Mr. 
 Richard ? " And her virtue was humbled before Lady 
 Feverel. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 AN ENCHANTKESS. 
 
 One may suppose that a prematurely aged, oily little 
 man ; a poet in bad circumstances ; a decrepit butterfly 
 chained to a disappointed inkstand, will not put out strenu- 
 ous energies to retain his ancient paramour when a robust 
 young man comes imperatively to demand his mother of him 
 in her person. The colloquy was short between Diaper 
 Sandoe and Richard. The question was referred to the poor 
 
AN BNCHANTEBSS. 369 
 
 spiritless lady, who, seeing that her son made no question of 
 it, cast herself on his hands. Small loss to her was Diaper ; 
 bnt he was the loss of habit, and that is something to a 
 woman who has lived. The blood of her son had been 
 running so long alien from her that the sense of her mother- 
 hood smote her now with strangeness, and Richard's stem 
 gentleness seemed like dreadful justice come upon her. Her 
 heart had almost forgotten its maternal functions. She 
 called him Sir, till he bade her remember he was her son. 
 Her voice sounded to him like that of a broken-throated 
 lamb, so painful and weak it was, with the plaintive stop in. 
 the utterance. When he kissed her, her skin was cold. Her 
 thin hand fell out of his when his grasp relaxed. " Can sin 
 hunt one like this ? " he asked, bitterly reproaching himself 
 for the shame she had caused him to endure, and a deep 
 ■compassion filled his breast. 
 
 Poetic justice had been dealt to Diaper the poet. Ho 
 thought of all he had sacrificed for this woman — the com- 
 fortable quarters, the friend, the happy flights. He could 
 not but accuse her of unfaithfulness in leaving him in his 
 old age. Habit had legalized his union with her. He wrote 
 as pathetically of the break of habit as men feel at the death 
 of love ; and when we are old and have no fair hope tossing 
 golden locks before us, a wound to this second nature is quite 
 as sad. I know not even if it be not actually sadder. 
 
 Day by day Richard visited his mother. Lady Blandish 
 and Ripton alone were in the secret. Adrian let him do as 
 he pleased. He thought proper to tell him that the public 
 recognition he accorded to a particular lady was, in the 
 present state of the world, scarcely prudent. 
 
 " 'Tis a proof to me of your moral rectitude, my son, but 
 the world will not think so. No one character is sufficient 
 to cover two — in a Protestant country especially. The 
 divinity that doth hedge a Bishop would have no chance in 
 contact with your Madam Danae. Methinks I see the 
 reverend man ! though he takes excellent care to make it a 
 contemptible hypothesis. That part of his pastoral duty he 
 wisely leaves to weanling laymen. Drop the woman, my 
 son. Or permit me to speak what you would have her 
 hear." 
 
 Richard listened to him with disgust. 
 2 B 
 
370 THE OEDEAL OF EICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 " Well, you've had my doctorial ■warning," said Adrian,, 
 and plunged back into his book. 
 
 When Lady Feverel had revived to take part in the con» 
 sultations Mrs. Berry perpetually opened on the subject of 
 Richard's matrimonial duty, another chain was cast about 
 him. " Do not, oh, do not offend your father ! " was her one 
 repeated supplication. Sir Austin had grown to be a vindic- 
 tive phantom in her mind. She never wept but when she 
 said this. 
 
 So Mrs. Berry, to whom Richard had once made mention 
 of Lady Blandish as the only friend he had among women, 
 bundled off in her black-satin dress to obtain an interview 
 with her, and an ally. After coming to an understanding 
 on the matter of the visit, and reiterating many of her 
 views concerning young married people, Mrs. Berry said : 
 " My lady, if I may speak so bold, I'd say the sin that's 
 bein' done is the sin o' the lookers on. And when every- 
 body appear frighted by that young gentleman's father, I'll 
 say — hopin' your pardon— they no cause be frighted at all- 
 For though it's nigh twenty year since I knew him, and I 
 knew him then just sixteen months — no more — I'll say his 
 heart's as soft as a woman's, which I've cause for to know. 
 And that's it. That's where everybody's deceived by him, 
 and I was. It's because he keeps his face, and makes ye 
 think you're dealin' with a man of iron, and all the while 
 there's a woman underneath. And a man that's like a 
 woman he's the puzzle o' life ! We can see through our- 
 selves, my lady, and we can see through men, but one o' that 
 sort — he's like somethin' out of nature. Then I say — hopin' 
 be excused — what's to do is for to treat him like a woman, 
 and not for to let him 'ave his own way — which he don't 
 know himself, and is why nobody else do. Let that sweet 
 young couple come together, and be wholesome in spite of 
 him, I say; and then give him time to come round, just like 
 a woman ; and round he'll come, and give 'em his blessin', 
 and we shall know we've made him comfortable. He's 
 angry because matrimony have come between him and his 
 son, and he, woman-like, he's wantin' to treat what is as if 
 it isn't. But matrimony's a holier than him. It began long 
 long before him, and it's be hoped will endoor long's the 
 time after, if the world's not coming to rack — wishin' him 
 no harm." 
 
AN ENCHANTEESS. 371 
 
 Now Mrs. Berry only put Lady Blandish's thoughts in 
 bad English. The lady took upon herself seriously to 
 advise Richard to send for his wife. He wrote, bidding her 
 come. Lucy, however, had wits, and inexperienced wits are 
 as a little knowledge. In pursuance of her sage plan to 
 make the family feel her worth, and to conquer the members 
 of it one by one, she had got up a correspondence with Adrian, 
 whom it tickled. Adrian constantly assured her all was 
 going well : time would heal the wound if both the offenders 
 had the fortitude to be patient : he fancied he saw signs of 
 the baronet's relenting : they must do nothing to arrest those 
 favourable symptoms. Indeed the wise youth was languidly 
 seeking to produce them. He wrote, and felt, as Lucy's 
 benefactor. So Lucy replied to her husband a cheerful 
 rigmarole he could make nothing of, save that she was happy 
 in hope, and still had fears. Then Mrs. Berry trained her 
 fist to indite a letter to her bride. Her bride answered it by 
 saying she trusted to time. " Tou poor marter," Mrs. Berry 
 wrote back, " I know what your sufferin's be. They is the 
 onlykinda wife should never hide from her husband. Hethinks 
 all sorts of things if she can abide being away. And you trust- 
 ing to time, why it's like trusting not to catch cold out of your 
 natural clothes." There was no shaking Lucy's firmness. 
 
 Richard gave it up. He began to think that the life lying 
 behind him was the life of a fool. What had he done in it ? 
 He had burnt a rick and got married ! He associated the 
 two acts of his existence. Where was the hero he was to 
 have carved out of Tom Bakewell ! — a wretch he had taught 
 to lie and chicane : and for what ? Great heavens ! how 
 ignoble did a flash from the light of his aspirations made his 
 marriage appear ! The young man sought amusement. He 
 allowed his aunt to drag him into society, and sick of that 
 he made late evening calls on Mrs. Mount, oblivious of the 
 purpose he had in visiting her at all. Her man-like conver- 
 sation, which he took for honesty, was a refreshing change 
 on fair lips. 
 
 "Call me Bella: I'll call you Dick," said she. Audit 
 came to be Bella and Dick between them. No mention of 
 Bella occurred in Richard's letters to Lucy. 
 
 Mrs. Mount spoke quite openly of herself. " I pretend to 
 be no better than I am," she said, " and I know I'm no worse 
 than many a woman who holds her head high." To back this 
 
 2b2 
 
372 THE OKDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 slie told him stories of blooming dames of good repute, and 
 poured a little social sewerage into his ears. 
 
 Also slie understood him. " What you want, my dear 
 Dick, is something to do. Ton went and got married like a 
 — hum ! — friends must be respectful. Go into the army. 
 Try the turf. I can put you up to a trick or two — friends 
 should make themselves useful." 
 
 She told him what she liked in him. " You're the only 
 man I was ever alone with who don't talk to me of love and 
 make me feel sick. I hate men who can't speak to a woman 
 sensibly. — Just wait a minute." She left him and presently 
 returned with, " Ah, Dick ! old fellow ! how are you ? " — 
 arrayed like a cavalier, one arm stuck in her side, her hat 
 jauntily cocked, and a pretty oath on her lips to give reality 
 to the costume. " What do you think of me ? Wasn't it a 
 shame to make a woman of me when I was born to be a man ?" 
 
 "I don't know that," said Richard, for the contrast in her 
 attire to those shootingeyes and lips, aired her sexbewitchingly. 
 
 " What ! you think I don't do it well ? " 
 
 " Charming ! but I can't forget ..." 
 
 " Now that is too bad ! " she pouted. 
 
 Then she proposed that they should go out into the mid- 
 night streets arm-in-arm, and oat they went and had great 
 fits of laughter at her impertinent manner of using her eye- 
 glass, and outrageous affectation of the supreme dandy. 
 
 " They take up men, Dick, for going about in women's 
 clothes, and vice versaw, I suppose. You'll bail me, old 
 f ellaa, if I have to make my bow to the beak, won't you ? 
 Say it's becas I'm an honest woman and don't care to hide 
 the — a — unmentionables when I wear them — as the t'others 
 do," sprinkled with the dandy's famous invocations. 
 
 He began to conceive romance in that sort of fun. 
 
 " You're a wopper, my brave Dick ! won't let any peeler 
 take me ? by Jove ! " 
 
 And he with many assurances guaranteed to stand by her, 
 while she bent her thin fingers trying the muscle of his arm, 
 and reposed upon it more. There was delicacy in her 
 dandyism. She was a graceful cavalier. 
 
 " Sir Julius," as they named the dandy's attire, was fre- 
 quently called for on his evening visits to Mrs. Mount. 
 When he beheld Sir Julius he thought of the lady, and " vice 
 versaw," as Sir Julius was fond of ezclaiming. 
 
AN ENCHANTRESS. 373 
 
 Was ever hero in this fashion wooed ? 
 
 The woman now and then would peep through Sir Julius. 
 Or she would sit, and talk, and altogether forget she was 
 impersonating that worthy fop. 
 
 She never uttered an idea or a reflection, hut Richard 
 thought hor the cleverest woman he had ever met. 
 
 All kinds of problematic notions beset him. She was cold 
 as ice, she hated talk about love, and she was branded by 
 the world. 
 
 A rumour spread that reached Mrs. Doria's ears. She 
 rushed to Adrian first. The wise youth believed there was 
 nothing in it. She sailed full down upon Richard. " Is this 
 true ? that you have been seen going publicly about with 
 an infamous woman, Richard r" Tell me! pray relieve me !" 
 
 Richard knew of no person answering to his aunt's de- 
 scription in whose company he could have been seen. 
 
 " Tell me, I say ! Don't quibble. Do you know any 
 woman of bad character ?" 
 
 The acquaintance of a lady very much misjudged and ill- 
 used by the world, Richard admitted to. 
 
 Urgent grave advice Mrs. Doria tendered her nephew, 
 both from the moral and the worldly point of view, mentally 
 ejaculating all the while : " That ridiculous System ! That 
 disgraceful marriage !" Sir Austin in his mountain solitude 
 was furnished with serious stuff to brood over. 
 
 The rumour came to Lady Blandish. She likewise lectured 
 Richard, and with her he condescended to argue. But he 
 found himself obliged to instance something he had quite 
 neglected. " Instead of her doing me harm, it's I that will 
 do her good." 
 
 Lady Blandish shook her head and held up her finger. 
 " This person m.ust be very clever to have given you that 
 delusion, dear." 
 
 " She is clever. And the world treats her shamefully." 
 
 " She complains of her position to you ?" 
 
 " Not a word. But I will stand by her. She has no 
 friend but me." 
 
 " My poor boy ! has she made you think that ? " 
 
 " How unjust you all are !" cried Richard. 
 
 " How mad and wicked is the man who can let him be 
 tempted so !" thought Lady Blandish. 
 
 He would pronounce no promise not to visit her, not to 
 
374 THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 address her publicly. The world that condemned her and 
 cast her oat was no better — worse for its miserable hypocrisy. 
 He knew the world now, the young man said. 
 
 " My child ! the world may be very bad. I am not going 
 to defend it. But you have some one else to think of. Have 
 you forgotten you have a wife, Richard ?" 
 
 " Ay ! you all speak of her now. There's my aunt : 
 ' Remember you have a wife !' Do you think I love any one 
 but Lucy ? poor little thing ! Because I am m.arried am I 
 to give up the society of women ?" 
 
 " Of women !" 
 
 " Isn't she a woman ?" 
 
 " Too much so !" sighed the defender of her sex. 
 
 Adrian becam.e more emphatic in his warnings. Richard 
 laughed at him. The wise youth sneered at Mrs. Mount. 
 The hero then favoured him with a warning equal ^to his 
 own in emphasis, and surpassing it in sincerity. 
 
 " We won't quarrel, my dear boy," said Adrian. " I'm a 
 man of peace. Besides, we are not fairly proportioned for a 
 combat. Ride your steed to virtue's goal ! All I say is, that 
 I think he'll upset you,- and it's better to go at a slow pace 
 and in companionship with the children of the sun. Tou 
 have a very nice little woman for a wife — well, good-bye ! " 
 
 To have his wife and the world thrown at his face, was 
 unendurable to Richard ; he associated them somewhat after 
 the manner of the rick and the marriage. Charming Sir 
 Julius, always gay, always honest, dispersed his black moods. 
 
 " Why, you're taller," Richard made the discovery. 
 
 " Of course I am. Don't you remember you said I was 
 such a little thing when I came out of my woman's shell ?" 
 
 " And how have you done it ?" 
 
 " Grown to please you." 
 
 " Now, if you can do that, you can do anything." 
 
 " And so I would do anything." 
 
 " Tou would ?" 
 
 "Honour!" 
 
 " Then "... his project recurred to him. But the in- 
 congruity of speaking seriously to Sir Julius struck him 
 dumb. 
 
 " Then what ?" asked she. 
 
 " Then you're a gallant fellow." 
 
 " That all ?" 
 
AN ENCHANTRESS. 375 
 
 " Isn't it enough ?" 
 
 " Not quite. You were going to say something. I saw it 
 5n your eyes." 
 
 " Tou saw that I admired you." 
 
 " Yes, but a man mustn't admire a man." 
 
 " I suppose I had an idea you were a woman." 
 
 " What ! when I had the heels of my hoots raised half an 
 inch," Sir Julius turned one heel, and volleyed out silver 
 laughter. 
 
 " I don't come much above your shoulder even now," she 
 said, and proceeded to measure her height beside him with 
 arch up-glances. 
 
 " You must grow more." 
 
 " 'Praid I can't, Dick ! Bootmakers can't do it." 
 
 " I'll show you how," and he lifted Sir Julius lightly, and 
 ■bore the fair gentleman to the looking-glass, holding him 
 there exactly on a level with his head. " Will that do ?" 
 
 " Yes ! Oh but I can't stay here." 
 
 " Why can't you ?" 
 
 "Why can't I?" 
 
 Their eyes met. He put her down instantly. 
 
 Sir Julias, charming as he was, lost his vogue. Seeing 
 •that, the wily woman resumed her shell. The memory of 
 Sir Julius breathing about her still, doubled the feminine 
 .attraction. 
 
 " I ought to have been an actress," she said. 
 
 Richard told her he found all natural women had a similar 
 wish. 
 
 " Yes ! Ah ! then ! if I had been !" sighed Mrs. Mount, 
 gazing on the pattern of the carpet. 
 
 He took her hand, and pressed it. 
 
 " You are not happy as you are ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " May I speak to you ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Her nearest eye, setting ;a dimple of her cheek in motion, 
 ■slid to the corner toward her ear, as she sat with her head 
 sideways to him listening. When he had gone, she said to 
 herself : " Old hypocrites talk in that way ; but I never 
 heard of a young man doing it, and not making love at the 
 isame time." 
 
 Their next meeting displayed her quieter : subdued as one 
 
376 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 who had been set thinking. He lauded her fair looks, 
 " Don't make me thrice ashamed," she petitioned. 
 
 But it was not only that mood with her. Dauntless 
 defiance that splendidly befitted her gallant outline and gave 
 a wildness to her bright bold eyes, when she would call out : 
 " Happy ? who dares say I'm not happy ? D' you think if 
 the world whips me I'll wince? D' you think I care for 
 what they say or do ? Let them kill me ! they shall never 
 get one cry out of me !" and flashing on the young man as 
 if he were the congregated enemy, add : " There ! now you 
 know me !" — that was a mood that well became her, and 
 helped the work. She ought to have been an actress. 
 
 " This must not go on," said Lady Blandish and Mrs. 
 Doria in unison. A common object brought them together. 
 They confined their talk to it, and did not disagree. Mrs.. 
 Doria engaged to go down to the baronet. Both ladies knew 
 it was a dangerous, likely to turn out a disastrous, expedi- 
 tion. They agreed to it because it was something to do, 
 and doing anything is better than doing nothing. " Do it," 
 said the wise youth, when they made him a third, " do it, if 
 you want him. to be a hermit for life. You will laring back 
 nothing but his dead body, ladies — a Hellenic, rather than, 
 a Roman, triumph. He will listen to you — he will accom- 
 pany you to the station — ^he will hand you into the carriage- 
 — and when you point to his seat he will bow profoundly,. 
 and retire into his congenial mists." 
 
 Adrian spoke their thoughts. They fretted ; they re- 
 lapsed. 
 
 " Speak to him, you, Adrian," said Mrs. Doria. " Speak 
 to the boy solemnly. It would be almost better he shouldl 
 go back to that little thing he has married." 
 
 " Almost ?" Lady Blandish opened her eyes. " I have- 
 been advising it for the last month and more." 
 
 "A choice of evils," said Mrs. Doria's sour-sweet face and 
 shake of the head. 
 
 Each lady saw a point of dissension, and mutually agreed,, 
 with heroic effort, to avoid it by shutting their months.. 
 What was more, they preserved the peace in spite of Adrian's 
 clever artifices. 
 
 "Well, I'll talk to him again," he said. " I'll try to get, 
 the Engine on the conventional line." 
 
 " Command him ! " exclaimed Mrs. Doria. 
 
AN ENOHANTEESS. 377 
 
 " Command an Engine, ma'am P " 
 
 " Gentle means are, I think, the only means with Richard," 
 said Lady Blandish. 
 
 " Appeal to his reason," Mrs. Doria iterated. 
 " The reason of an Engine, ma'am ? " 
 Throwing banter aside, as much as he could, Adrian spoke 
 to Richard. " Ton want to reform this woman. Her manner 
 is open — fair and free — the traditional characteristic. We 
 won't stop to canvass how that particular honesty of deport- 
 ment that wins your approbation has been gained. In her 
 college it is not uncommon. Girls, you know, are not like 
 boys. At a certain age they can't be quite natural. It's 
 a bad sign if they don't blush, and fib, and affect this and 
 that. It wears off when they're women. But a woman who 
 speaks like a man, and has all those excellent virtues you 
 admire — where has she learnt the trick ? She tells you. 
 Ton don't surely approve of the school ? Well, what is 
 there in it, then ? Reform her, of course. The task is 
 worthy of your energies. But, if yon are appointed to do 
 it, don't do it publicly, and don't attempt it just now. 
 May I ask you whether your wife participates in this 
 undertaking." 
 
 Richard walked away from the interrogation. The wise 
 youth, who hated long unrelieved speeches and had healed 
 his conscience, said no more. 
 
 Dear tender Lucy ! Poor darling ! Richard's eyes mois- 
 tened. Her letters seemed sadder latterly. Yet she never 
 called to him to come, or he would have gone. His heart 
 leapt up to her. He announced to Adrian that he should 
 wait no longer for his father. Adrian placidly nodded. 
 
 The enchantress observed that her knight had a clouded 
 brow and an absent voice. 
 
 "Richard — I can't call you Dick now, I really don't know 
 why " — she said, " I want to beg a favour of you." 
 
 " Name it. I can still call you Bella, I suppose ? " 
 
 " If you care to. What I want to say is this : when you 
 meet me out — to cut it short — please not to recognize me." 
 
 " And why ? " 
 
 " Do you ask to be told that ? " 
 
 " Certainly I do." 
 
 " Then look : I won't compromise you." 
 
 "I see no harm, Bella." 
 
378 THE OEDEAL OF KICHARD FEVEREL. 
 
 "No," she caressed Ms hand, " and there is none. I know 
 that. But," modest eyelids were drooped, " other people 
 •do," struggling eyes were raised. 
 
 " What do we care for other people ? " 
 " Nothing. I don't. Not that ! " snapping her finger, 
 "I care for you, though." A prolonged look followed the 
 declaration. 
 
 " You're foolish, Bella." 
 " Not quite so giddy — that's all." 
 
 He did not combat it with his usual impetuosity. 
 Adrian's abrupt inquiry had sunk in his mind, as the wise 
 youth intended it should. He had instinctively refrained 
 from speaking to Lucy of this lady. But what a noble crea- 
 ture the woman was ! 
 
 So they met in the Park ; Mrs. Mount whipped past him ; 
 and secrecy added a new sense to their intimacy. 
 
 Adrian was gratified at the result produced by his 
 •eloquence. 
 
 Though this lady never expressed an idea, Richard was 
 not mistaken in her cleverness. She could make evenings 
 pass gaily, and one was not the fellow to the other. She 
 ■could make you forget she was a woman, and then bring the 
 fact startlingly home to you. She could read men with one 
 •quiver of her haK-closed eye-lashes. She could catch the 
 coming mood in a man, and fit herself to it. What does a 
 woman want with ideas, who can do thus much ? Keenness 
 •of perception, conformity, delicacy of handling, these be all 
 ihe qualities necessary to parasites. 
 
 Love would have scared the youth : she banished it from 
 her tongue. It may also have been true that it sickened 
 her. She played on his higher nature. She understood 
 spontaneously what would be most strange and taking to 
 him in a woman. Various as the Serpent of old Nile, 
 she acted fallen beauty, humourous indifference, reckless 
 daring, arrogance in ruin. And acting thus, what think 
 you ? — She did it so well because she was growing half in 
 earnest. 
 
 " Richard ! I am not what I was since I knew you. Tou 
 Tsrill not give me up quite ? " 
 " Never, Bella." 
 
 " I am not so bad as I'm painted! " 
 " Tou are only unfortunate." 
 
AN ENCHANTEESS. 379 
 
 " Now tiiat I know yoii I think so, and yet I am happier." 
 She told him her history when this soft horizon of repent- 
 ance seemed to throw heaven's twilight across it. A woman's 
 history, yon know : certain chapters expunged. It was dark 
 enough to Richard. 
 
 " Did you love the man ? " he asked. " Ton say you love 
 no one now." 
 
 " Did T love him ? He was a nobleman and I a trades- 
 man's daughter. No. I did not love him. I have lived to 
 learn it. And now I should hate him, if I did not despise 
 Mm." 
 
 " Can you he deceived in love ? " said Richard, more to 
 iimself than to her. 
 
 " Tes. When we're young we can be very easily deceived. 
 If there is such a thing as love, we discover it after we have 
 "tossed about and roughed it. Then we find the man, or the 
 woman, that suits us : — and then it's too late ! we can't have 
 Mm." 
 
 " Singular ! " murmured Richard, " she says just what my 
 father said." 
 
 He spoke aloud : " I could forgive you if you had loved 
 him." 
 
 " Don't be harsh, grave judge ! How is a girl to distin- 
 guish ? " 
 
 " Tou had some affection for him ? He was the first ? " 
 She chose to admit that. " Tes. And the first who talks 
 of love to a girl must be a fool if he doesn't blind her." 
 " That makes what is called first love nonsense." 
 " Isn't it ? " 
 
 He repelled the insinuation. " Because I know it is not, 
 Bella." 
 
 Nevertheless she had opened a wider view of the world to 
 him, and a colder. He thought poorly of girls. A woman — 
 a sensible, brave, beaatiful woman seemed, on comparison, 
 infinitely nobler than those weak creatures. 
 
 She was best in her character of lovely rebel accusing foul 
 injustice. " What am I to do ? Tou tell me to be different. 
 How can I ? What am I to do ? Will virtuous people let 
 me earn my bread ? I could not get a housemaid's place ! 
 They wouldn't have me — I see their noses smelling ! Tes : 
 I can go to the hospital and sing behind a screen ! Do you 
 expect me to bury myself alive ? Why, man, I have blood : 
 
380 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 I can't become a stone. You say I am honest, and I will be. 
 Then let me tell you that I have been used to luxuries, and I 
 can't do without them. I might have married men — lots- 
 would have had me. But who marries one like me but a fool ? 
 and I could not marry a fool. The man I marry I must 
 respect. He could not respect me — I should know him to be 
 a fool, and I should be worse off than I am now. As I am 
 now they may look as pious as they like — I laugh at 
 them ! " 
 
 And so forth : direr things. Imputations upon wives r 
 horrible exultation at the universal peccancy of husbands. 
 This lovely outcast almost made him think she had the right 
 on her side, so keenly her Parthian arrows pierced the holy 
 centres of society, and exposed its rottenness. 
 
 Mrs. Mount's house was discreetly conducted: nothing- 
 ever occurred to shock him there. 'The young man would 
 ask himself where the difference was between her and the- 
 women of society ? How base, too, was the army of banded 
 hypocrites 1 He was ready to declare war against them on 
 her behalf. His casus belli, accurately worded, would have- 
 read curiously. Because the world refused to lure the lady 
 to virtue with the offer of a housemaid's place, our knight 
 thre-5v down his challenge. But the lady had scornfully 
 rebutted this prospect of a return to chastity. Then the 
 form of the challenge must be : Because the world declined 
 to support the lady in luxury for nothing! But what did' 
 that mean ? In other words : she was to receive the devil's 
 wages without rendering him her services. Such an ar- 
 rangement appears hardly fair on the world or on the devil. 
 Heroes will have to conquer both before they will get them 
 to subscribe to it. 
 
 Heroes, however, are not in the habit of wording their 
 declarations of war at all. Lance in rest they challenge and 
 they charge. Like women they trust to instinct, and graft 
 on it the muscle of men. Wide fly the leisurely-remonstrat- 
 ing hosts : institutions are scattered, they know not where- 
 fore, heads are broken that have not the balm of a reason 
 why. 'Tis instinct strikes ! Surely there is something 
 divine in instinct. 
 
 Still, war declared, where were these hosts ? The hero 
 could not charge down on the ladies and gentlemen in a ball- 
 room, and spoil the quadrille. He had sufficient reticence to 
 
AN ENCHANTRESS. 381 
 
 avoid sounding Ms challenge in the Law Courts ; nor could 
 he well go into the Houses of Parlianaent with a trumpet, 
 though to come to a tussle with the nation's direct repre- 
 sentatives did seem the likelier method. It was likewise 
 out of the question that he should enter every house and 
 shop, and battle with its master in the cause of Mrs. Mount. 
 Where, then, was his enemy. Everybody was his enemy, 
 and everybody was nowhere ! Shall he convoke multitudes 
 on Wimbledon Common ? Blue Policemen, and a distant 
 dread of ridicule, bar all his projects. Alas for the hero in 
 our day ! 
 
 Nothing teaches a strong arm its impotence so much as 
 knocking at empty air. 
 
 " What can I do for this poor woman ?" cried Richard, 
 after fighting his phantom enemy till he was worn out. 
 
 "O Rip! old Rip!" he addressed his friend, "I'm dis- 
 tracted. I wish I was dead ! What good am I for ? Miser- 
 able ! selfish ! What have I done but make every soul I 
 know wretched about me ? I follow my own inclinations — 
 I make people help me by lying as hard as they can — and 
 I'm a liar. And when I've got it I'm ashamed of myself. 
 And now when I do see something unselfish for me to do, T 
 cojae upon grins — I don't know where to turn — how to act 
 — and I laugh at myself like a devil !" 
 
 It was only friend Ripton's ear that was required, so his 
 words went for little : but he did say he thought there was 
 small matter to be ashamed of in winning and wearing the 
 Beauty of Earth. Richard added his customary comment 
 of "Poor little thing!" 
 
 He fought his duello with empty air till he was exhausted. 
 A last letter written to his father procured him no reply. 
 Then, said he, I have tried my utmost. I have tried to 
 be dutiful — my father won't listen to me. One thing I can 
 do — I can go down to my dear girl, and make her happy, 
 and save her at least from some of the consequences of my 
 rashness. 
 
 " There's nothing better for me !" he groaned. His great 
 ambition must be covered by a house-top : he and the cat 
 must warm themselves on the domestic hearth ! The hero 
 was not aware that his heart moved him to this. His heart 
 was not now in open communion with his mind. 
 
 Mrs. Mount heard that her friend was going — would go. 
 
382 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 She knew he was going to his wife. Far from discouraging' 
 him, she said nobly : " Gro— I believe I have kept yon. Let 
 ns have an evening together, and then go : for good if yon. 
 like. If not, then to meet again another time. Forget me.- 
 I sha'n't forget yon. Tour the best fellow I ever knew, 
 Richard. Ton are, on my honour! I swear I would not 
 step in between you and your wife to cause either of you a 
 moment's unhappiness. When I can be another woman I 
 vtIU, and I shall think of you then." 
 
 Lady Blandish heard from Adrian that Richard was posi- 
 tively going to his wife. The wise youth modestly veiled 
 his own merit in bringing it about by saying : " I couldn't 
 see that poor little woman left alone down there any 
 longer." 
 
 " Well ! Tes !" said Mrs. Doria, to whom the modest 
 speech was repeated, " I suppose, poor boy, it's the best he 
 can do now." 
 
 Richard bade them adieu, and went to spend his last 
 evening with Mrs. Mount. 
 
 The enchantress received him in state. 
 
 " Do you know this dress ? No ? It's the dress I wore 
 when I first met you — not when I first saw you. I think I 
 rem.arked you, sir, before you deigned to cast an eye upon 
 humble me. When we first met we drank champagne 
 together, and I intend to celebrate our parting in the same 
 liquor. Will you liquor with me, old boy ?" 
 
 She was gay. She revived Sir Julius occasionally. He, 
 dispirited, left the talking all to her. 
 
 Mrs. Mount kept a footman. At a late hour the man of 
 calves dressed the table for supper. It was a point of 
 honour for Richard to sit down to it and try to eat. Drink- 
 ing, thanks to the kindly mother nature, who loves to see 
 her children made fools of, is always an easier matter. The 
 footman was diligent : the champagne corks feebly recalled 
 the file-firing at Richmond. 
 
 " We'll drink to what we might have been, Dick," said 
 the enchantress. 
 
 Oh, the glorious wreck she looked. 
 
 His heart choked as he gulped the buzzing wine. 
 
 " What ! down, my boy ?" she cried. " They shall never 
 see me hoist signals of distress. We must all die, and the 
 secret of the thing is to die game, by Jove ! Did you ever 
 
AN ENOHAUTEESS. 383 
 
 tear of Laura Fenn P a superb girl ! handsomer than your 
 tumble servant — if you'll believe it — a ' Miss ' in the 
 bargain, and as a consequence, I suppose, a muob greater 
 rake. She was in the hunting-field. Her horse threw her, 
 and she fell plump on a stake. It went into her left breast. 
 All the fellows crowded round her, and one young man, who 
 was in love with her — ^he sits in the House of Peers now — 
 we used to call him ' Duck ' because he was such a dear — 
 he dropped from his horse to his knees : ' Laura ! Laura ! 
 my darling ! speak a word to me ! — the last ! ' She turned 
 over all white and bloody ! ' I — I shan't be in at the death ! ' 
 and gave up the ghost ! Wasn't that dying game ? Here's 
 to the example of Laura Fenn ! Why, what's the matter ? 
 See ! it makes a man turn pale to hear how a woman can 
 die. Fill the glasses, John. Why, you're as bad ! " 
 
 " It's give me a turn, my lady," pleaded John, and the 
 man's hand was unsteady as he poured out the wine. 
 
 " Tou ought not to listen. Go, and drink some brandy." 
 
 John footman went from the room. 
 
 " My brave Dick ! Richard ! what a face you've got ! " 
 
 He showed a deep frown on a colourless face. 
 
 " Can't you bear to hear of blood ? Tou know, it was only 
 one naughty woman out of the world. The clergyman of 
 the parish didn't refuse to give her decent burial. We are 
 Christians ! Hurrah ! " 
 
 She cheered, and laughed. A lurid splendour glanced 
 about her like lights from the pit. 
 
 " Pledge me, Dick ! Drink, and recover yourself. Who 
 minds ? We must all die — the good and the bad. Ashes to 
 ashes — dust to dust — and wine for living lips ! That's 
 poetry — almost. Sentiment : ' May we never say die till 
 we've drunk our fill ! ' Not bad — eh ? A little vulgar, per- 
 haps, by Jove ! Do you think me horrid ? " 
 
 " WTiere's the wine ? " Richard shouted. He drank a 
 couple of glasses in succession, and stared about. Was he in 
 hell, with a lost soul raving to him ? 
 
 " Nobly spoken ! and nobly acted upon, my brave Dick ! 
 Now we'll be companions. ' She wished that heaven had 
 made her such a man.' Ah, Dick ! Dick ! too late ! too 
 late ! " 
 
 Softly fell her voice. Her eyes threw slanting beams. 
 
 " Do you see this ? " 
 
384 THE OEDEAL OF EIOHAKD FEVERBL. 
 
 She pointed to a symbolic golden anchor studded with 
 gems and coiled with a rope of hair in her bosom. It was a 
 gift of his. 
 
 "Do you know when I stole the lock? Foolish Dick! 
 you gave me an anchor without a rope. Come and see." 
 
 She rose from the table, and threw herself on the sofa. 
 
 " Don't you recognize your own hair ! I should know a 
 thread of mine among a million." 
 
 Something of the strength of Samson went out of him as 
 he inspected his hair on the bosom of Delilah. 
 
 " And you knew nothing of it ! Tou hardly know it now 
 you see it ! What couldn't a woman steal from you ? But 
 you're not vain, and that's a protection. You're a miracle, 
 Dick : a man that's not vain ! Sit here." She curled up 
 her feet to give him place on the sofa. " Now let us talk 
 like friends that part to meet no more. Tou found a ship 
 with fever on board, and you weren't afraid to come along- 
 side and keep her company. The fever isn't catching, you 
 see. Let us mingle our tears together. Ha ! ha ! a man 
 said that once to me. The hypocrite wanted to catch the 
 fever, but he was too old. How old are you, Dick ? " 
 
 Richard pushed a few months forward. 
 
 " Twenty-one ? Tou just look it, you blooming boy. Now 
 tell me my age, Adonis ! — Twenty — what ? " 
 
 Richard had given the lady twenty-five years. 
 
 She laughed violently. " Tou don't pay compliments, 
 Dick. Best to be honest ; Guess again. Tou don't like 
 to ? Not twenty-five, or twenty-four, or twenty-three, or — 
 see how he begins to stare ! — twenty-two. Just twenty-one, 
 my dear. I think my birthday's somewhere in next month. 
 Why, look at me, close^closer. Have I a wrinkle ? " 
 
 " And when, in heaven's name ! "... he stopped short. 
 
 " I understand you. When did I commence for to live ? 
 At the ripe age of sixteen I saw a nobleman in despair 
 because of my beauty. He vowed he'd die. I didn't want 
 him to do that. So to save the poor man for his family, I 
 ran away with him, and I dare say they didn't appreciate 
 the sacrifice, and he soon forgot to, if he ever did. It's the 
 way of the world ! " 
 
 " Where's the wine ? " cried Richard. He seized some 
 dead champagne, emptied the bottle into a tumbler, and 
 drank it off. 
 
AN ENCHANTRESS. 385 
 
 John footman entered to clear the table, and they were 
 left without further interruption. 
 
 " Bella ! Bella ! " Richard uttered in a deep sad Toice, as 
 he walked the room. 
 
 She leaned on her arm, her hair crushed against a red- 
 dened cheek, her eyes half-shut and dreamy. 
 
 " Bella ! " he dropped beside her. " You are unhappy." 
 
 She blinked and yawned, as one who is awaked suddenly. 
 " I think you spoke," said she. 
 
 " You are unhappy, Bella. You can't conceal it. Your 
 laugh sounds like madness. You must be unhappy. So 
 young, too ! Only twenty-one ! " 
 
 " What does it matter ? Who cares for me ? " 
 
 The mighty pity falling from his eyes took in her whole 
 shape. She did not mistake it for tenderness, as another 
 would have done. 
 
 " Who cares for you, Bella ? I do. What makes my 
 misery now, but to see you there, and know of no way of 
 helping you ? Father of mercy ! it seems too much to have 
 to stand by powerless while such a ruin is going on ! " 
 
 Her hand was shaken in his by the passion of torment 
 with which his frame quaked. 
 
 Involuntarily a tear started between her eyelids. She 
 glanced up at him quickly, then looked down, drew her hand 
 from his, and smoothed it, eyeing it. 
 
 " Bella ! you have a father alive ! " 
 
 " A linendraper, dear. He wears a white neck-cloth." 
 
 This article of apparel instantaneously changed the tone 
 of the conversation, for he, rising abruptly, nearly squashed 
 the lady's lap-dog, whose squeaks and howls were piteous, 
 and demanded the most fervent caresses of its mistress. It 
 was : " Oh, my poor pet Mumpsy, and he didn't like a nasty 
 great big ugly heavy foot on his poor soft silky — mum — 
 mum — back, he didn't, and he soodn't that he — mum — mum 
 — soodn't ; and he cried out and knew the place to come to, 
 and was oh so sorry for what had happened to him — mum 
 — mum — mum — and now he was going to be made happy, 
 his mistress make him happy — mum — mum — mum — 
 moo-o-o-o. ' 
 
 " Yes ! " said Eichard savagely, from the other end of the 
 room, " you care for the happiness of your dog." 
 
 2 c 
 
386 THE OEDEAl OF EICHAKD FEVEEEL. 
 
 " A course se does," Mumpsy was simperingly assured in 
 the tMck of his silky flanks. 
 
 Richard looked for his hat. Mampsy was deposited on 
 the sofa in a twinkling. 
 
 " Now," said the lady, " you must come and beg Mumpsy's 
 pardon whether you meant to do it or no, because little 
 doggies can't tell that — how should they ? And there's poor 
 Mumpsy thinking you're a great terrible rival that tries to 
 squash him. all flat to nothing, on purpose, pretending you 
 didn't see ; and he's trembling, poor dear wee pet ! And I 
 may love my dog, sir, if I like ; and I do ; and I won't have 
 him ill-treated, for he's never been jealous of you, and he is 
 a darling, ten times truer than men, and I love him flfty 
 times better. So come to him with me." 
 
 First a smile changed Richard's face ; then laughing a 
 melancholy laugh, he surrendered to her humour, and went 
 through the form, of begging Mumpsy's pardon. 
 
 " The dear dog ! I do believe he saw we were getting 
 dull," said she. 
 
 " And immolated himself intentionally ? Noble animal ! " 
 
 "Well, we'll act as if we thought so. Let us be gay, 
 Richard, and not part like ancient fogies. Where's your 
 fun ? You can rattle ; why don't you ? Tou haven't seen 
 m.e in one of my characters — not Sir Julius : wait a couple 
 of minutes." She ran out. 
 
 A white visage reappeared behind a spring of flame. Her 
 black hair was scattered over her shoulders and fell half 
 across her brows. She moved slowly, and came up to him, 
 fastening weird eyes on him, pointing a finger at the region 
 of witches. Sepulchral cadences accompanied the repre- 
 sentation. He did not listen, for he was thinking what a 
 deadly charming and exquisitely horrid witch she was. 
 Something in the way her underlids worked seemed to 
 remind him of a forgotten picture ; but a veil hung on the 
 picture. There could be no analogy, for this was beautiful 
 and devilish, and that, if he remembered rightly, had the 
 beauty of seraphs. 
 
 His reflections and her performance were stayed by a 
 shriek. The spirits of wine had run over the plate she held 
 to the floor. She had the coolness to put the plate down on 
 the table, while he stamped out the flame on the carpet. 
 Again she shrieked : she thought she was on fire. He fell 
 
XS ENCHANTEESS. 387 
 
 ■on his knees and clasped her skirts all round, drawing his 
 arms down them several times. 
 
 Still kneeling, he looked up, and asked, " Do you feel safe 
 now ?" 
 
 She bent her face glaring down till the ends of her hair 
 touched his cheek. 
 
 Said she, " Do you ?" 
 
 Was she a witch verily ? There was sorcery in her breath; 
 sorcery in her hair : the ends of it stung him like little 
 -snakes. 
 
 " How do I do it, Dick ?" She flung back laughing.' ' 
 
 " Like you do everything, Bella," he said, and took a 
 breath. 
 
 "There! I won't be a witch; I won't be a witch: they 
 may bum me to a cinder, but I won't be a witch !" 
 
 She sang, throwing her hair about, and stamping her feet. 
 
 " I suppose I look a figure. I must go and tidy myself." 
 
 " No, don't change. I like to see you so." He gazed at 
 her with a mixture of wonder and admiration. " I can't 
 think you the same person — not even when you laugh." 
 
 "Richard," her tone was serious, "you were going to speak 
 to me of my parents." 
 
 " How wild and awful you looked, Bella ! " 
 
 " My father, Richard, was a very respectable man." 
 
 " Bella, you'll haunt me like a ghost." 
 
 •' My mother died in my infancy, Richard." 
 
 " Don't put up your hair, Bella." 
 
 " I was an only child !" 
 
 Her head shook sorrowfully at the glistening fire-irons. 
 He followed the abstracted intentness of her look, and came 
 upon her words. 
 
 "Ah, yes! speak of your father, Bella. Speak of him." 
 
 " Shall I haunt you, and come to your bedside, and cry, 
 "Tistime!'?" 
 
 " Dear Bella ! if you will tell me where he lives, I will go 
 to him. He shall receive you. He shall not refuse — he 
 shall forgive you." 
 
 " If I haunt you, you can't forget me, Richard." 
 
 " Let me go to your father, Bella — let me go to him to- 
 morrow. I'll give you my time. It's all I can give. 
 Hella ! let me save you." 
 
 " So you like me best dishevelled, do you, you naughty 
 
 2c2 
 
388 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 boy! Ha ! ha !" and away she burst from him, and up flew 
 her hair, as she danced across the room, and fell at full 
 length on the sofa. 
 
 He felt giddy: bewitched. 
 
 "We'll talk of everyday things, Dick," she called to him 
 from the sofa. " It's our last evening. Our last? Heighol 
 It makes me sentimental. How's that Mr. Ripson, Pipson, 
 Nipson ? — it's not complimentary, but I can't remember 
 names of that sort. Why do you have friends of that sort ? 
 He's not a gentleman. Better is he ? Well, he's rather too- 
 insignificant for me. Why do you sit off there ? Gome to 
 me instantly. There — ^I'll sit up, and be proper, and you'll 
 have plenty of room. Talk, Dick ! " 
 
 He was reflecting on the fact that her eyes were brown. 
 They had a haughty sparkle when she pleased, and whea 
 Bhe pleased a soft languor circled them. Excitement 
 had dyed her cheeks deep red. He was a youth, and she 
 an enchantress. He a hero ; she a female will-o'-the- 
 wisp. 
 
 The eyes were languid now, set in rosy colour. 
 
 " Ton will not leave me yet, Richard ? not yet ?" 
 
 He had no thought of departing. 
 
 " It's our last night — I suppose it's our last hour together 
 in this world — and I don't want to meet you in the next, for 
 poor Dick will have to come to such a very, very disagree- 
 able place to make the visit." 
 
 He grasped her tand at this. 
 
 " Tes, he will ! too true ! can't be helped : They say I'mi 
 handsome." 
 
 " You're lovely, Bella." 
 
 She drank in his homage. 
 
 " Well, we'U admit it. His Highness below Hkes lovely- 
 women, I hear say. A gentlemen of taste ! Tou don't know 
 all my accomplishments yet, Richard." 
 
 " I sha'n't be astonished at anything new, Bella." 
 
 " Then hear, and wonder." Her voice trolled out some- 
 lively roulades. " Don't you think he'll make me his prima^ 
 donna below ? It's nonsense to tell me there's no singing 
 there. And the atmosphere will be favourable to the voice. 
 No damp, you know. Tou saw the piano — why didn't you 
 ask me to sing before ? I can sing Italian. I had a master 
 — who made love to me. I forgave him because of the 
 
AN ENCHANTRESS. 389 
 
 music-stool — men can't help it on a music-stool, poor 
 dears ! " 
 
 She went to the piano, struck the notes, and sang — 
 
 " • My heart, my heart — I think 'twJl break.' 
 
 " Because I'm such a rate. I don't know any other 
 xeason. No ; I hate sentimental songs. Won't sing that. 
 Ta-tiddy-tiddy-iddy — a . . . e ! How ridiculous those 
 women were, coming home from Richmond ! 
 
 " ' Once the sweet romance of story 
 
 Clad thy moving form with grace ; 
 Once the world and all its glory 
 
 Was but framework to thy face. 
 Ah, too fair ! — what I remember. 
 
 Might my sonl recall — but no 1 
 To the winds this wretched ember 
 
 Of a fire that falls so low 1 ' 
 
 " Hum ! don't much like that. Tum-te-tum.-tum — accanto 
 al fuoco — ^heigho ! I don't want to show off, Dick — or to 
 break down — so I won't try that. 
 
 '" Oh ! but for thee, Oh I but for thee, 
 I might have been a happy wife. 
 And nmrsed a baby on my knee, 
 And never blushed to give it life.' 
 
 " I used to sing that when I was a girl, sweet Richard, 
 and didn't know at all, at all, what it meant. Mustn't sing 
 that sort of song in company. We're oh ! so proper — even 
 we! 
 
 " ' If I had a husband, what think yon I'd do 1 
 I'd make it my business to keep him a lover ; 
 For when a young gentleman ceases to woo, 
 Some other amusement he'll quickly discover.' 
 
 " For such are young gentlemen made of — made of : such 
 are young gentlemen made of ! " 
 
 After this trifling she sang a Spanish ballad sweetly. He 
 was in the mood when the imagination intensely vivifies 
 everything. Mere suggestions of music sufficed. The lady 
 in the ballad had been wronged. Lo ! it was the lady 
 before him ; and soft horns blew ; he smelt the languid 
 night-flowers ; he saw the stars crowd large and close above 
 
390 THE OKDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 the arid plain : this lady leamng at Iter window desolate,, 
 pouring out her abandoned heart. 
 
 Heroes know little what they owe to champagne. 
 
 The lady wandered to Venice. Thither he followed her at 
 a leap. In Venice she was not happy. He was prepared 
 for the misery of any woman anywhere. But, oh ! to be 
 with her ! To glide with phantom-motion through throbbing 
 streets ; past houses muffled in shadow and gloomy legends ; 
 under storied bridges ; past palaces charged with full life in 
 dead quietness ; past grand old towers, colossal squares, 
 gleaming quays, and out, and on with her, on into the silver 
 infinity shaking oyer seas ! 
 
 Was it the champagne ? the music ? or the poetry ? 
 Something of the two former, perhaps : but most the 
 enchantress playing upon him. How many instruments 
 cannot clever women play upon at the same moment ! And 
 this enchantress was not too clever, or he might have felt 
 her touch. She was no longer absolutely bent on winning 
 him, or he might have seen a manceuvre. She liked him — 
 liked none better. She wished him well. Her pique was 
 satisfied. Still he was handsome, and he was going. What 
 she liked him for, she rather — very slightly — wished to do 
 away with, or see if it could be done away with : just as one 
 wishes to catch a pretty butterfly, without hurting its pat- 
 terned wings. No harm intended to the innocent insect, 
 only one wants to inspect it thoroughly, and enjoy the mar- 
 vel of it, in one's tender possession, and have the felicity of 
 thinking one could crush it, if one would. 
 
 He knew her what she was, this lady. In Seville, or in 
 Venice, the spot was on her. Sailing the pathways of the 
 moon it was not celestial light that illumined her beauty. 
 Her sin was there : but in dreaming to save, he was soft tO' 
 her sin — drowned it in deep mournfulness. 
 
 Silence, and the rustle of her dress, awoke him from his 
 musing. She swam wave-like to the sofa. Shewas at his feet. 
 
 " I have been light and careless to-night, Richard. Of 
 course I meant it. I must be happy with my best friend 
 going to leave me." 
 
 Those witch underlids were working brightly. 
 
 " Tou will not forget me ? and I shall try . . . try . . ." 
 
 Her lips twitched. She thought him such a very hand- 
 some fellow. 
 
A BEEET TO THE EESCUE. 391 
 
 " If I change — if I can change . . . Oh ! if you could 
 know what a net I'm in, Richard !" 
 
 Now at those words, as he looked down on her haggard 
 loveliness, not divine sorrow but a devouring jealousy sprang 
 like fire in his breast, and set him rocking with horrid pain. 
 He bent closer to her pale beseeching face. Her eyes still 
 drew him down. 
 
 " Bella ! No ! no ! promise me ! swear it !" 
 
 " Lost, Richard ! lost for ever ! give me up !" 
 
 He cried : " I never will !" and strained her in his arms, 
 and kissed her passionately on the lips. 
 
 She was not acting now as she sidled and slunk her half- 
 averted head with a kind of maiden shame under his arm, 
 sighing heavily, weeping, clinging to him. It was wicked 
 truth. 
 
 Not a word of love between them ! 
 
 Was ever hero in this fashion won P 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 THE LITTLE BIED AND THE FALCON : A BEEET TO THE EESOTE ! 
 
 At a season when the pleasant South-western island has 
 few attractions to other than invalids and hermits ena- 
 moured of wind and rain, the potent nobleman, Lord Mount- 
 falcon, still lingered there to the disgust of his friends and 
 special parasite. "Mount's in for it again," they said 
 among themselves. "Hang the women!" was a natural 
 sequence. For, don't you see, what a shame it was of the 
 women to be always kindling such a very inflammable 
 subject ! All understood that Oupid had twanged his bow, 
 and transfixed a peer of Britain for the fiftieth time : but 
 none would perceive, thoagh he vouched for it with his 
 m.ost eloquent oaths, that this was a totally different case 
 from the antecedent ones. So it had been sworn to them 
 too frequently before. He was as a man with mighty 
 tidings, and no language : intensely communicative, but 
 inarticulate. Good round oaths had formerly compassed 
 and expounded his noble emotions. They were now quite 
 beyond the comprehension of blasphemy, even when empha- 
 sized, and by this the poor lord divinely felt the case was 
 
392 THE OEDEAL OF RICHAKD FEVEREL. 
 
 different. There is sometliing impressive in a great human 
 hulk writhing under the unutterable torments of a mastery- 
 he cannot contend with, or account for, or explain by means 
 of intelligible words. At first he took refuge in the depths 
 of his contempt for women. Cupid gave him line. When 
 he had come to vent his worst of them, the fair face stamped 
 on his brain beamed the more triumphantly : so the har- 
 pooned whale rose to the surface, and after a few convul- 
 sions, surrendered his huge length. My lord was in love 
 with Richard's young wife. He gave proofs of it by bury- 
 ing himself beside her. To her, could she have seen it, he 
 gave further proofs of a real devotion, in affecting, and in 
 her presence feeling, nothing beyond a lively interest in her 
 well-being. This wonder, that when near her he should be 
 cool and composed, and when away from her wrapped in a 
 tempest of desires, was matter for what powers of cogitation 
 the heavy nobleman possessed. 
 
 The Hon. Peter, tired of his journeys to and fro, urged 
 him to press the business. Lord Mountfalcon was wiser, 
 or more scrupulous, than his parasite. Almost every even- 
 ing he saw Lucy. The inexperienced little wife apprehended 
 no harm in his visits. Moreover, Richard had commended 
 her to the care of Lord Mountfalcon, and Lady Judith. 
 Lady Judith had left the island for London : Lord Mount- 
 falcon remained. There could be no harm. If she had ever 
 thought so, she no longer did. Secretly, perhaps, she wag 
 flattered. Lord Mountfalcon was as well educated as it is 
 the fortune of the run of titled elder sons to be : he could 
 talk and instruct : he was a lord : and he let her understand 
 that he was wicked, very wicked, and that she improved 
 him. The heroine, in common with the hero, has her 
 ambition to be of use in the world — to do some good : and 
 the task of reclaiming a bad man is extremely seductive 
 to good women. Dear to their tender bosoms as old 
 china is a bad man they are mending ! Lord Mountfalcon 
 had none of the arts of a libertine : his gold, his title, 
 and his person, had hitherto preserved him from having 
 long to sigh in vain, or sigh at all, possibly: the Hon. 
 Peter did his villanies for him. No alarm was given to 
 Lucy's pure instinct, as might have been the case had my 
 lord been over-adept. It was nice in her martyrdom to havo 
 a true friend to support her, and really to be able to do 
 
A BEERY TO THE RESCUE. 393 
 
 something for that friend. Too simple-minded to think 
 much of his lordship's position, she was yet a woman. " He, 
 a great nobleman, does not scorn to acknowledge me, and 
 think something of me," may have been one of the half- 
 thoughts passing through her now and then, as she reflected 
 in self-defence on the proud family she had married into. 
 
 January was watering and freezing old earth by turns, 
 when the Hon. Peter travelled down to the sun of his purse 
 with great news. He had no sooner broached his lordship's 
 immediate weakness, than Mountfalcon began to plunge like 
 a heavy dragoon in difficulties. He swore by this and that 
 he had come across an angel for his sins, and would do her 
 no hurt. The next moment he swore she must be his, though 
 she cursed like a cat. His lordship's illustrations were not 
 choice. " I haven't advanced an inch," he groaned. " Bray, 
 der ! upon my soul, that little woman could do anything 
 with me. By heaven ! I'd marry her to-morrow. Here I 
 am, seeing her every day in the week out or in, and what do 
 you think she gets me to talk about ? — history ! Isn't it 
 enough to make a fellow mad ? and there am I lecturing like 
 a prig, and by heaven ! while I'm at it I feel a pleasure in 
 it; and when I leave the house I should feel an immense 
 gratification in shooting somebody. What do they say in 
 town ?" 
 
 " Not much," said Brayder significantly. 
 
 " When's that fellow — her husband — coming down ?" 
 
 " I rather hope we've settled him for life. Mount." 
 
 Nobleman and parasite exchanged looks. 
 
 " How d'ye mean ?" 
 
 Brayder hummed an air, and broke it to say, " He's in for 
 Don Juan at a gallop, that's all." 
 
 " The deuce ! Has Bella got him ?" Mountfalcon asked 
 with eagerness. 
 
 Brayder handed my lord a letter. It was dated from the 
 Sussex coast, signed " Richard," and was worded thus : 
 
 " My beautiful Devil ! — 
 
 " Since we're both devils together, and have found each 
 other out, come to me at once, or I shall be going somewhere 
 in a hurry. Come, my bright hell-star ! I ran away from 
 you, and now I ask you to come to me ! Tou have taught 
 me how devils love, and I can't do without you. Come an 
 hour after you receive this." 
 
394 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEREL. 
 
 Mountfalcon turned over the letter to see if there "svas anjr 
 more. " Complimentary love-epistle !" lie remarked, and 
 rising from Ms chair and striding about, muttered, " The- 
 dog ! how infamously he treats his wife !" 
 
 " Very had," said Brayder. 
 
 " How did you get hold of this ?" 
 
 " Strolled into Bella's dressing-room, waiting for her — 
 turned over her pincushion hap-hazard. Tou know her 
 trick." 
 
 " By Jove ! I think that girl does it on purpose. Thank 
 heaven, I haven't written her any letters for an age. Is 
 she going to him ?" 
 
 " Not she ! But it's odd, Mount ! — did you ever know her 
 refuse money before ? She tore up the cheque in style, and 
 presented me the fragments with two or three of the deli- 
 cacies of language she learnt at your Academy. I rather 
 like to hear a woman swear. It embellishes her !" 
 
 Mountfalcon took counsel of his parasite as to the end the 
 letter could me made be serve. Both conscientiously agreed 
 that Richard's behaviour to his wife was infamous, and that 
 he at least deserved no mercy. " But," said his lordship, 
 " it won't do to show the letter. At first she'll be swearing- 
 it's false, and then she'll stick to him closer. I know the 
 Blut." 
 
 " The rule of contrary," said Brayder carelessly. " She 
 must see the trahison with her eyes. They believe their 
 eyes. There's your chance. Mount. Tou step in : you give 
 her revenge and consolation— two birds at one shot. That's- 
 what they like." 
 
 " You're an ass, Brayder," the nobleman exclaimed. 
 "You're an infernal blackguard. You talk of this little 
 woman as if she and other women were all of a piece. I 
 don't see anything I gain by this confounded letter. Her 
 husband's a brute — that's clear." 
 
 " Will you leave it to me, Mount ?" 
 
 " Be damned before I do !" muttered my lord. 
 
 " Thank you. Now see how this will end. Tou're too- 
 soft. Mount. You'll be made a fool of." 
 
 " I tell you, Brayder, there's nothing to be done. If I 
 carry her oS — I've been on the point of doing it every day — 
 what'll come of that ? She'll look — I can't stand her eyes — 
 I shall be a fool — worse off with her than I am now." 
 
A BEEEY TO THE EESCUE. 395 
 
 Mountfalcon yawned despondently. " And what do you 
 think ? " he pirrsued. " Isn't it enough to make a fellow 
 gnash his teeth ? She's . . ." he mentioned something in an 
 nnderbreath, and turned red as he said it. 
 
 " Hm ! " Brayder put up his month and rapped the handle 
 of his cane on his chin. " That's disagreeable, Mount. Tou 
 don't exactly want to act in that character. Tou haven't 
 got a diploma. Bother ! " 
 
 " Do you think I lore her a bit less ? " broke out my lord 
 in a frenzy. " By heaven ! I'd read to her by her bedside, 
 and talk that infernal history to her, if it pleased her, all 
 day and all night." 
 
 " You're evidently graduating for a midwife, Mount." 
 
 The nobleman appeared silently to accept the imputation. 
 
 " What do they say in town ? " he asked again. 
 
 Brayder said the sole question was, whether it was maid,, 
 wife, or widow. 
 
 " I'll go to her this evening," Mountfalcon resumed, after 
 — to judge by the cast of his face — reflecting deeply. " I'll 
 go to her this evening. She shall know what infernal tor- 
 ment she makes me sufBer." 
 
 " Do you mean to say she don't know it ? " 
 
 " Hasn't an idea — thinks me a friend. And so, by heaven ! 
 I'll be to her." 
 
 "A — hm I " went the Honoui'able Peter. "This way to 
 the sign of the Green Man, ladies ! " 
 
 " Do you want to be pitched out of the window, 
 Brayder ? " 
 
 " Once was enough. Mount. The Salvage Man is strong. 
 I may have forgotten the trick of alighting on my feet. 
 There — there ! I'll be sworn she's excessively innocent, and 
 thinks you a disinterested friend." 
 
 " I'll go to her this evening," Mountfalcon repeated. 
 " She shall know what damned misery it is to see her in 
 such a position. I can't hold out any longer. Deceit's 
 horrible to such a girl as that. I'd rather have her cursing 
 me than " 
 
 " Caressing ? " the Hon. Peter ventured to suggest. 
 
 " Speaking and looking as she does," continued my lord, 
 not heeding him. " Dear little girl ! — she's only a child> 
 Tou haven't an idea how sensible that little woman is." 
 
 " Have you ? " inquired the cunning one. 
 
396 THE OEDEAl OF EICHAED FBVEEEL. 
 
 " My belief is, Brayder, that there are angels among 
 women," said Mountfalcon, evading his parasite's eye as he 
 spoke. 
 
 To the world Lord Mountfalcon was the thoroughly 
 wicked man ; his parasite simply ingeniously dissipated. 
 Full many a man of God had thought it the easier task to 
 reclaim the Hon. Peter. 
 
 Lucy reoeived her noble friend by firelight that evening, 
 and sat much in the shade. She offered to have the candles 
 brought in. He begged her to allow the room to remain as 
 it was. " I have something to say to you," he observed with 
 a certain solemnity. 
 
 " Tes — to me ? " said Lucy quickly. 
 
 Lord Mountfalcon knew he had a great deal to say, but 
 how to say it, and what it exactly was, he did not know. 
 
 " Tou conceal it admirably," he began, " but you must be 
 very lonely here — -I fear, unhappy." 
 
 " I should have been lonely, but for your kindness, my 
 lord," said Lucy. " I am not unhappy." Her face was in 
 shade and could not belie her. 
 
 " Is there any help that one who would really be your 
 friend might give you, Mrs. Feverel ? " 
 
 " None indeed that I know of," Lucy replied. " Who can 
 help us to pay for our sins ? " 
 
 "At least you may permit me to endeavour to pay my 
 debts, since you have helped me to wash out some of my 
 sins." 
 
 "Ah, my lord ! " said Lucy, not displeased. It is sweet 
 for a woman to believe she had drawn the serpent's teeth. 
 
 " I tell you the truth," Lord Mountfalcon went on. " What 
 object could I have in deceiving you ? I know you quite 
 above flattery — so different from other women ! " 
 
 " Oh, pray do not say that," interposed Lucy. 
 
 "According to my experience, then." 
 
 "But you say you have met such — such very bad 
 women." 
 
 " I have. And now that I meet a good one, it is my 
 misfortune." 
 
 " Your misfortune, Lord Mountfalcon ? " 
 
 " Tes, and I might say more." 
 
 His lordship held impressively mute. 
 
A BEEET TO THE RESCUE. 397 
 
 " How strange men are ! " thought Lucy. " He has some 
 unhappy secret." 
 
 Tom Bakewell, who had a habit of coming into the room 
 on various pretences during the nobleman's visits, put a stop 
 to the revelation, if his lordship intended to make any. 
 
 When they were alone again, Lucy said, smiling : " Do you 
 know, I am always ashamed to ask you to begin to read." 
 
 Mountfalcon stared. " To read ? — oh I ha ! yes ! " he re- 
 membered his evening duties. " Very happy, I'm sure. 
 Let me see. Where were we ? " 
 
 " The life of the Emperor Julian. But indeed I feel quite 
 ashamed to ask you to read, my lord. It's new to me ; like 
 a new world — hearing about Emperors, and armies, and 
 things that really have been on the earth we walk upon. It 
 fills my mind. But it must have ceased to interest you, and 
 I was thinking that I would not tease you any more." 
 
 " Tour pleasure is mine, Mrs. Peverel. 'Pon my honour, 
 I'd read till I was hoarse, to hear your remarks." 
 
 " Are you laughing at me ? " 
 
 " Do I look so ? " 
 
 Lord Mountfalcon had fine full eyes, and by merely drop- 
 ping the lids he could appear to endow them with mental 
 expression. 
 
 " No, you are not," said Lucy. " I must thank you for 
 your forbearance." 
 
 The nobleman went on his honour loudly. 
 
 Now it was an object of Lucy's to have him reading ; for 
 his sake, for her sake, and for somebody else's sake ; which 
 somebody else was probably considered first in the matter. 
 When he was reading to her, he seemed to be legitimizing 
 his presence there ; and though she had no doubts or suspi- 
 cions whatever, she was easier in her heart while she had 
 him employed in that office. So she rose to fetch the book, 
 laid it open on the table at his lordship's elbow, and quietly 
 waited to ring for candles when he should be willing to com- 
 mence. 
 
 That evening Lord Mountfalcon could not get himself up 
 to the farce, and he felt a pity for the strangely innocent 
 unprotected child with anguish hanging over her, that with- 
 held the words he wanted to speak, or insinuate. He sat 
 silent and did nothing. 
 
 " What I do not like him for," said Lucy meditatively, " is 
 
398 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVBEEL. 
 
 tis changing his religion. He would have been such a hero, 
 but for that. I could have loved him." 
 
 " Who is it you could have loved, Mrs. Feverel ? " Lord 
 Mountfalcon asked. 
 
 " The Emperor Julian." 
 
 " Oh ! the Emperor Julian ! Well, he was an apostate : 
 but then, you know, he meant what he was about. He didn't 
 -even do it for a woman." 
 
 " For a woman ! " cried Lucy. " What man would for a 
 woman ? " 
 
 "I would." 
 
 " Tou, Lord Mountfalcon ? " 
 
 " Yes. I'd turn Catholic to-morrow." 
 
 " Tou make me very unhappy if you say that, my lord." 
 
 " Then I'll unsay it." 
 
 Lucy slightly shuddered. She put her hand upon the bell 
 -to ring for lights. 
 
 "Do you reject a convert, Mrs. Feverel ? " said the noble- 
 m.an. 
 
 " Oh yes ! yes ! I do. One who does not give his con- 
 science I would not have." 
 
 " If he gives his heart and body can he give more ? " 
 
 Lucy's hand pressed the bell. She did not like the doubt- 
 ful light with one who was so unscrupulous. Lord Mount- 
 falcon had never spoken in this way before. He spoke 
 better, too. She missed the aristocratic twang in his voice, 
 and the hesitation for words, and fluid lordliness with which 
 he rolled over diificulties in speech. 
 
 Simultaneously with the sounding of the bell the door 
 opened, and presented Tom Bakewell. There was a double 
 knock at the same instant at the street deor. Lucy delayed 
 to give orders. 
 
 " Can it be a letter, Tom ? — so late ! " she said, changing 
 ■colour. " Pray run and see." 
 
 " That an't a powst," Tom remarked, as he obeyed his 
 mistress. 
 
 "Are you very anxious for a letter, Mrs. Feverel ? " Lord 
 Mountfalcon inquired. 
 
 " Oh, no ! — yes, I am, very ! " said Lucy. Her quick ear 
 caught the tones of a voice she remembered. " That dear 
 old thing has come to see me," she cried, starting up. 
 
 Tom ushered a bunch of black satin into the room. 
 
A BEERY TO THE RESCUE. 399 
 
 " Mrs. Berry ! " said Lucy, running up to her and kissing 
 her. 
 
 " Me, my darlin' ! " Mrs. Berry, breathless and rosy with 
 her journey, returned the salute. " Me truly it is, in fault 
 of a better, for I ain't one to stand by and give the devil 
 his licence — roamin' ! and the salt sure enough have spilte 
 my bride-gown at the beginnin', which ain't the best sign. 
 Bless ye ! — Oh, here he is." She beheld a male figure in a 
 chair by the half light, and swung round to address him. 
 ■" Ton bad man ! " she held aloft one of her fat fingers, " I've 
 come on ye like a bolt, I have, and goin' to make ye do your 
 duty, naughty boy ! But your my darlin' babe," she melted, 
 as was her custom, " and I'll never meet you and not give to 
 ye the kiss of a mother." 
 
 Before Lord Mountfalcon could find time to expostulate 
 the soft woman had him by the neck, and was down among 
 his luxurious whiskers. 
 
 " Ha ! " She gave a smothered shriek, and fell back. 
 " What hair's that ? " 
 
 Tom Bakewell just then illumined the transaction. 
 
 " Oh, my gracious ! " Mrs. Berry breathed with horror, 
 *' I been and kiss a strange man ! " 
 
 Lucy, half -laughing, but in dreadful concern, begged the 
 noble lord to excuse the woful mistake. 
 
 " Extremely flattered, highly favoured, I'm sure," said his 
 lordship, re-arranging his disconcerted moustache ; " may I 
 beg the pleasure of an introduction ? " 
 
 " My husband's dear old nurse — Mrs. Berry," said Lucy, 
 taking her hand to lend her countenance. " Lord Mount- 
 falcon, Mrs. Berry." 
 
 Mrs. Berry sought grace while she performed a series of 
 apologetic bobs, and wiped the perspiration from her fore- 
 head. " 'M sure, my lord ! 'm sure, my lord ! had I a' known 
 — your lordship know I never should 'a presume. Oh, dear ! 
 oh, dear ! it was accidentals, quite, my lord ! mistakin' of 
 your lordship for another. I never, never kiss a man but 
 my babe and my Berry, never ! no indeed ! not bein' the 
 woman to " 
 
 " Pray don't exclude me now," said the affable nobleman. 
 
 Lucy put her into a chair : Lord Mountfalcon asked for au 
 account of her passage over to the island ; receiving distress- 
 ingly full particulars, by which it was revealed that the soft- 
 
400 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEKEL. 
 
 ■ness of her heart was only equalled by the weakness of her 
 etomaoh. The recital calmed Mrs. Berry down. 
 
 " Well, and where's my — where's Mr. Richard ? 'yer hus- 
 hand, my dear ? " Mrs. Berry turned from her tale to ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " Did you ejcpect to see him here P " said Lucy in a hrokem 
 voice. 
 
 " And where else, my love ? since he haven't been seen in. 
 London a whole fortnight. 
 
 Lucy did not speak. 
 
 " We will dismiss the Emperor Julian till to-morrow, I 
 think," said Lord Mountfalcon rising, and bowing. 
 
 Lucy gave him her hand with mute thanks. He touched 
 it distantly, embraced Mrs. Berry in a farewell bow and was 
 shown out of the house by Tom Bakewell. 
 
 The moment he was satisfactorily gone, Mrs. Berry threw 
 up her arms. " Did ye ever know sich a horrid thing to go 
 and happen to a virtous woman ! " she exclaimed. " I could 
 cry at it, I could ! To be goin' and Hssin' a strange hairy 
 man ! Oh, dear me ! what's comin' next, I wonder ? Whis- 
 kers ! thinks 1 — for I know the touch o' whiskers— 't ain't 
 like other hair — ^what ! have he growed a crop that sudden, 
 I says to myself ; and it kind o' flashed on me I been and 
 made a awful mistake ! and the lights come in, and I see 
 that great hairy man — ^beggin' his pardon — nobleman, and 
 if I could 'a dropped through the floor out o' sight o' men, 
 drat 'em ! they're al'ays in the way, that they are ! " — 
 
 " Mrs. Berry," Lucy checked her, " did you expect to find 
 him here ? " 
 
 " Askin' that solemn ? " retorted Berry. " What him ? 
 your husband ? O' course I did ! and you got him — some- 
 wheres hid." 
 
 " I have not heard from my husband for fifteen days," 
 said Lucy, and her tears rolled heavily off her cheeks. 
 
 " Not heer from him ! — fifteen days ! " Berry echoed. 
 
 " Mrs. Berry ! dear kind Mrs. Berry ! have you no 
 news ? nothing to tell me ! I've borne it so long. They're 
 cruel to me, Mrs. Berry. Oh, do you know if I have offended 
 him — my husband ? While he wrote I did not complain. I 
 could live on his letters for years. But not to hear from 
 him ! To think I have ruined him, and that he repents ! 
 Do they want to take him from me ? Do they want me 
 
A BEEET TO THE EESOUB. 401 
 
 dead ? O Mrs. Berry ! I've had no one to speak out my 
 heart to all this time, and I cannot, cannot help crying, 
 Mrs. Berry !" 
 
 Mrs. Berry was inclined to he miserable at -what she 
 heard from Lucy's lips, and she was herself full of dire 
 apprehension ; but it was never this excellent creature's 
 flystem to be miserable in company. The sight of a sorrow 
 that was not positive, and could not refer to proof, set her 
 resolutely the other way. 
 
 " Fiddle-faddle," she said. " I'd like to see him repent ! 
 He won't find anywheres a beauty like his own dear little 
 wife, and he know it. Now, look you here, my dear — you 
 blessed weepin' pet — the man that could see ye with that 
 hair of yours there in ruins, and he backed by the law, and 
 not rush into your arms and hold ye squeezed for life, he 
 ain't got much man in him, I say ; and no one can say that 
 'jf my babe ! I was sayin,' look here, to comfort ye — Oh, why, 
 to be sure he've got some surprise for ye. And so've I, my 
 lamb ! Hark, now ! His father 've come to town, like a good 
 reasonable man at last, to u-nite ye both, and bring your 
 bodies together, as your hearts is, for everlastin'. Now 
 ain't that news ?" 
 
 " Oh !" cried Lucy, " that takes my last hope away. I 
 thought he had gone to his father." She burst into fresh 
 tears. 
 
 Mrs. Berry paused, disturbed. 
 
 " Belike he's travellin' after him," she suggested. 
 
 " Fifteen days, Mrs. Berry !" 
 
 " Ah, fifteen weeks, my dear, after sich a man as that. 
 He's a regular meteor, is Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham 
 Abbey. Well, so hark you here. I says to myself, that 
 knows him — for I did think my babe was in his natural nest 
 — I says, the bar'net '11 never write for you both to come up 
 and beg forgiveness, so down I'll go and fetch you up. For 
 there was your mistake, my dear, ever to leave your husband 
 to go away from ye one hour in a young marriage. It's 
 dangerous, it's mad, it's wrong, and it's only to be righted 
 by your obeyin' of me, as I commands it : for I has my fits, 
 though I am a soft 'un. Obey me, and ye'll be happy to- 
 morrow — or the next to it." 
 
 Lucy was willing to see comfort. She was weary of her 
 
 2d 
 
402 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED FBVEEEL. 
 
 Belf-inflicted martyrdom, and glad to give herself tip to- 
 scmeliody else's guidance utterly. 
 
 " But why does he not write to me, Mrs. Berry ?" 
 
 " 'Cause, 'cause — who can tell the why of men, my dear ? 
 But that he love ye faithful, I'll swear. Haven't he groaned 
 in my arms that he couldn't come to ye ? — weak wretch ! 
 Hasn't he swore how he loved ye to me, poor young man ! 
 But this is your fault, my sweet. Yes, it be. Tou should 
 'a followed my 'dvice at the fust — 'stead o' going into your 
 'eroics about this and t'other," Here Mrs. Berry poured 
 forth fresh sentences on matrimony, pointed especially at 
 young couples. " I should 'a been a fool if I hadn't suffered 
 myself," she confessed, " so I'll thank my Berry if I makes 
 you wise in season." 
 
 Lucy smoothed her ruddy plump cheeks, and gazed up 
 afEectionately into the soft woman's kind brown eyes. En- 
 dearing phrases passed from mouth to mouth. And as she 
 gazed Lucy blushed, as one who has something very secret 
 to tell, very sweet, very strange, but cannot quite bring 
 herself to speak it. 
 
 " Well ! there's three men in my life I kissed," said Mrs. 
 Berry, too much absorbed in her extraordinary adventure tO' 
 notice the young wife's struggling bosom, " three men, and 
 one a nobleman ! He 've got more whisker than my Berry. 
 I wonder what the man thought. Ten to one he'll think,, 
 now, I was glad o' my chance — they're that vain, whether 
 they's lords or commons. How was I to know ? I nat'ral 
 thinks none but her husband 'd sit in that chair. Ha ! and 
 in the dark ? and alone with ye ?" Mrs. Berry hardened 
 her eyes, " and your husband away ? What do this mean ? 
 Tell to me, child, what it mean his bein' here alone without 
 ere a candle ?" 
 
 " Lord Mountfalcon is the only friend I have here," said 
 Lucy. " He is very kind. He comes almost every even- 
 ing." 
 
 " Lord Muntfalcon — that his name !" Mrs. Berry ex- 
 claimed. " I been that flurried by the man, I didn't mind it 
 at first. He come every evenin', and your husband out o' 
 sight ! My goodness me ! it's gettin' worse and worse. 
 And what do he come for, now, ma'am ? Now tell me- 
 candid what ye do together here in the dark of an evenin'." 
 
 Mrs. Berry glanced severely. 
 
A BERRY TO THE RESCUE. 403 
 
 " Mrs. Berry ! please not to speak in that way— I don't 
 like it," said Lucy pouting. 
 
 " What do he come for, I ask ? " 
 
 ■' Because he is kind, Mrs. Berry. He sees me very lonely, 
 and wishes to amuse me. And he tells me of things I know 
 
 nothing about and " 
 
 " And wants to be a teachin' some of his things, mayhap," 
 Mrs. Berry interrupted with a ruffled breast. 
 
 "Ton are a very ungenerous, suspicious, naughty old 
 woman," said Lucy, chiding her. 
 
 " And you're a silly, unsuspectin' little bird," Mrs. Berry 
 retorted, as she returned her taps on the cheek. "Tou 
 haven't told me what ye do together, and what's his excuse 
 for comin'." 
 
 "Well, then, Mrs. Berry, almost every evening that he 
 comes we read History, and he explains the battles, and 
 talks to me about the great men. And he says I'm not silly, 
 Mrs. Berry." 
 
 " That's one bit o' lime on your wings, my bird. History, 
 indeed ! History to a young married lovely woman alone in 
 the dark ! a pretty History ! Why, I know that man's name, 
 my dear. He's a notorious living rake, that Lord Mount- 
 falcon. No woman's safe with him." 
 
 " Ah, but he hasn't deceived me, Mrs. Berry. He has not 
 pretended he was good." 
 
 " More's his art," quoth the experienced dame. " So you 
 read History together in the dark, my dear ! " 
 
 " I was unwell to-night, Mrs. Berry. I wanted him not to 
 see my face. Look ! there's the book open ready for him 
 when the candles come in. And now, you dear kind darling 
 old thing, let me kiss you for coming to me. I do love you. 
 Talk of other things." 
 
 " So we will," said Mrs. Berry softening to Lucy's caresses. 
 " So let us. A nobleman, indeed ! alone with a young wife 
 in the dark, and she sich a beauty ! I say this shall be put 
 a stop to now and 'enceforth, on the spot it shall ! He won't 
 meneuvle Bessy Berry with his arts. There ! I drop him. 
 I'm dyin' for a cup o' tea, my dear." 
 
 Lucy got up to ring the bell, and as Mrs. Berry, incapable 
 of quite dropping him, was continuing to say : " Let him go 
 and boast I kiss him ; he ain't nothin' to be 'shamed of in a 
 chaste woman's kiss — unawares — which men don't get too 
 
 2 d2 
 
404 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED FEVEEBL. 
 
 often in their lives, I can assure 'em ; " — ^her eye surveyed 
 Lucy's figure. 
 
 Lo, when Lucy returned to her, Mrs. Berry surrounded 
 her with her arms, and drew her into feminine depths. " Oh, 
 you blessed ! " she cried in most meaning tone, " you good, 
 lovin', proper little wife, you ! " 
 
 " What is it, Mrs. Berry ! " lisps Lucy, opening the most 
 innocent blue eyes. 
 
 " As if I couldn't see, you pet ! It was my flurry blinded 
 me, or I'd 'a marked ye the fust shock. Thinkin' to deceive 
 me!" 
 
 Mrs. Berry's eyes spoke generations. Lucy's wavered; 
 she coloured all over, and hid her face on the bounteous 
 breast that mounted to her. 
 
 " You're a sweet one," murmured the soft woman, patting 
 her back, and rocking her. " You're a rose, you are ! and a 
 bud on your stalk. Haven't told a word to your husband, 
 my dear ? " she asked quickly. 
 
 Lucy shook her head, lookmg sly and shy. 
 
 " That's right. We'll give him a surprise ; let it come all 
 at once on him, and thinks he — losin' breath — ' I'm a father ! ' 
 Nor a hint even you haven't give him ? " 
 
 Lucy kissed her, to indicate it was quite a secret. 
 
 " Oh ! you are a sweet one," said Bessy Berry, and rocked 
 her more closely and lovingly. 
 
 Then these two had a whispered conversation, from which 
 let all of male persuasion retire a space nothing under one 
 mile. 
 
 Returning, after a due interval, we see Mrs. Berry count- 
 ing dates on her fingers' ends. Concluding the sum, she 
 cries prophetically : " Now this right everything — a b&hj in 
 the balance ! Now I say this angel-infant come from on 
 high. It's God's messenger, my love ! and it's not wrong to 
 say so. He thinks you worthy, or you wouldn't 'a had one 
 — not for all the tryin' in the world, you wouldn't, and some 
 tries hard enough, poor creatures ! Now let us rejice and 
 make merry ! I'm for cryin' and laughin', one and the same. 
 This is the blessed seal of matrimony, which Berry never 
 stamp on me. It's be hoped it's a boy. Make that man a 
 gran'father, and his gran'child a son, and you got him safe. 
 Oh ! this is what I call 'appiness, and I'll have my tea a 
 little stronger in consequence. I declare I could get tipsy 
 to know this joyful news." 
 
A BEEEY TO THE EESOUE. 405 
 
 So Mr. Beny carolled. She had her tea a little stronger. 
 She ate and she drank ; she rejoiced and made merry. The 
 bliss of the chaste was hers. 
 
 Says Lucy demnrely: "Now you know why I read 
 History, and that sort of books." 
 
 " Do I ?" replies Berry. " Belike I do. Since what you 
 done's so good, my darlin', I'm agreeable to anything. A 
 fig for all the lords ! They can't come anigh a baby. Tou 
 may read Voyages arid Travels, my dear, and Romances, and 
 Tales of Love and War. Tou cut the liddle in your own 
 dear way, and that's all I cares for." 
 
 " No, but you don't understand," persists Lucy. " I only 
 read sensible books, and talk of serious things, because I'm 
 sure . . . because I have heard say . . . dear Mrs. Berry ! 
 don't you understand now ?" 
 
 Mrs. Berry smacked her knees. " Only to think of her 
 bein' that thoughtful ! and she a Catholic, too ! Never tell 
 me that people of one religion ain't as good as another, after 
 that. Why, you want to make him a historian, to be sure ! 
 And that rake of a lord who've been comin' here playin' at 
 wolf, you been and made him — unbeknown to himself — sort 
 o' tutor to the unborn blessed ! Ha ! ha ! say that little 
 women ain't got art ekal to the cunningest of 'em. Oh ! I 
 understand. Why, to be sure, didn't I know a lady, a widow 
 of a clergyman : he was a postermost child, and afore his 
 birth that woman read nothin' but Blair's ' Grave '. over and 
 over again, from the end to the beginnin' ; — that's a serious 
 book ! — very hard readin' ! — and at four year of age that child 
 that come of it reelly was the piousest infant ! — he was like 
 a little curate. His eyes was up ; he talked se solemn.' 
 Mrs. Berry imitated the little curate's appearance and man- 
 ner of speaking. "So she got her wish, for one !" 
 
 But at this lady Lucy laughed. 
 
 They chattered on happily till bedtime. Lucy arranged 
 for Mrs. Berry to sleep with her. " If it's not dreadful to 
 ye, my sweet, sleepin' beside a woman," said Mrs. Berry. 
 " I know it were to me shortly after my Berry, and felt it. 
 It don't somehow seem nat'ral after matrimony — a woman 
 in your bed ! I was 'bliged t' ave somebody, for the cold 
 sheets do give ye the creeps when you 've been used to that 
 that's different." 
 
 Upstairs they went together, Lucy not sharing these 
 
406 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED FEVEKBL, 
 
 objections. Then Lucy opened certain dra-wers, and exhibited 
 pretty caps, and laced linen, all adapted for a very small 
 body, all the work of ber own bands ; and Mrs. Berry praised 
 tbem and ber. "Tou been guessing a boy — womanlike," 
 she said. Then they cooed, and kissed, and undressed by 
 the fire, and knelt at the bedside, with their arms about each 
 other, praying; both praying for the unborn child ; and Mrs. 
 Berry pressed Lucy's waist the moment she was about to 
 breathe the petition to heaven to shield and bless that 
 coming life ; and thereat Lucy closed to her, and felt a strong 
 love for her. Then Lucy got into bed first, leaving Berry 
 to put out the light, and before she did so. Berry leaned over 
 her, and eyed her roguishly, saying, " I never see ye like this, 
 but I'm half in love with ye myself, you blushin' beauty ! 
 Sweet's your eyes, and your hair do take one so — ^lyin' back. 
 I'd never forgive my father if be kep me away from ye f our- 
 and-twenty hours just Husband o' that !" Berry pointed 
 at the young wife's loveliness. " Te look so ripe with kisses, 
 and there they are a-langishin' 1 — . . Tou never look 
 so but in your bed, ye beauty ! — just as it ought to be." 
 Lucy had to pretend to rise to put out the light before Berry 
 would give up her amorous chaste soliloquy. Then they lay 
 in bed, and Mrs. Berry fondled her, and arranged for their 
 departure to-morrow, and reviewed Richard's emotions when 
 he came to hear he was going to be made a father by ber, 
 and hinted at Lucy's delicious shivers when Richard was 
 again in his rightful place, which she, Bessy Berry, now 
 usurped ; and all sorts of amorous sweet things ; enough to 
 make one fancy the adage subverted, that stolen fruits are 
 sweetest ; she drew such glowing pictures of bliss within the 
 law and the limits of the conscience, till at last, worn out, 
 Lucy murmured " Peepy, dear Berry," and the soft woman 
 gradually ceased her chirp. 
 
 Bessy Berry did not sleep. She lay thinking of the sweet 
 brave heart beside her, and listening to Lucy's breath as it 
 came and went ; squeezing the fair sleeper's hand now and 
 then, to ease her love as her reflections warmed. A storm of 
 wind came howling over the Hampshire bills, and sprang 
 white foam on the water, and shook the bare trees. It 
 passed, leaving a thin cloth of snow on the wintry land. The 
 moon shone brilliantly. Berry heard the house-dog bark. 
 His bark was savage and persistent. She was roused by the 
 
A BEERY TO THE EESCUB. 407 
 
 •noise. By and by she fancied she heard a movement in the 
 house ; then it seemed to her that the honse-door opened. 
 She cocked her ears, and could almost make out voices in 
 the midnight stillness. She slipped from the bed, locked 
 and bolted the door of the room, assured herself of Lucy's 
 unconsciousness, and went on tiptoe to the window. The 
 trees all stood white to the north ; the ground glittered ; the 
 cold was keen. Berry wrapped her fat arms across her 
 bosom, and peeped as close over into the garden as the situa- 
 tion of the window permitted. Berry was a soft, not a 
 timid, woman : and it happened this night that her thoughts 
 were above the fears of the dark. She was sure of the 
 voices ; curiosity without a shade of alarm held her on the 
 watch ; and gathering bundles of her day-apparel round her 
 neck and shoulders, she silenced the chattering of her teeth 
 as well as she could, and remained stationary. The low hum 
 of the voices came to a break ; something was said in a 
 louder tone ; the house-door quietly shut ; a man walked out 
 of the garden into the road. He paused opposite her 
 window, and Berry let the blind go back to its place, and 
 peeped from behind an edge of it. He was in the shadow of 
 4;he house, so that it was impossible to discern much of his 
 figure. After some minutes he walked rapidly away, and 
 Berry returned to the bed an icicle, from which Lucy's 
 limbs sensitively shrank. 
 
 Next morning Mrs. Berry asked Tom Bakewell if he had 
 been disturbed in the night. Tom, the mysterious, said he 
 had slept like a top. Mrs. Berry went into the garden. The 
 snow was partially melted ; all save one spot, just under the 
 portal, and there she saw the print of a man's foot. By 
 some strange guidance it occurred to her to go and find one 
 of Richard's boots. She did so, and, unperceived, she 
 measured the sole of the boot in that solitary footmark. 
 There could be no doubt that it fitted. She tried it from 
 lieel to toe a dozen times. 
 
408 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 claee's diaet. 
 
 SiE AirsTiif Feveeel had come to town with the serenity 
 of a philosopher who says, 'Tis now time ; and the satisfac- 
 tion of a man who has not arrived thereat without a> 
 struggle. He had almost forgiven his son. His deep love 
 for him had well-nigh shaken loose from wonnded pride and 
 more tenacious vanity. Stirrings of a remote sympathy for 
 the creature who had robbed him of his son and hewed at 
 his System, were in his heart of hearts. This he knew ; and 
 in his own mind he took credit for his softness. But the 
 world must not suppose him soft ; the world must think he- 
 was still acting on his System. Otherwise what would his- 
 long absence signify ? — Something highly nnphilosophical. 
 So, though love was strong, and was moving him to a 
 straightforward course, the last tug of vanity drew him still 
 aslant. 
 
 The Aphorist read himself so well, that to juggle with 
 himself was a necessity. As he wished the world to see 
 him, he beheld himself: one who entirely put aside mere 
 personal feelings : one in whom parental duty, based on the 
 science of life, was paramount : a Scientific Humanist, in 
 short 
 
 He was, therefore, rather surprised at a coldness in Lady 
 Blandish's manner when he did appear. " At last ! " said 
 the lady, in a sad way that sounded reproachfully. Now the 
 Scientific Humanist had, of course, nothing to reproach 
 himself with. 
 
 But where was Richard ? 
 
 Adrian positively averred he was not with his wife. 
 
 " If he had gone," said the baronet, " he would have anti- 
 cipated me by a few hours." 
 
 This, when repeated to Lady Blandish, should have pro- 
 pitiated her, and shown his great forgiveness. She, how- 
 ever, sighed, and looked at him wistfully. 
 
 Their converse was not happy and deeply intimate. Philo- 
 sophy did not seem to catch her mind ; and fine phrases 
 encountered a rueful assent, more flattering to their grandeur 
 than to their influence. 
 
CLARE'S DIARY. 40J) 
 
 Days went by. Richard did not present himself. Sir 
 Austin's pitcli of self-command was to await the youth with- 
 out signs of impatience. 
 
 Seeing this, the lady told him her fears for Richard, and 
 mentioned the rumour of him that was about. 
 
 " If," said the baronet, " this person, his wife, is what you 
 paint her, I do not share your fears for him. I think too 
 well of him. If she is one to inspire the sacredness of that 
 union, I think too well of him. It is impossible." 
 
 The lady saw one thing to be done. 
 
 " Call her to you," she said. " Have her with you at 
 Raynham. Recognize her. It is the disunion and doubt 
 that so confuses him and drives him wild. I confess to yon 
 I hoped he had gone to her. It seems not. If she is with 
 you his way will be clear. Will you do that ? " 
 
 Science is notoriously of slow movement. Lady Blandish's 
 proposition was far too hasty for Sir Austin. Women, rapid 
 by nature, have no idea of science. 
 
 " We shall see her there in time, Emmeline. At present 
 let it be between me and my son." 
 
 He spoke loftily. In truth it offended him to be asked to 
 do anything, when he had just brought himself to do so much. 
 
 A month elapsed, and Richard appeared on the scene. 
 
 The meeting between him and his father was not what his 
 father had expected, and had crooned over in the Welsh 
 mountains, among the echoes of his Aphorisms. Richard 
 shook his hand respectfully, and inquired after his health 
 with the common social solicitude. He then said : " During 
 your absence, sir, I have taken the liberty, without consulting 
 you, to do something in which you are more deeply concerned 
 than myself. I have taken upon myself to find out my 
 mother and place her under my care. I trust you will not 
 think I have done wrong. I acted as I thought best." 
 
 Sir Austin replied : " You are of an age, Richard, to judge 
 for yourself in such a case. I would have you simply beware 
 of deceiving yourself in imagining that you considered any 
 one but yourself in acting as you did." 
 
 " I have not deceived myself, sir," said Richard, and the 
 interview was over. Both hated an exposure of the feelings, 
 and in that both were satisfied : but the baronet, as one who 
 loves, hoped and looked for tones indicative of trouble and 
 delight in the deep heart ; and Richard gave him none of 
 
410 THE OEDBAL OF EICHARD PEVEEEt. 
 
 those. The young man did not even face him as he spoke : 
 if their eyes met by chance, Richard's were defiantly cold. 
 His whole bearing was changed. 
 
 " This rash marriage has altei'ed him," said the very iTist 
 iman of science in life : and that meant : " it has debased him." 
 
 He pursued his reflections. " I see in him the desperate 
 -maturity of a suddenly-ripened nature : and but for my faith 
 that good work is never lost, what should I think of the toil 
 of my years ? Lost, perhaps to me ! lost to him ! It may 
 show itself in his children.' 
 
 The Philosopher, we may conceive, has contentment in 
 benefiting embryos : b'ut it was a somewhat bitter prospect 
 to Sir Austin. Bitterly he felt the injury to himself. 
 
 One little incident spoke well of Richard. A poor woman 
 called at the hotel while he was missing. The baronet saw 
 her, and she told him a tale that threw Christian light on 
 one part of Richard's nature. But this might gratify the 
 father in Sir Austin ; it did not touch the man of science. 
 A Feverel, his son, would not do less, he thought. He sat 
 down deliberately to study his son. 
 
 No definite observations enlightened him. Richard ate and 
 drank ; joked and laughed. He was generally before Adrian 
 in calling for a fresh bottle. He talked easily of current 
 topics ; his gaiety did not sound forced. In all he did, never- 
 theless, there was not the air of a youth who sees a future 
 before him. Sir Austin put that down. It might be care- 
 lessness, and wanton blood, for no one could say he had much 
 on his mind. The man of science was not reckoning that 
 Richard also might have learned to act and wear a mask. 
 Dead subjects — that is to say, people not on their guard — he 
 could penetrate and dissect. It is by a rare chance, as 
 scientific men well know, that one has an opportunity of 
 examining the structure of the living. 
 
 However, that rare chance was granted to Sir Austin. 
 They were engaged to dine with Mrs. Doria at the Foreys, 
 and walked down to her in the afternoon, father and son arm- 
 in-arm, Adrian beside them. Previously the offended father 
 had condescended to inform his son that it would shortly be 
 time for him to return to his wife, indicating that arrange- 
 ments would ultimately be ordered to receive her at Rayn- 
 ham. Richard had replied nothing ; which might mean 
 ■excess of gratitude, or hypocrisy in concealing his pleasure, 
 
claeb's diary, 411 
 
 ■or any one of the thousand shifts by which gratified human 
 nature expresses itself when all is made to run smooth with 
 it. Now Mrs. Berry had her surprise ready charged for the 
 jyoung husband. She had Lucy in her own house waiting 
 for him. Every day she expected him to call and be over- 
 come by the rapturous surprise, and every day, knowing his 
 habit of frequenting the park, she marched Lucy thither, 
 under the plea that Master Richard, whom she had already 
 -christened, should have an airing. 
 
 The round of the red winter sun was behind the bare 
 Kensington chestnuts, when these two parties met. Happily 
 for Lucy and the hope she bore in her bosom, she was per- 
 versely admiring a fair horsewoman galloping by at the 
 moment. Mrs. Berry plucked at her gown once or twice, to 
 prepare her eyes for the shock, but Lucy's head was still 
 half averted, and thinks Mrs. Berry, " 'Twon't hurt her if 
 she go into his arms head foremost." They were close ; 
 Mrs. Berry performed the bob preliminary. Richard held 
 her silent with a terrible face : he grasped her arm, and put 
 her behind him. Other people intervened Lucy saw 
 nothing to account for Berry's excessive flutter. Berry 
 threw it on the air and some breakfast bacon, which, she 
 said, she knew in the morning while she ate it, was bad for 
 the bile, and which probably was the cause of her bursting 
 into tears, much to Lucy's astonishment. 
 
 " What you ate makes you cry, Mrs. Berry ? " 
 
 " It's all " Mrs. Berry pressed at her heart and leaned 
 
 sideways, " it's all stomach, my dear. Don't ye mind," and 
 becoming aware of her unfashionable behaviour, she trailed 
 •off to the shelter of the elms. 
 
 " You have a singular manner with old ladies," said Sir 
 Austin to his son, after Berry had been swept aside. 
 " Scarcely courteous. She behaved like a mad woman, cer- 
 tainly. — Are you ill, my son ? " 
 
 Richard was death-pale, his strong form smitten through 
 ■with weakness. The baronet sought Adrian's eye. Adrian 
 had seen Lucy as they passed, and he had a glimpse of 
 Richard's countenance while disposing of Berry. Had Lucy 
 recognized them, he would have gone to her unhesitatingly. 
 As she did not, he thought it well, under the circumstances, 
 to leave matters as they were. He answered the baronet's 
 look with a shrug. 
 
412 THE OEDBAL OF RICHARD FEVEEEL, 
 
 " Are you ill, Richard ? " Sir Austin again asked his son. 
 
 " Come on, sir ! come on ! " cried Richard. 
 
 His father's further meditations, as they stepped briskly 
 to the Foreys, gave poor Berry a character which one who 
 lectures on matrimony, and has kissed but three men in her 
 life, shrieks to hear the very title of. 
 
 " Richard will go to his wife to-morrow,'' Sir Austin said 
 to Adrian some time before they went in to dinner. 
 
 Adrian asked him if he had chanced to see a young fair- 
 Laired lady by the side of the old one Richard had treated 
 so peculiarly ; and to the baronet's acknowledgment that 
 he remembered to have observed such a person, Adrian saidr 
 " That was his wife, sir." 
 
 Sir Austin could now dissect the living subject. As if a, 
 bullet had torn open the young man's skull, and some blast 
 of battle laid his palpitating organization bare, he watched 
 every motion of his brain and his heart ; and with the grief 
 and terror of one whose mental habit was ever to pierce to 
 extremes. Not altogether conscious that he had hitherto 
 played with life, he felt that he was suddenly plunged into 
 the stormful reality of it. He projected to speak plainly to 
 his son on all points that night. 
 
 " Richard is very gay," Mrs. Doria whispered her brother. 
 
 " All will be right with him to-morrow," he replied ; for 
 the game had been in his hands so long, so long had he been 
 the Grod of the machine, that having once resolved to speak 
 plainly and to act, he was to a certain extent secure, bad as 
 the thing to mend might be. 
 
 " I notice he has a rather wild laugh — I don't exactly like 
 his eyes," said Mrs. Doria. 
 
 " You will see a change in him to-morrow," the man of 
 science remarked. 
 
 It was reserved for Mrs. Doria herself to experience that 
 change. In the middle of the dinner a telegraphic message 
 from her son-ia-law, worthy John Todhunter, reached the 
 house, stating that Clare was alarmingly ill, bidding her 
 come instantly. She cast about for some one to accompany 
 her, and fixed on Richard. Before he would give his con- 
 sent for Richard to go. Sir Austin desired to speak with him 
 apart, and in that interview he said to his son : " My dear 
 Richard ! it was my intention that we should come to an 
 anderstanding together this night. But the time is short— 
 
CLAEB S DIAET. 413 
 
 poor Helen cannot spare many minutes. Let me then aay 
 that you deceived me, and that I forgive you. We fix our 
 seal on the past. Ton will bring your wife to me when you 
 return." And very cheerfully the baronet looked down on 
 the generous future he thus founded. 
 
 " Will you have her at Raynham at once, sir ?" said 
 Richard. 
 
 " Yes, my son, when you bring her." 
 
 " Are you mocking me, sir ?" 
 
 " Pray, what do you mean ?" 
 
 " I ask you to receive her at once." 
 
 " Well ! the delay cannot be long. I do not apprehend 
 that you will be kept from your happiness many days." 
 
 "I think it will be some time, sir! " said Richard, sigh- 
 ing deeply. 
 
 " And what mental freak is this that can induce you to 
 postpone it and play with your first duty ?" 
 
 " What is my first duty, sir ?" 
 
 " Since you are married, to be with your wife." 
 
 " I have heard that from an old woman called Berry ! " 
 said Richard to himself, not intending irony. 
 
 " Will you receive her at once ? " he asked resolutely. 
 
 The baronet was clouded by his son's reception of his 
 graciousness. His grateful prospect had formerly been 
 Richard's marriage — the culmination of his System. Richard 
 had destroyed his participation in that. He now looked for 
 a pretty scene in recompense : — Richard leading up his wife 
 to him, and both being welcomed by him paternally, and so 
 held one ostentatious minute in his embrace. 
 
 He said : " Before you return, I demur to receiving 
 ter." 
 
 " Yery well, sir," replied his son, and stood as if he had 
 spoken all. 
 
 " Really you tempt me to fancy you already regret your 
 rash proceeding!" the baronet exclaimed; and the next 
 moment it pained him he had uttered the words, Richard's 
 eyes were so sorrowfully fierce. It pained hini, but he 
 divined in that look a history, and he could not refrain from 
 glancing acutely and asking : " Do you ? " 
 
 " Regret it, sir ?" The question aroused one of those 
 struggles in the young man's breast which a passionate 
 etorm of tears may still, and which sink like leaden death 
 
414 THE OKDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 into the soul when tears come not. Richard's eyes had the 
 light of the desert. 
 
 " Do you ?" his father repeated, ' Ton tempt me — I 
 almost fear you do." At the thought — for he expressed his 
 mind — the pity that he had for Richard was not pure gold. 
 
 " Ask me what I think of her, sir ! Ask me what she is ! 
 Ask me what it is to have taken one of God's precious angels 
 and chained her to misery ! Ask me what it is to have 
 plunged a sword into her heart, and to stand oyer her and 
 see such a creature bleeding ! Do I regret that ? Why, yes, 
 I do ! Would you ?" 
 
 His eyes flew hard at his father under the ridge of his 
 eyehrows. 
 
 Sir Austin winced and reddened. Did he understand ? 
 There is ever in the mind's eye a certain wilfulness. We 
 see and understand ; we see and won't understand. 
 
 " Tel] me why you passed by her as you did this after- 
 noon," he said gravely: and in the same voice Richard 
 answered: " I passed her because I could not do otherwise." 
 
 " Tour wife, Richard ?" 
 
 "Yes! my wife!" 
 
 " If she had seen you, Richard ?" 
 
 " God spared her that !" 
 
 Mrs. Doria, bustliag in practical haste, and bearing 
 Richard's hat and greatcoat in her energetic hands, came 
 between them at this juncture. Dimples of commiseration 
 were m her cheeks while she kissed her brother's perplexed 
 forehead. She forgot her trouble about Clare, deploring his 
 fatuity. 
 
 Sir Austin was forced to let his son depart. As of old, he 
 took counsel with Adrian, and the wise youth was soothing. 
 " Somebody has kissed him, sir, and the chaste boy can't get 
 over it." This absurd suggestion did more to appease the 
 baronet than if Adrian had given a veritable reasonable key to 
 Richard's conduct. It set him thinking that it might be a 
 prudish strain in the young man's mind, due to the System 
 in difficulties. 
 
 " I may have been wrong in one thing," he said, with an 
 air of the utmost doubt of it. " I, perhaps, was wrong in 
 allowing him so much liberty during his proljation." 
 
 Adrian pointed out to him that he had distinctly com- 
 manded it. 
 
glare's diary. 415' 
 
 " Tesj, yes ; that is on me." 
 
 His was an order of mind that ■would accept the most 
 burdensome charges, and by some species of moral usury 
 make a profit out of them. 
 
 Clare was little talked of. Adrian attributed the employ- 
 ment of the telegraph to John Todhunter's uxorious distress 
 at a toothache, or possibly the first symptoms of an heir to 
 his house. 
 
 " That child's mind has disease in it. She is not sound," 
 said the baronet. 
 
 On the door-step of the hotel, when they returned, stood 
 Mrs. Berry. Her wish to speak a few words with the 
 baronet reverentially communicated, she was ushered 
 upstairs into his room. 
 
 Mrs. Berry compressed her person in the chair she was- 
 beckoned to occupy. 
 
 " Well, ma'am, you have something to say," observed the 
 baronet, for she seemed loth to commence. 
 
 " Wishin' I hadn't : " Mrs. Berry took him up, and mind- 
 ful of the good rule to begin at the beginning, pursued : " I 
 dare say. Sir Austin, you don't remember me, and I little 
 thought when last we parted our meeting 'd be like this. 
 Twenty year don't go over one without showin' it, no more 
 than twenty ox. It's a might o' time, — twenty year ! 
 Leastways not quite twenty, it ain't." 
 
 " Round figures are best," Adrian remarked 
 
 " In them round figures a be-loved son have growed up, 
 and got himself married ! " said Mrs. Berry, diving straight 
 into the case. 
 
 Sir Austin then learnt that he had before him the culprit 
 who had assisted his son in that venture. It was a stretch 
 of his patience to hear himself addressed on a family matter, 
 but he was naturally courteous. 
 
 "He came to my house, Sir Austin, a stranger! If 
 twenty year alters us as have knowed each other on the 
 earth, how must they alter they that we parted with just 
 come from heaven ! And a heavenly babe he were ! se- 
 Bweet ! se strong ! so fat ! " 
 
 Adrian laughed aloud. 
 
 Mrs. Berry bumped a curtsey to him in her chair, con- 
 tinuing : " I wished afore I spoke to say how thankful am I 
 bound to be for my pension not cut short, as have offended; 
 
416 THE ORDEAL OF EICHARD FEVEEEL. 
 
 BO, but that I know Sir Austin Feverel, Eaynliam Abbey, 
 ain't one o' tbem tbat likes to hear tbeir good deeds pum- 
 lished. And a pension to me now, it's something more than 
 it were. For a pension and pretty rosy cheeks in a maid, 
 which I was — that's a bait many a man '11 bite, that won't 
 so a forsaken wife ! " 
 
 " If you will speak to the point, ma'am, I will listen to 
 you," the baronet interrupted her. 
 
 " It's the beginnin' that's the worst, and that's over, 
 thank the Lord ! So I'll speak. Sir Austin, and say my say: 
 — Lord speed me ! Believin' our idees o' matrimony to be 
 sim'lar, then, I'll say, once married — married for life I Tes ! 
 I don't even like widows. For I can't stop at the grave. 
 Not at the tomb I can't stop. My husband's my husband, 
 and if I'm a body at the Resurrection, I say, speaking 
 humbly, my Berry is the husband o' my body ; and to think 
 of two claimin' of me then — it makes me hot all over. Such 
 is my notion of that state 'tween man and woman. No 
 givin' in marriage, o' course I know, and if so I'm single." 
 
 The baronet suppressed a smile. " Really, my good 
 woman, you wander very much." 
 
 " Beggin' pardon, Sir Austin ; but I has my point before mo 
 all the same, and I'm comin' to it. Ac-knowledgin' our error, 
 it's done, and bein' done, it's writ aloft. Oh ! if you ony knew 
 what a sweet young creature she be ! Indeed 'taint all of 
 humble birth that's unworthy. Sir Austin. And she got her 
 idees, too. She read History ! She talk that sensible as 
 would surprise ye. But for all that she's a prey to the artful 
 o 'men — unpertected. And it's a young marriage — but 
 there's no fear for her, as far as she go. The fear's t'other 
 way. There's that in a man — at the commencement — 
 which make of him Lord knows what! if you any way 
 interferes : whereas a woman bides quiet. It's consolation 
 catch her, which is what we mean by seducin'. Whereas a 
 man — he's a savage !" 
 
 Sir Austin turned his face to Adrian, who was listening 
 with huge delight. 
 
 " Well ma'am, I see you have something in your mind, if 
 you would only come to it quickly." 
 
 " Then here's my point, Sir Austin. I say you bred him 
 so as there ain't another young gentleman like him in 
 England, and proud he make me. And as for her, I'll risk 
 
claee's diaet. 417 
 
 sayia — it's done, and no harm — you miglit searcli England 
 through, and nowhere will ye find a maid that's his match 
 like his own wife. Then there they be. Are they together 
 as should be ? Lord no ! Months they been divided. 
 Then she all lonely and exposed, I went, and fetched her 
 out of seducers' ways — which they may say what they like, 
 but the inn' cent is most open to when they're healthy and 
 confidin' — I fetch her, and — ^the liberty — boxed her safe in 
 my own house. So much for that sweet ! That you may 
 do with women. But it's him — Mr. Richard — I am bold, I 
 know, but there — I'm in for it, and the Lord '11 help me ! 
 It's him, Sir Austin, in this great metropolis, warm from a 
 young marriage. It's him, and — I say nothin' of her, and 
 how sweet she bears it, and it's eating her at a time when 
 Ifatur' should have no other trouble but the one that's goin' 
 on — ^it's him, and I ask — so bold — shall there — and a 
 Christian gentleman his father — shall there be a tug 'tween 
 him as a son and him as a husband — soon to be somethin' 
 else ? I speak bold out — I'd have sons obey ther fathers, 
 but the priest's words spoke over him, which they're now in 
 my ears, I say I ain't a doubt on earth — I'm sure there ain't 
 one in heaven — which dooty's the holier of the two." 
 
 Sir Austin heard her to an end. Their views on the 
 junction of the sexes were undoubtedly akin. To be lec- 
 tured on his prime subject, however, was slightly disagree- 
 able, and to be obliged mentally to assent to this old lady's 
 doctine was rather humiliating, when it could not be averred 
 that he had latterly followed it out. He sat cross-legged 
 and silent, a finger to his temple. 
 
 " One gets so addle-pated thinkin' many things," said 
 Mrs. Berry, simply. " That's why we see wonder clever 
 people al'ays goin' wrong — ^to my mind. I think it's al'ays 
 the plan in a dielemmer to pray God and walk forward." 
 
 The keen-witted soft woman was tracking the baronet's 
 thoughts, and she had absolutely ran him dowTi and taken 
 an explanation out of his mouth, by which Mrs. Berry was 
 to have been informed that he had acted from a principle 
 of his own, and devolved a wisdom she could not be expected 
 to comprehend. 
 
 Of course he became advised immediately that it would be 
 waste of time to direct such an explanation to her inferior 
 capacity. 
 
 2g 
 
418 THE OEDBAL OP EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 He gave lier his hand, saying, " My son has gone out of 
 town to see his cousin who is ill. He will return in two or 
 three days, and then they will both come to me at Raynham." 
 
 Mrs. Berry took the tips of his fingers, and went half-way 
 to the floor perpendicularly. " He pass her like a stranger 
 in the park this evenin'," she faltered. 
 
 "Ah?" said the baronet. "Tes, well! they will be at 
 Baynham before the week is over," 
 
 Mrs. Berry was not quite satisfied. " Not of his own 
 accord he pass that sweet young wife of his like a stranger 
 this day, Sir Austin !" 
 
 " I must beg you not to intrude further, ma'am." 
 
 Mrs. Berry bobbed her bunch of a body out of the room. 
 
 " All's well as ends well," she said to herself. " It's bad 
 inquirin' too close among men. We must take 'em some- 
 thin' like Providence — as they come. Thank heaven! I 
 kep' back the baby." 
 
 In Mrs. Berry's eyes the baby was the victorious reserve. 
 
 Adrian asked his chief what he thought of that specimen 
 of woman. 
 
 " I think I have not met a better in my life," said the 
 baronet, mingling praise and sarcasm. 
 
 Clare lies in her bed as placid as in the days when she 
 breathed ; her white hands stretched their length along the 
 sheets, at peace from head to feet. She needs iron no more. 
 Richard is face to face with death for the first time. He 
 sees the sculpture of clay — ^the spark gone. 
 
 Clare gave her mother the welcome of the dead. This child 
 would have spoken nothing but kind commonplaces had she 
 been alive. She was dead, and none knew her malady. On 
 her fourth finger were two wedding-rings. 
 
 When hours of weeping had silenced the mother's anguish, 
 she, for some comfort she saw in it, pointed out that strange 
 thing to Richard, speaking low in the chamber of the dead ; 
 and then he learnt that it was his own lost ring Clare wore 
 in the two worlds. He learnt from her husband Clare's last 
 request had been that neither of the rings should be removed. 
 She had written it ; she would not speak it. 
 
 " I beg of my husband, and all kind people who may have 
 the care of me between this and the grave, to bury me with 
 my hands untouched." 
 
claeb's diaht. 419 
 
 The tracing of the words showed the bodily torment she 
 •was suffering, as she wrote them on a scrap of paper found 
 beside her pillow. 
 
 In wonder as the dim idea grew from the waving of Clare's 
 dead hand, Richard paced the house, and hung about the 
 awful room ; dreading to enter it, reluctant to quit it. The 
 secret Clare had buried while she lived, arose with her 
 death. He saw it play like flame across her marble features. 
 The memory of her voice was like a knife at his nerves. His 
 coldness to her started up accusingly: her meekness was 
 bitter blame. 
 
 On the evening of the fourth day, her mother came to him 
 in his bedroom, with a face so white he asked himself if 
 aught worse could happen to a mother than the loss of her 
 «hild. Choking she said to him, " Read this," and thrust a 
 leather-bound pocket-book trembling in his hand. She 
 would not breathe to him what it was. She entreated him 
 Tiot to open it before her. 
 
 " Tell me," she said, " tell me what you think. John 
 must not hear of it. I have nobody to consult but you — O 
 Richard ! " 
 
 " Mt Diaet " was written in the round hand of Clare's 
 "Childhood on the first page. The first name his eye encoun- 
 tered was his own. 
 
 "Richard's fourteenth birthday. I have worked him a 
 ^urse and put it under his pillow, because he is going to 
 have plenty of money. He does not notice me now because 
 he has a friend now, and he is ugly, but Richard is not, and 
 never will be." 
 
 The occurrences of that day were subsequently recorded, 
 and a childish prayer to God for him set down. Step by 
 step he saw her growing mind in his history. As she ad- 
 vanced in years she began to look back, and made much of 
 little trivial remembrances, all bearing upon him. 
 
 " We went into the fields and gathered cowslips together, 
 and pelted each other, and I told him he used to call them 
 ' coals-sleeps ' when he was a baby, and he was angry at 
 my telling him, for he does not like to be told he was ever a 
 baby." 
 
 He remembered the incident, and remembered his stupid 
 •■Bcom of her meek affection. Little Clare! how she lived 
 
 2e2 
 
420 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEBL. 
 
 before him in her white dress and pink ribbons, and soft dark 
 eyes ! Upstairs she was lying dead. He read on : 
 
 " Mama says there is no one in the world like Richard, 
 and I am sure there is not, not in the whole world. He say& 
 he is going to be a great General and going to the wars. If 
 he does I shall dress myself as a boy and go after him, and 
 he will not know me till I am wounded. Oh I pray he will 
 never, never be wounded. I wonder what I should feel if 
 Richard was ever to die." 
 
 Upstairs Clare was lying dead. 
 
 " Lady Blandish said there was a likeness between Richard 
 and me. Richard said I hope I do not hang down my head 
 as she does. He is angry with me because I do not look 
 people in the face and speak out, but I know I am not look- 
 ing after earth-worms." 
 
 Yes. He had told her that. A shiver seized him at the 
 recollection. 
 
 Then it came to a period when the words : " Richard 
 kissed me," stood by themselves, and marked a day in her life. 
 
 Afterwards it was solemnly discovered that Richard wrote 
 poetry. He read one of his old forgotten compositions 
 penned when he had that ambition. 
 
 " Thy truth to me is trner 
 
 Than horse, or dog, or blade ; 
 Thy TOWS to me are fewer 
 Than ever maiden made. 
 
 Thou steppest from thy splendour 
 
 To make my life a song : 
 My bosom shall be tender 
 
 As thine has risen strong." 
 
 All the verses were transcribed. "It is he who is the 
 humble knight," Clare explained at the close, " and his lady 
 is a Queen. Any Queen would throw her crown away for 
 him." 
 
 It came to that period when Clare left Raynham with her 
 mother. 
 
 " Richard was not sorry to lose me. He only loves boys 
 and men. Something tells me I shall never see Raynham 
 again. He was dressed in blue. He said Good bye, Clare, 
 and kissed me on the cheek. Richard never kisses me on 
 the mouth. He did not know I went to his bed and kissed 
 him while he was asleep. He sleeps with one arm under his 
 
CLAEl's DIAET. 421 
 
 head, and the other out on the bed. I moved away a bit of 
 his hair that was over his eyes. I wanted to cut it. I have 
 one piece. I do not let anybody see I am unhappy, not even 
 mama. She says I want iron. I am sure I do not. I like 
 to write my name. Clare Doria Forey. Richard's is Richard 
 Doria Feverel." 
 
 His breast rose convulsively. Clare Doria Forey ! He 
 knew the music of that name. He had heard it somewhere. 
 It sounded faint and mellow now behind the hills of death. 
 
 He could not read for tears. It was midnight. The hour 
 seemed to belong to her. The awful stillness and the dark- 
 ness were Clare's. Clare's voice clear and cold from the 
 grave possessed it. 
 
 Painfully, with blinded eyes, he looked over the breathless 
 pages. She spoke of his marriage, and her finding the 
 ring. 
 
 " I knew it was his. I knew he was going to be married 
 that morning. I saw him stand by the altar when they 
 laughed at breakfast. His wife must be so beautiful! 
 Richard's wife ! Perhaps he will love me better now he 
 is married. Mama says they must be separated. That is 
 shameful. If I can help him I will. I pray so that he may 
 be happy. I hope God hears poor sinners' prayers. I am 
 very sinful. Nobody knows it as I do. They say I am 
 good, but I know. When I look on the ground I am not 
 looking after earthworms, as he said. Oh, do forgive me, 
 God!" 
 
 Then she spoke of her own marriage, and that it was her 
 duty to obey her mottier. A blank in the Diary ensued. 
 
 " I have seen Richard. Richard despises me," was the 
 next entry. 
 
 But now as he read his eyes were fixed, and the delicate 
 feminine handwriting like a black thread drew on his soul 
 to one terrible conclusion. 
 
 " I cannot live. Richard despises me. I cannot bear the 
 touch of my fingers or the sight of my face. Oh ! I under- 
 stand him. now. He should not have kissed me so that last 
 time. I wished to die while his mouth was on mine." 
 
 Further: " I have no escape. Richard said he would die 
 rather than endure it. I know he would. Why should I be 
 afraid to do what he would do ? I think if my husband 
 whipped me I could bear it better. He is so kind, and tries 
 
422 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 to make me cheerfiil. He will soon be very unhappy. I 
 pray to Grod. half the night. I seem to be losing sight of 
 Him the more I pray." 
 
 Richard laid the book open on the table. Phantom surges 
 seemed to be mounting and travelling for his brain. Had 
 Clare taken his wild words in earnest ? Did she lie there 
 dead — ^he shrouded the thought. 
 
 He wrapped the thoughts in shrouds, but he was again 
 reading. 
 
 " A quarter to one o'clock. I shall not be alive this time 
 to-morrow. I shall never see Richard now. I dreamed last 
 night we were in the fields together, and he walked with his- 
 arm round my waist. We were children, but I thought 
 we were married, and I showed him. I wore his ring, and. 
 he said — if you always wear it, Clare, you are as good as 
 my wife. Then I made a vow to wear it for ever and ever. 
 . . . It is not mama's fault. She does not think as Richard 
 and I do of these things. He is not a coward, nor am I. 
 He hates cowards. 
 
 " I have written to his father to make him happy. Per- 
 haps when I am dead he will hear what I say. 
 
 " I heard just now Richard call distinctly — Clari, come- 
 out to me. Surely he has not gone. I am going I know not 
 where. I cannot think. I am very cold." 
 
 The words were written larger, and staggered towards the- 
 close, as if her hand had lost mastery over the pen. 
 
 " I can only remember Richard now a boy. A little boy 
 and a big boy. I am not sure now of his voice. I can only 
 remember certain words. ' Clari,' and ' Don Ricardo,' and. 
 his laugh. He used to be full of fun. Once we laughed all 
 day together tumbling in the hay. Then he had a friend,, 
 and began to write poetry, and be proud. If I had married 
 a young man he would have forgiven me, but I should not 
 have been happier. I must have died. Grod never looks on 
 me. 
 
 " It is past two o'clock. The sheep are bleating outside. 
 It must be very cold in the ground. Good-bye, Richard." 
 
 With his name it began and ended. Even to herself 
 Clare was not over-communicative. The book was slender, 
 yet her nineteen years of existence left half the number of 
 pages white. 
 
 Those last words drew him irresistibly to gaze on her.. 
 
Clare's diaet, 423 
 
 There sie lay, tlie same impassive Clare. For a moment lie 
 wondered she had not moved — to him she had become so 
 different. She who had jnst filled his ears with strange 
 tidings — it was not possible to think her dead ! She seemed 
 to have been speaking to him all through his life. His 
 image was on that still heart. 
 
 He dismissed the night-watchers from the room, and re- 
 mained with her alone, till the sense of death oppressed him, 
 and then the shock sent him to the window to look for sky 
 and stars. Behind a low broad pine, hung with frosty mist, 
 he heard a bell-wether of the flock in the silent fold. Death 
 in life it sounded. 
 
 The mother found him praying at the foot of Clare's bed. 
 She knelt by his side, and they prayed, and their joint sobs 
 shook their bodies, but neither of them shed many tears. 
 They held a dark unspoken secret in common. They prayed 
 God to forgive her. 
 
 Clare was buried in the family vault of the Todhunters. 
 Her mother breathed no wish to have her lying at 
 Loboume. 
 
 After the funeral, what they alone upon earth knew 
 brought them together. 
 
 " Richard," she said, " the worst is over for me. I have 
 no one to love but you, dear. We have all been fighting 
 against God, and this . . . Richard ! you will come with 
 me, and be united to your wife, and spare my brother what 
 I suffer." 
 
 He answered the broken spirit : " I have killed one. She 
 sees me as I am. I cannot go with you to my wife, because 
 1 am not worthy to touch her hand, and were I to go, I 
 should do tMs to silence my self-contempt. Go you to her, 
 and when she asks of me, say I have a death upon my head 
 
 that No ! say that I am abroad, seeking for that which 
 
 shall cleanse me. If I find it I shall come to claim her If 
 not, God help us all ! " 
 
 She had no force to contest his solemn words, or stay 
 him, and he went forth. 
 
424 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FBVEEEL. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIL 
 
 AUSTIN EETTJENS. 
 
 A MAN with a beard saluted the wise youth Adrian in the 
 full blaze of Piccadilly with a clap on the shoulder. Adrian 
 glanced leisurely behind. 
 
 " Do you want to try my nerves, my dear fellow ? I'm 
 not a man of fashion, happily, or you would have struck the 
 seat of them : — vital ! How are you ? " 
 
 That was his welcome to Austin Wentworth after his long 
 absence. 
 
 Austin took his arm, and asked for news with the hunger 
 of one who had been in the wilderness five years. 
 
 " The Whigs have given up the ghost, my dear Austin. 
 The free Briton is to receive Liberty's pearl, the Ballot. 
 The Aristocracy has had a cycle's notice to quit. The 
 Monarchy and old Madeira are going out ; Demos and Cape 
 wines are coming in. They call it Reform. So, you see, 
 your absence has worked wonders. Depart for another five 
 years, and you will return to ruined stomachs, cracked 
 sconces, general upset, and an equality made perfect by 
 universal prostration." 
 
 Austin indulged him in a laugh. " I want to hear about 
 ourselves. How is old Ricky ? " 
 
 " You know of his — what do they call it when greenhorns 
 are licensed to jump into the milkpails of dairymaids ? — a 
 very charming little woman she makes, by the way — pre- 
 sentable ! quite old Anacreon's rose in milk. Well ! every- 
 body thought the System must die of it. Not a bit. It 
 continued to flourish in spite. It's in a consumption now, 
 though — emaciated, lean, raw, spectral ! I've this morning 
 escaped from Raynham to avoid the sight of it. I have 
 brought our genial uncle Hippias to town — a delightful 
 companion ! I said to him : ' We've had a fine Spring.' 
 Ugh!' he answers, 'there's a time when you come to think 
 the Spring old.' Tou should have heard how he trained out 
 the ' old.' I felt something like decay in my sap just to 
 hear him. In the prize-fight of life, my dear Austin, our 
 uncle Hippias has been unfairly hit below the belt. Let's 
 guard ourselves there, and go and order dinner." 
 
 "Butwhere'sRickynow,and whatis he doing?" saidAustin. 
 
AUSTIN EETUENS. 425 
 
 " Ask what lie has done. The miraculous boy has gone 
 and got a baby !" 
 
 " A child ? Richard has one ?" Austin's clear eyes shone 
 with pleasure. 
 
 " I suppose it's not common among your tropical savages. 
 He has one : one as big as two. 'Tis that has been the 
 death-blow to the System. It bore the marriage — the baby 
 was too much for it. Could it swallow the baby, 't would 
 live. She, the wonderful woman, has produced a large boy. 
 I assure you it's quite amusing to see the System opening its 
 mouth every hour of the day, trying to gulp him down, 
 aware that it would be a consummate cure, or a happy 
 release." 
 
 By degrees Austin learnt the baronet's proceedings, and 
 smiled sadly. 
 
 " How has Ricky turned out ?" he asked. " What sort of 
 a character has he ?" 
 
 " The poor boy is ruined by his excessive anxiety about it. 
 Character ? he has the character of a bullet with a treble 
 charge of powder behind it. Enthusiasm is the powder. 
 That boy could get up an enthusiasm for the maiden days 
 of Ops ! He was going to reform the world, after your 
 fashion, Austin, — you have something to answer for. Unfor- 
 tunately he began with the feminine side of it. Cupid proud 
 of Phoebus newly slain, or Pluto wishing to people his 
 kingdom, if you like, put it into the soft head of one of the 
 guileless grateful creatures to kiss him for his good work. 
 Oh, horror ! he never expected that. Conceive the System 
 in the flesh, and you have our Richard. The consequence 
 is, that this male Peri refuses to enter his Paradise, though 
 the gates are open for him, the trumpets blow, and the fair 
 unspotted one awaits him fruitful within. We heard of him 
 last that he was trying the German waters — preparatory to 
 his undertaking the release of Italy from the subjugation of 
 the Teuton. Let's hope they'll wash him. He is in the 
 company of Lady Judith Pelle — ^your old friend, the ardent 
 female Radical who married the decrepit lord to carry out 
 her principles. They always marry English lords, or foreign 
 princes. I admire their tactics." 
 
 " Judith is bad for him in such a state. I like her, but 
 she was always too sentimental," said Austin. 
 
 " Sentiment made her marry the old lord, I suppose ? I 
 
426 THE OEDEAl OF EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 like her for hev sentiment, Austin. Sentimental people ar© 
 sure to live long and die fat. 'Tis feeling that's the slayer, 
 coz. Sentiment ! 'tis the cajolery of existence : the soft 
 bloom which whoso weareth, he or she is enviable. Would 
 that I had more !" 
 
 " Ton're not much changed, Adrian." 
 
 " I'm not a Radical, Austin." 
 
 Further inquiries, responded to in Adrian's figurative 
 speech, instructed Austin that the baronet was waiting for 
 his son, in a posture of statuesque offended paternity, before 
 he would receive his daughter-in-law and grandson. That 
 was what Adrian meant by the efforts of the System to 
 swallow the baby. 
 
 " We're in a tangle," said the wise youth. " Time will 
 extricate us, I presume, or what is the venerable signer good 
 for ?" 
 
 Austin mused some minutes, and asked for Lucy's place 
 of residence. 
 
 " We'll go to her by and by," said Adrian. 
 
 " I shall go and see her now," said Austin. 
 
 " Well, we'll go and order the dinner first, coz." 
 
 " Give me her address." 
 
 " Really, Austin, you carry matters with too long a beard," 
 Adrian objected. " Don't you care what you eat ?" he roared 
 hoarsely, looking humourously hurt. " I dare say not. A slice 
 out of him that's handy — sauce du ciel ! Go, batten on the 
 baby, cannibal. Dinner at seven." 
 
 Adrian gave him his own address, and Lucy's, and strolled 
 off to do the better thing. 
 
 Overnight Mrs. Berry had observed a long stranger in her 
 tea-cup. Posting him on her fingers and starting him with a 
 smack, he had vaulted lightly and thereby indicated that he 
 was positively coming the next day. She forgot him in the 
 bustle of hei" duties and the absorption of her faculties in 
 thoughts of the incomparable stranger Lucy had presented 
 to the world, till a knock at the street-door reminded her. 
 " There he is ! " she cried, as she ran to open to him. 
 " There's my stranger come ! " Never was a woman's faith 
 in omens so justified. The stranger desired to see Mrs. 
 Richard Feverel. He said his name was Mr. Austin Went- 
 worth. Mrs. Berry clasped her hands, exclaiming, " Come- 
 at last ! " and ran bolt out of the house to look up and down. 
 
AUSTIN EETUENS. 427 
 
 the street. Presently she returned with many excuses for 
 her rudeness, saying : " I 'xpected to see her comin' home, 
 Mr. Wentworth. Every day twice a day she go out to give 
 her blessed angel an airing. No leavin' the child with 
 nursemaids for her ! She is a mother ! and good milk, too,, 
 thank the Lord ! though her heart's se low." 
 
 Indoors Mrs. Berry stated who she was, related the 
 history of the young couple, and her participation in it, and 
 admired the beard. " Though I'd swear you don't wear it 
 for ornament, now ! " she said, having in the first impulse 
 designed a stroke at man's vanity. 
 
 Ultimately Mrs. Berry spoke of the family complication, 
 and with dejected head and joined hands threw out dark 
 hints about Richard. 
 
 While Austin was giving his cheerfuller views of the case 
 Lucy came in, preceding the baby. 
 
 "I am Austin "Wentworth," he said, taking her hand. 
 They read each other's faces, these two, and smiled kinship. 
 
 " Tour name is Lucy ? " 
 
 She affirmed it softly. 
 
 "And mine is Austin, as you know." 
 
 Mrs. Berry allowed time for Lucy's charms to subdue him, 
 and presented Richard's representative, who, seeing a new 
 face, suffered himseK to be contemplated before he com- 
 menced crying aloud, and knocking at the doors of Nature 
 for something that was due to him. 
 
 " Ain't he a lusty darlin' ? " says Mrs. Berry. " Ain't he 
 like his own father ? There can't be no doubt about zoo, 
 zoo pitty pet. Look at his fists. Ain't he got passion ? Ain't 
 he a splendid roarer ? Oh ! " and she went off rapturously 
 into baby-language. 
 
 A fine boy, certainly. Mrs. Berry exhibited his legs for 
 further proof, desiring Austin's confirmation as to their 
 beiug dumplings. 
 
 Lucy murmured a word of excuse, and bore the splendid 
 roarer out of the room. 
 
 " She might 'a done it here," said Mrs. Berry. " There's 
 no prettier sight, I say. If her dear husband could but see 
 that ! He's off in his heroics — he want to be doin' all sorts 
 o' things : I say he'll never do anything grander than that 
 baby. Ton should 'a seen her uncle over that baby — he 
 came here, for I said, you shall see your own fam'ly, my- 
 
428 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED PEVEEEL, 
 
 dear, and so slie thinks. He come, and lie laughed over that 
 baby in the joy of his 'art, poo' man ! he cried, he did. You 
 should see that Mr. Thompson, Mr. Wentworth — a friend o' 
 Mr. Richard's, and a very modest-minded young gentleman 
 — he worships her in his innocence. It's a sight to see him 
 with that baby. My belief is he's unhappy 'cause he can't 
 anyways be nursemaid to him. Lor ! and there, everything 
 so beautiful, and just that one screw loose. Mr. Went- 
 worth ! what do you think of her, sir ? " 
 
 Austin's reply was as satisfactory as a man's poor speech 
 could make it. He heard that Lady Feverel was in the 
 house, and Mrs. Berry prepared the way for him to pay his 
 respects to her. Then Mrs. Berry ran to Lucy, and the 
 house buzzed with new life. The simple creatures felt in 
 Austin's presence something good among them. " He don't 
 speak much," said Mrs. Berry, " but I see by his eye he 
 mean a deal. He ain't one o' yer long- word gentry, who's 
 all gay deceivers, every one of 'em." 
 
 Lucy pressed the hearty suckling into her breast. " I 
 wonder what he thinks of me, Mrs. Berry ? I could not 
 speak to him. I loved him before I saw him, I knew what 
 his face was like." 
 
 "He looks proper even with a beard, and that's a trial for 
 a virtuous man," said Mrs. Berry. " One sees straight 
 through the hair with him. Think ! he'll think what any 
 man 'd think — you a-suckin' spite o' all your sorrow, my 
 sweet, — and my Berry talkin' of his Roman matrons ! — here's 
 a English wife '11 match 'em all ! that's what he thinks. 
 And now that leetle dark under yer eye'll clear, my darlin', 
 now he've come." 
 
 Mrs. Berry looked to no more than that ; Lucy to no more 
 than the peace she had in being near Richard's best friend. 
 When she sat down to tea it was with a sense that the little 
 room that held her was her home perhaps for many a day. 
 
 A chop procured and cooked by Mrs. Berry formed Austin's 
 dinner. During the meal he entertained them with anecdotes 
 of his travels. Poor Lucy had no temptation to try to conquer 
 Austin. That heroic weakness of hers was gone. 
 
 Mrs. Berry had said : " Three cups — I goes no further," 
 and Lucy had rejected the proffer of more tea, when Austin, 
 whe was in the thick of a Brazilian forest, asked her if sho 
 was a good traveller. 
 
AUSTIN EETUENS. 429 
 
 " I mean, can yon start at a minute's notice ?" 
 
 Lucy hesitated, and then said, " Yes," decisively, to which 
 Mrs. Berry added, that she was not a " luggage- woman." 
 
 " There used to be a train at seven o'clock," Austin re- 
 marked, consulting his watch. 
 
 The two women were silent. 
 
 " Could you get ready to come with me to Raynham in ten 
 minutes ?" 
 
 Austin looked as if he had asked a commonplace question. 
 
 Lucy's lips parted to speak. She could not answer. 
 
 Loud rattled the teaboard to Mrs. Berry's dropping hands. 
 
 " Joy and deliverance !" she exclaimed with a foundering^ 
 voice. 
 
 " Will yon come ?" Austin kindly asked again. 
 
 Lucy tried to stop her beating heart, as she answered, 
 " Yes." Mrs. Berry cunningly pretended to interpret the 
 irresolution in her tones with a mighty whisper : " She's 
 thinking what's to be done with baby." 
 
 " He must learn to travel, too," said Austin. 
 
 " Oh !" cried Mr. Berry, " and I'll be his nuss, and bear 
 him, a sweet ! Oh ! and think of it ! me nurse-maid once 
 more at Raynham Abbey ! but it's nurse-woman now, you 
 must say. Let us be goin' on the spot." 
 
 She started up and away in hot haste, fearing delay would 
 cool the heaven-sent resolve. Austin smiled, eyeing his watch 
 and Lucy alternately. She was wishing to ask a multitade 
 of questions. His face reassured her, and saying: "I will 
 be dressed instantly," she also left the room. Talking, 
 bustling, preparing, wrapping up my lord, and looking to 
 their neatnesses, they were nevertheless ready within the 
 time prescribed by Austin, and Mrs. Berry stood humming 
 over the baby. " He'll sleep it through," she said. " He's 
 had enough for an alderman, and goes to sleep sound after 
 his dinner, he do, a duck !" Before they departed, Lucy 
 ran up to Lady Feverel. She returned for the small one. 
 
 " One moment, Mr. Wentworth ?" 
 
 " Just two," said Austin. 
 
 Master Richard was taken up, and when Lucy came back 
 her eyes were full of tears. 
 
 " She thinks she is never to see him again, Mr. "Went- 
 worth." 
 
 " She shall," Austin said simply. 
 
430 THE OEDEAIi OF EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 Ofi they went, and "with Austin near her, Lucy forgot to 
 dwell at all upon the great act of courage she was performing. 
 
 " I do hope baby will not wake," was her chief solicitude. 
 
 " He !" cries nurse- woman Berry from the rear, " his little 
 tum-tum's as tight as he can hold, a pet ! a lamb ! a bird ! a 
 beauty ! and ye may take yer oath he never wakes till that's 
 slack. He've got character of his own, a blessed !" 
 
 There are some tremendous citadels that only want to be 
 taken by storm. The baronet sat alone in his library, sick 
 of resistance, and rejoicing in the pride of no surrender ; a 
 terror to his friends and to himself. Hearing Austin's name 
 sonorously pronounced by the man of calves, he looked up 
 from his book, and held out his hand. " Grlad to see you, 
 Austin." His appearance betokened complete security. The 
 next minute he found himself escaladed. 
 
 It was a cry from Mrs. Berry that told him others were in 
 the room, besides Austin. Lucy stood a little behind the 
 lamp : Mrs. Berry close to the door. The door was half 
 open, and passing through it might be seen the petrified 
 figure of a fine man. The baronet glancing over the lamp 
 rose at Mrs. Berry's signification of a woman's personality. 
 Austin stepped back and led Lucy to him by the hand. " I 
 have brought Richard's wife, sir," he said with a pleased, 
 perfectly uncalculating, countenance, that was disarming. 
 Very pale and trembling Lucy bowed. She felt her two 
 hands taken, and heard a kind voice. Could it be possible it 
 belonged to the dreadful father of her husband ? She lifted 
 her eyes nervously: her hands were still detained. The 
 baronet contemplated I^ichard's choice. Had he ever had a 
 rivalry with those pure eyes ? He saw the pain of her posi- 
 tion shooting across her brows, and, uttering gentle inquiries 
 as to her health, placed her in a seat. Mrs. Berry had already 
 fallen into a chair. 
 
 " What aspect do you like for your bedroom ? — Bast ?" 
 said the baronet. 
 
 Lucy was asking herself wonderingly : " Am I to stay ?" 
 
 " Perhaps you had better take to Richard's room at once," 
 he pursued. " Tou have the Lobourne valley there fcnd a 
 good morning air, and will feel more at home." 
 
 Lucy's colour mounted. Mrs. Berry gave a short cough, 
 as one who should say, " The day is ours !" Undoubtedly — •' 
 strange as it was to think it — the fortress was carried. 
 
AUSTIN EBXUENS. 431 
 
 " Lticy is rather tired," said Austin, and to hear her Chris- 
 tian name thus bravely spoken brought grateful dew to her 
 ■eyes. 
 
 The baronet was about to touch the bell. " But have you 
 come alone ?" he asked. 
 
 At this Mrs. Berry came forward. Not immediately : it 
 seemed to require effort for her to move, and when she was 
 within the region of the lamp, her agitation could not escape 
 notice. The blissful bundle shook in her arms. 
 
 " By the way, what is he to me ?" Austin inquired gene- 
 Tally as he went and unveiled the younger hope of Raynham. 
 " My relationship is not so defined as yours, sir." 
 
 An observer might have supposed that the baronet peeped 
 at his grandson with the courteous indifference of one who 
 merely wished to compliment the mother of anybody's child. 
 
 " I really think he's like Richard," Austin laughed. Lucy 
 looked : I am sure he is. 
 
 " As like as one to one," Mrs. Berry murmured feebly; but 
 Grandpapa not speaking she thought it incumbent on her to 
 pluck up. "And he's as healthy as his father was. Sir 
 Austin — spite o' the might 'a beens. Reg'lar as the clock ! 
 We never want a clock since he come. We knows the hour 
 •o' the day, and of the night." 
 
 "Tou nurse him yourself, of course?" the baronet spoke 
 to Lucy, and was satisfied on that point. 
 
 Mrs. Berry was going to display his prodigious legs. Lucy, 
 fearing the consequent effect on the prodigious lungs, begged 
 lier not to wake him. " 'T'd take a deal to do that," said 
 Mrs. Berry, and harped on Master Richard's health and the 
 small wonder it was that he enjoyed it, considering the 
 superior quality of his diet, and the lavish attentions of his 
 mother, and then suddenly fell silent on a deep sigh. 
 
 " He looks healthy," said the baronet, " but I am not a 
 judge of babies." 
 
 Thus, having capitulated, Raynham chose to acknowledge 
 its new commandant, who was now borne away, under the 
 •directions of the housekeeper, to occupy the room Richard 
 had slept in when an infant. 
 
 Austin cast no thpught on his success. The baronet said : 
 ■" She is extremely well-looking." He replied : " A person 
 you take to at once." There it ended. 
 
 But a much more animated colloquy was taking place aloft, 
 
432 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FETEEEL. 
 
 where Lucy and Mrs. Berry sat alone. Lucy expected her to 
 talk about the reception they had met with, and the house, 
 and the peculiarities of the rooms, and the solid happiness 
 that seemed in store. Mrs. Berry all the while would per- 
 sist in consulting the looking-glass. Her first distinct answer 
 was, " My dear ! tell me candid, how do I look ?" 
 
 " Very nice indeed, Mrs. Berry ; but could you have be- 
 lieved he would be so kind, so considerate ?" 
 
 " I'm sure I looked a frump," returned Mrs. Berry. " Oh, 
 dear ! two birds at a shot. What do you think, now ?" 
 
 " I never saw so wonderful a likeness," says Lucy. 
 
 " Likeness ! look at me." Mrs. Berry was trembling and 
 hot in the palms. 
 
 " You're very feverish, dear Berry. What can it be ?" 
 
 " Ain't it like the love-flutters of a young gal, my 
 dear." 
 
 " Go to bed, Berry, dear," says Lucy, pouting in her soft 
 caressing way. " I will undress you, and see to you, dear 
 heart ! You've had so much excitement." 
 
 "Ha! ha!" Berry laughed hysterically; " she thinks it's 
 about this business of hers. Why, it's child's-play, my darlin'. 
 But I didn't look for tragedy to-night. Sleep in this house 
 I can't, my love !" 
 
 Lucy was astonished. " Not sleep here, Mrs. Berry ? — 
 Oh I why, you silly old thing ? I know." 
 
 " Do ye !" said Mrs. Berry with a sceptical nose. 
 
 " You're afraid of ghosts." 
 
 " Belike I am when they're six foot two in their shoes, and 
 bellows when you stick a pin into their calves. I seen my 
 Berry !" 
 
 "Your husband?" 
 
 " Large as life 1" 
 
 Lucy meditated on optical delusions, but Mrs. Berry 
 described him as the Colossus who had marched them into 
 the library, and vowed that he had recognized her, and 
 quaked. " Time ain't aged him," said Mrs. Berry, " whereas 
 me ! he've got his excuse now. I hnow I look a frump." 
 
 Lucy kissed her : " You look the nicest, dearest old 
 thing." 
 
 " You may say an old thing, my dear." 
 
 " And your husband is really here ?" 
 
 " Berry's below !" 
 
AUSTIN EETUENS. 433 
 
 Profoundly nttered as this was, it chased every vestige of 
 incredulity. 
 
 " What will you do, Mrs. Berry ?" 
 
 " Go, my dear. Leave him to be happy in his own way. 
 It's over atween us, I see that. When I entered the house I 
 felt there was something comin' over me, and lo and behold 
 ye ! no sooner was we in the hall-passage — if it hadn't been 
 for that blessed infant I sh'd 'a dropped. I must 'a known 
 his step, for my heart began thtimpin', and I knew I hadn't 
 got my hair straight — ^that Mr. Wentworth was in such a 
 hurry — nor my best gown. I knew he'd scorn me. He hates 
 frumps." 
 
 " Scorn you !" cried Lucy angrily. " He who has behaved 
 «o wickedly!" 
 
 Mrs. Berry attempted to rise. " I may as well go at once," 
 she whimpered. " If I see him I shall only be disgracin' of 
 myself. I feel it all on my side already. Did ye mark him, 
 any dear ? He's in his uniform. His unicorn I used to call 
 it, vexin' him. I know J was vexin' to him at times, I was. 
 Those big men are se touchy about their dignity — nat'ral. 
 JEark at me ! I'm goin' all soft in a minute. Let me leave 
 ithe house, my dear. I dare say it was good half my fault. 
 Young women don't understand men sufficient — not alto- 
 gether — and I was a young woman then — and then what 
 they goes and does they ain't quite answerable for : they 
 feels, I dare say, pushed from behind. Tes. I'll go. I'm 
 a frump. I'll go. 'Tain't in natur' for me to sleep in the 
 same house." 
 
 Lucy laid her hands on Mrs. Berry's shoulders, and forcibly 
 fixed her in her seat. " Leave baby, naughty woman ? I 
 tell you he shall come to you, and fall on his knees to you 
 and beg your forgiveness." 
 
 " Berry on his knees !" 
 
 " Tes. And he shall beg and pray you to forgive him." 
 
 " If you get more from Martin Berry than breath-away 
 words, great 'U be my wonder!" said Mrs. Berry. 
 
 " We will see," said Lucy, thoroughly determined to do 
 something for the good creature that had befriended her. 
 
 Mrs. Berry examined her gown. " Won't it seem we're 
 runnin' after him ?" she murmured faintly. 
 
 " He is your husband, Mrs. Berry. He may be wanting 
 to come to you now." 
 
 2f 
 
434 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 " Oil ! where is all I was goin' to say to that man whem 
 we met!" Mrs. Berry ejaculated. Lucy had left the room. 
 
 On the landing outside the door Lucy met a lady dressed 
 in black, who stopped her and asked ££ she was Richard's- 
 wife, and kissed her, passing from her immediately. Lucy 
 despatched a message for Austin, and related the Berry 
 history. Austin sent for the great man, and said : " Do you 
 know your wife is here ?" Before Berry had time to draw 
 himself up to enunciate his longest, he was requested to step 
 upstairs, and as his young mistress at once led the way, 
 Berry could not refuse to put his legs in motion and carry the 
 stately edifice aloft. 
 
 Of the interview Mrs. Berry gave Lucy a slight sketch 
 that night. " He began in the old way, my dear, and says 
 I, a true heart and plain words, Martin Berry. So there he 
 cuts himself and his Johnson short, and down he goes — down 
 o» his knees. I never could 'a believed it. I kep my dignity 
 as a woman till I see that sight, but that done for me. I 
 was a ripe apple in his arms 'fore I knew where I was. 
 There's something about a fine man on his knees that's too 
 much for us women. And it reely was the penitent on his 
 two knees, not the lover on his one. If he mean it ! But 
 ah ! what do you think he begs of me, my dear ? — ^not tO' 
 make it known in the house just yet ! I can't, I can't say 
 that look well." 
 
 Lucy attributed it to his sense of shame at his conduct,, 
 and Mrs. Berry did her best to look on it in that light. 
 
 " Did the bar'net kiss ye when you wished him good 
 night ? " she asked. Lucy said he had not. " Then bide 
 awake as long as ye can," was Mrs. Berry's rejoinder. 
 " And now let us pray blessings on that simple-speaking 
 gentleman who does se much 'cause he says se little." 
 
 Like many other natural people, Mrs. Berry was only silly 
 where her own soft heart was concerned. As she secretly 
 anticipated, the baronet came into her room when all was 
 quiet. She saw him go and bend over Richard the Second, 
 and remain earnestly watching him. He then went to the 
 half-opened door of the room where Lucy slept, leaned his 
 ear a moment, knocked gently, and entered. Mrs. Berry- 
 heard low words interchanging within. She could not catch a 
 syllable, yet she would have sworn to the context. " He've 
 called her his daughter, promised her happiness, and given 
 
NATUEB SPEAES. 435 
 
 a father's kiss to her." When Sir Austia passed out she 
 -was in. a deep sleep. 
 
 CHAPTER XLm. 
 
 NATUEE SPEAKS. 
 
 Briaebtjs reddening angrily over the sea — where is that 
 vaporous Titan ? And Hesper set in his rosy garland — why 
 looks he so implacably sweet ? It is that one has left that 
 bright home to go forth and do cloudy work, and he has got 
 a stain with which he dare not return. Par in the West fair 
 Lucy beckons him to come. Ah, heaven ! if he might ! How 
 strong and fierce the temptation is ! how subtle the sleepless 
 desire ! it drugs his reason, his honour. For he loves her ; 
 she is still the first and only woman to him. Otherwise 
 would this black spot be hell to him ? otherwise would his 
 limbs be chained while her arms spread open to him. And 
 if he loves her, why then what is one fall in the pit, or a 
 thousand ? Is not love the password to that beckoning 
 bliss ? So may we say ; but here is one whose body has 
 been made a temple to him, and it is desecrated. 
 
 A temple, and desecrated ! For what is it fit for but for 
 a dance of devils ? His education has thus wrought him to 
 think. 
 
 He can blame nothing but his own baseness. But to feel 
 base and accept the bliss that beckons — he has not fallen so 
 low as that. 
 
 Ah, happy English home ! sweet wife ! what mad miserable 
 Wisp of the Fancy led him away from you, high in his con- 
 ceit ? Poor wretch ! that thought to be he of the hundred 
 hands, and war agaiust the absolute Gods. Jove whispered 
 a light commission to the Laughing Dame; she met him; 
 and how did he shake Olympus ? with laughter. 
 
 Sure it were better to be Orestes, the Furies howling in 
 his ears, than one called to by a heavenly soul from whom 
 he is for ever outcast. He has not the oblivion of madness. 
 Clothed in the lights of his first passion, robed in the splen- 
 dour of old skies, she meets him everywhere; morning, 
 evening, and night, she shines above him ; waylays him 
 
 2 F 2 
 
436 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 suddenly in forest depths ; drops palpably on his heart. At 
 moments he forgets ; he rushes to embrace her ; calls her his 
 beloved, and lo, her innocent kiss brings agony of shame to 
 his face. 
 
 Daily the struggle endured. His father wrote to him, 
 begging him by the love he had for him to return. From 
 that hour Richard burnt unread all the letters he received. 
 He knew too well how easily he could persuade himself: 
 words from without might tempt him and quite extinguish 
 the spark of honourable feeliag that tortured him, and that 
 he clung to in desperate self- vindication. 
 
 To arrest young gentlemen on the downward slope is both 
 a dangerous and thankless office. It is, nevertheless, one 
 fair women greatly prize, and certain of them professionally 
 follow. Lady Judith, as far as her sex would permit, was 
 also of the Titans in their battle against the absolute Gods ; 
 for which purpose, mark you, she had married a lord in- 
 capable in all save his acres. Her achievements she kept to 
 her own mind : she did not look happy over them. She met 
 Richard accidentally in Paris ; she saw his state ; she let 
 him learn that she alone on earth understood him. The 
 consequence was that he was forthwith enrolled in her train. 
 It soothed him to be near a woman. Did she venture her guess 
 as to the cause of his conduct, she blotted it out with a facility 
 women have, and cast on it a melancholy hue he was taught 
 to participate in. She spoke of sorrows, personal sorrows, 
 much as he might speak of his — vaguely, and with self- 
 blame. And she understood him. How the dark unf athomed 
 wealth within us gleams to a woman's eye ! We are at com- 
 pound interest immediately : so much richer than we knew ! 
 — almost as rich as we dreamed ! But then the instant we 
 are away from her we find ourselves bankrupt, beggared. 
 How is that ? We do not ask. We hurry to her and bask 
 hungrily in her orbs. The eye must be feminine to be thus 
 creative : I cannot say why. Lady Judith understood 
 Richard, and he feeling infinitely vile, somehow held to her 
 more feverishly, as one who dreaded the worst in missing 
 her. The spirit must rest; he was weak with what he 
 suffered. 
 
 Austin found them among the hills of Nassau in Rhine- 
 land : Titans, male and female, who had not displaced Jove, 
 and were now adrift prone on floods of sentiment. The blue- 
 
NATUEE SPEAKS. 437 
 
 frocked peasant swinging behind his oxen of a morning, the 
 gaily-kerchiefed fruit-woman, the jackass-driver, even the 
 doctor of those regions, have done more for their fellows. 
 Horrible reflection ! Lady Judith is serene above it, but it 
 frets at Richard when he is out of her shadow. Often 
 wretchedly he watches the young men of his own age troop- 
 ing to their work. Not cloud- work theirs ! Work solid, 
 unambitious, fruitful ! 
 
 Lady Judith had a nobler in prospect for the hero. He 
 gaped for anythiag blindfolded, and she gave him the map 
 of Europe in tatters. He swallowed it comfortably. It was 
 an intoxicating cordial. Himself on horseback over-riding 
 wrecks of Empires ! Well might common-sense cower with 
 the meaner animals at the picture. Tacitly they agreed to 
 recast the civilized globe. The quality of vapour is to melt 
 and shape itself anew ; but it is never the quality of vapour 
 to reassume the same shapes. Briareus of the hundred un- 
 occupied hands may turn to a monstrous donkey with his 
 hind legs aloft, or twenty thousand jabbering apes. The 
 phantasmic groupings of the young brain are very like those 
 we see in the skies, and equally the sport of the wind. 
 Lady Judith blew. There was plenty of vapour in him, 
 and it always resolved into some shape or other. Tou 
 that mark those clouds of eventide, and know youth, will 
 see the similitude : it will not be strange, it will barely 
 seem foolish to you, that a young man of Richard's age, 
 Richard's education and position, should be in this wild 
 state. Had he not been nursed to believe he was born for 
 great things ? Did she not say she was sure of it ? And to 
 feel base, and yet bom for better, is enough to make one 
 grasp at anything cloudy. Suppose the hero with a game 
 leg. How intense is his faith in quacks ! with what a 
 passion of longing is he not seized to break somebody's head ! 
 They spoke of Italy in low voices. " The time will come," 
 said she. " And I shall be ready," said he. What rank 
 was he to take in the liberating army ? Captain, colonel, 
 general in chief, or simple private ? Here, as became him, 
 he was much more positive and specific than she was. 
 Simple private, he said. Tet he saw himself caracoling on 
 horseback. Private in the cavalry, then, of course. Private 
 in the cavalry over-riding wrecks of Empires, She looked 
 forth under her brows with mournful indistinctness at that 
 
438 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FETEEEI. 
 
 object in tlie distance. They read Petrarcli to get np the 
 necessary fires. Italia mia ! Vain indeed was this speaking 
 to those thick and mortal wounds in her fair body, but their 
 sighs went with the Tiber, the Amo, and the Po, and their 
 hands joined. Who has not wept for Italy ? I see the 
 aspirations of a world arise for her, thick and frequent as 
 the puffs of smoke from cigars of Pannonian sentries ! 
 
 So when Austin came Richard said he could not leave 
 Lady Judith, Lady Judith said she could not part with him. 
 For his sake, mind ! This Richard verified. Perhaps he 
 had reason to be grateful. The high-road of Folly may have 
 led him from one that terminates worse. He is foolish, God 
 knows ; but for my part I will not laugh at the hero because 
 he has not got his occasion. Meet him when he is, as it 
 were, anointed by his occasion, and he is no laughing matter. 
 Richard felt his safety in this which, to please the world, 
 we must term folly. Exhalation of vapours was a whole- 
 some process to him, and somebody who gave them shape 
 and hue a beneficent Iris. He told Austin plainly he could 
 not leave her, and did not anticipate the day when he could. 
 " Why can't you go to your wife, Richard ?" 
 " For a reason you would be the first to approve, Austin." 
 He welcomed Austin with every show of manly tender- 
 ness, and sadness at heart. Austin he had always associated 
 with his Lucy in that Hesperian palace of the West. Austin 
 waited patiently. Lady Judith's old lord played on all the 
 baths in Nassau without evoking the tune of health. 
 Whithersoever he listed she changed her abode. So admir- 
 able a wife was to be pardoned for espousing an old man. 
 She was an enthusiast even in her connubial duties. She 
 had the brows of an enthusiast. With occasion she might 
 have been a Charlotte Corday. So let her also be shielded 
 from the ban of ridicule. Nonsense of enthusiasts is very 
 different from nonsense of ninnies. She was truly a high- 
 minded person, of that order who always do what they see 
 to be right, and always have confidence in their optics. She 
 was not unworthy of a young man's admiration, if she was 
 unfit to be his guide. She resumed her ancient intimacy 
 with Austin easily, while she preserved her new footing with 
 Richard. She and Austin were not unlike, only Austin 
 never dreamed, and had not married an old lord. 
 
 The three were walking on the bridge at Limburg on the 
 
NATURE SPEAKS. 439 
 
 ILalm, wtere the stadow of a stone bisliop is thrown by the 
 moonlight on the water brawling over slabs of slate. A 
 woman passed them bearing in her arms a baby, whose 
 Tnighty size drew their attention. 
 
 " What a wopper ! " Richard laughed. 
 
 " Well, that is a fine fellow," said A.iistia, " but I don't 
 thint he's much bigger than your boy." 
 
 " He'll do for a nineteenth- century Arminius," Richard 
 was saying. Then he looked at Austiu. 
 
 " What was that you said ? " Lady Judith asked of 
 -Austin. 
 
 " What have I said that deserves to be repeated ? " Austin 
 -counterqueried quite innocently. 
 
 " Richard has a son ? " 
 
 " You didn't know it ? " 
 
 " His modesty goes very far," said Lady Judith sweeping 
 a curtsey to Richard's paternity. 
 
 Richard's heart throbbed with violence. He looked again; 
 in Austin's face. Austin took it so much as a matter of 
 •course that he said nothing more on the subject. 
 
 " Well ! " murmured Lady Judith. 
 
 The moment the two men were alone, Richard said in a 
 •quick voice : " Austin ! were you in earnest ? " 
 
 " I hope so," Austin replied. " When ? " 
 
 " In what you said on the bridge." 
 
 " On the bridge ? " 
 
 " Tou said I had a " — he could hardly get the words out 
 " — a son." 
 
 « Tou didn't know it, Richard ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Why, they all wrote to you. Lucy wrote to you : your 
 father, your aunt. I believe Adrian wrote too." 
 
 " I tore up their letters," said Richard. 
 
 " He's a noble fellow, I can tell you. You've nothing to 
 be ashamed of, my dear boy. He'll soon be coming to ask 
 about you. I made sure you knew." 
 
 "No, I never knew." Richard walked away, and then 
 said: " What is he like ? " 
 
 "Well, he really is like you, but he has his mother's, 
 .eyes." 
 
 " And she's — quite well ! " 
 
 " Yes. I think the child has kept her so." 
 
440 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 " And they're both at Raynham ? " 
 
 " Both." 
 
 Hence, fantastic vapours ! What are ye to this ! Where- 
 are the dreams of the hero when he learns he has a child ? 
 Nature is taking him to her bosom. She -will speak pre- 
 sently. Every domesticated boor in these hills can boast the 
 same, yet marvels the hero at none of his visioned prodigies 
 as he does when he comes to hear of this most common per- 
 formance. A father ? Richard fixed his eyes as if he were- 
 trying to make out the lineaments of his child. 
 
 Telling Austin he would be back in a few minutes, he sal- 
 lied into the air, and walked on and on. " A father ! " he 
 keptrepeating to himself : " a child ! " And though he knew 
 it not, he was striking the key-notes of Nature. But he did 
 know of a singular harmony that suddenly burst over his 
 whole being. 
 
 The moon was surpassingly bright : the summer air heavy 
 and still. He left the high road and pierced into the forest. 
 His walk was rapid : the leaves on the trees brushed his 
 cheeks ; the dead leaves heaped in the dells noised to his feet. 
 Something of a religious joy — a strange sacred pleasure — 
 was in him. By degrees it wore ; he remembered himself : 
 and now he was possessed by a proportionate anguish. A 
 father ! he dared never see his child. And he had no longer 
 his phantasies to fall upon. He was utterly bare to his sin. 
 In his troubled mind it seemed to him that Clare looked 
 down on him — Clare who saw him as he was — and that to 
 her eyes it would be infamy for him to go and print his kiss 
 upon his child. Then came stern efforts to command his 
 misery and make the nerves of his face iron. 
 
 By the log of an ancient tree half buried in dead leaves of 
 past summers, beside a brook, he halted as one who hadl 
 reached his journey's end. There he discovered he had a 
 companion in Lady Judith's little dog. He gave the 
 friendly animal a pat of recognition, and both were silent in 
 the forest-silence. 
 
 It was impossible for Richard to return ; his heart was 
 surcharged. He must advance, and on he footed, the little 
 dog following. 
 
 An oppressive slumber hung about the forest-branches. 
 In the dells and on the heights was the same dead heat. 
 Here where the brook tinkled it was no cool-lipped sound, 
 
NATURE SPEAKS. 441 
 
 but metallic, and without the spirit of water. Yonder in a 
 space of moonlight on lush grass, the beams were as white 
 fire to sight and feeling. No haze spread around. The val- 
 leys were clear, defined to the shadows of their verges ; the 
 distances sharply distinct, and with the colours of day but 
 slightly softened. Richard beheld a roe moving across a 
 slope of sward far out of rifle-mark. The breathless silence 
 was significant, yet the moon shone in a broad blue heaven. 
 Tongue out of mouth trotted the little dog after him; 
 couched panting when he stopped an instant ; rose weariedly 
 ■when he started afresh. Now and then a large white night- 
 moth flitted through the dusk of the forest. 
 
 On a barren comer of the wooded highland looking inland 
 stood gray topless ruins set in nettles and rank grass-blades. 
 Richard mechanically sat down on the crumbling flints to 
 rest, and listened to the panting of the dog. Sprinkled at 
 his feet were emerald lights : hundreds of glow-worms 
 studded the dark dry ground. 
 
 He sat and eyed them, thinking not at all. His energies 
 were expended in action. He sat as a part of the ruins, and 
 the moon turned his shadow Westward from the South. 
 Overhead, as she declined, long ripples of silver cloud were 
 imperceptibly stealing toward her. They were the van of a 
 tempest. He did not observe them, or the leaves beginning 
 to chatter. When he again pursued his course with his face 
 to the Rhine, a huge mountain appeared to rise sheer over 
 him, and he had it in his mind to scale it. He got no 
 nearer to the base of it for all his vigorous outstepping. 
 The ground began to dip ; he lost sight of the sky. Then 
 heavy thunder-drops struck his cheek, the leaves were sing- 
 ing, the earth breathed, it was black before him and behind. 
 All at once the thunder spoke. The mountain he had 
 marked was bursting over him. 
 
 Up started the whole forest in violet fire. He saw the 
 country at the foot of the hills to the bounding Rhine gleam, 
 quiver, extinguished. Then there were pauses ; and the 
 lightning seemed as the eye of heaven, and the thunder 
 as the tongue of heaven, each alternately addressing him ; 
 filling him with awful rapture. Alone there — sole human 
 creature among the grandeurs and mysteries of storm — he 
 felt the representative of his kind, and his spirit rose, and 
 marched, and exulted, let it be glory, let it be ruin ! Lower 
 
442 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 down the lightened abysses of air rolled the wrathful crash : 
 then white thrusts of light were darted from the sky, and 
 great curving ferns, seen steadfast in pallor a second, were 
 supernaturally agitated, and vanished. Then a shrill song 
 roused in the leaves and the herbage. Prolonged and louder 
 it sounded, as deeper and heavier the deluge pressed. A 
 mighty force of water satisfied the desire of the earth. Even 
 in this, drenched as he was by the first outpouring, Richard 
 had a savage pleasure. Keeping in motion he was scarcely 
 conscious of the wet, and the grateful breath of the weeds 
 was refreshing. Suddenly he stopped short, lifting a curious 
 nostril. He fancied he smelt meadow-sweet. He had never 
 seen the flower in Rhineland— never thought of it ; and it 
 would hardly be met with in a forest. He was sure he 
 smelt it fresh in dews. His little companion wagged a 
 miserable wet tail some way in advance. He went on slowly, 
 thinking indistinctly. After two or three steps he stooped 
 and stretched out his hand to feel for the flower, having, he 
 knew not why, a strong wish to verify its growth there. 
 Groping about his hand encountered something warm that 
 started at his touch, and he, with the instinct we have, 
 seized it, and lifted it to look at it. The creature was very 
 small, evidently quite young. Richard's eyes, now accus- 
 tomed to the darkness, were able to discern it for what it 
 was, a tiny leveret, and he supposed that the dog had pro- 
 bably frightened its dam just before he found it. He put 
 the little thing on one hand in his breast, and stepped out 
 rapidly as before. 
 
 The rain was now steady; from every tree a fountain 
 poured. So cool and easy had his mind become that he was 
 speculating on what kind of shelter the birds could find, and 
 how the butterflies and moths saved their coloured wings 
 from washing. Folded close they might hang under a leaf, 
 he thought. Lovingly he looked into the dripping darkness 
 of the coverts on each side, as one of their children. Then 
 he was musing on a strange sensation he experienced. It 
 ran up one arm with an indescribable thrill, but communi- 
 cated nothing to his heart. It was purely physical, ceased 
 for a time, and recommenced, till he had it all through his 
 blood, wonderfully thrilling. He grew aware that the little 
 thing he carried in his breast was licking his hand there. 
 "The small rough tongue going over and over the palm of his 
 
AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT. 443 
 
 Land produced this strange sensation te felt. Now that he 
 knew the cause, the marvel ended ; but now that he knew 
 the cause, his heart was touched and made more of it. The 
 gentle scraping continued without intermission as on he 
 walked. What did it say to him ? Human tongue could 
 Tiot have said so much just then. 
 
 A pale gray light on the skirts of the flying tempest dis- 
 played the dawn. Richard was walking hurriedly. The 
 green drenched weeds lay all about in his path, bent thick, 
 and the forest drooped glimmeringly. Impelled as a man 
 who feels a revelation mounting obscurely to his brain, 
 Richard was passing one of those little forest-chapels, hung 
 with votive wreaths, where the peasant halts to kneel and 
 pray. Cold, still, in the twilight it stood, rain-drops patter- 
 ing round it. He looked within, and saw the Virgin holding 
 lier Child. He moved by. But not many steps had he gone 
 ere his strength went out of him, and he shuddered. What 
 was it ? He asked not. He was in other hands. Vivid as 
 lightning the Spirit of Life illumined him. He felt in his 
 heart the cry of his child, his darling's touch. With shut 
 eyes he saw them both. They drew him from the depths ; 
 they led him a blind and tottering man. And as they led 
 him he had a sense of purification so sweet he shuddered 
 again and again. 
 
 When he looked out from his trance on the breathing 
 -world, the small birds hopped and chirped : warm fresh 
 sunlight was over all the hills. He was on the edge of the 
 forest, entering a plain clothed with ripe corn under a spacious 
 jnorning sky. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT. 
 
 Thbt heard at Raynham that Richard was coming. Lucy 
 Tiad the news first in a letter from Ripton Thompson, who 
 met him at Bonn. Ripton did not say that he had employed 
 tis vacation holiday on purpose to use his efforts to induce 
 his dear friend to return to his wife ; and finding Richard 
 already on his way, of course Ripton said nothing to him, 
 
444 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 but affected to be travelling for Ms pleasure like any cockney. 
 Ricliard also wrote to her. In case slie slionld have gone to 
 the sea he directed her to send word to his hotel that he 
 might not lose an hour. His letter was sedate in tone, very 
 sweet to her. Assisted by the faithful female Berry, she 
 was conquering an Aphorist. 
 
 " Woman's reason is in the milk of her breasts," was one 
 of his rough notes, due to an observation of Lucy's maternal 
 cares. Let us remember, therefore, we men who have drunk 
 of it largely there, that she has it. 
 
 Mrs. Berry zealously apprised him how early Master 
 Richard's education had commenced, and the great future 
 historian he must consequently be. This trait in Lucy was 
 of itself sufficient to win Sir Austin. 
 
 " Here my plan with Richard was false," he reflected : 
 "in presuming that anything save blind fortuity would 
 bring him. such a mate as he should have." He came to add : 
 "And has got !" 
 
 He could admit now that instinct had so far beaten 
 science ; for as Richard was coming, as all were to be 
 happy, his wisdom embraced them all paternally as the 
 author of their happiness. Between him and Lucy a tender 
 intimacy grew. 
 
 " I told you she could talk, sir," said Adrian. 
 
 " She thinks !" said the baronet. 
 
 The delicate question how she was to treat her uncle he 
 settled generously. Farmer Blaize should come up to- 
 Raynham when he would : Lucy must visit him at least 
 three times a week. He had Farmer Blaize and Mrs. Berry 
 to study, and really excellent Aphorisms sprang from the 
 plain human bases this natural couple presented. 
 
 " It will do us no harm," he thought, " some of the honest 
 blood of the soil in our veins." And he was content ia 
 musing on the parentage of the little cradled boy. A com- 
 mon sight for those who had the entry to the library was 
 the baronet cherishing the hand of his daughter-in-law. 
 
 So Richard was crossing the sea, and hearts at Raynham 
 were beating quicker measures as the minutes progressed. 
 That night he would be with them. Sir Austin gave Lucy 
 a longer, warmer salute when she came down to breakfast in 
 the morning. Mrs. Berry waxed thrice amorous. " It's 
 your second bridals, ye sweet livin' widow !" she said. 
 
AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT. 445 
 
 " Thanks be the Lord ! it's the same man too ! and a baby 
 over the bed-post," she appended seriously. 
 
 " Strange," Berry declared it to be, " strange I feel none 
 o' this to my Berry now. All my feelin's o' love seem t' ave 
 gone into you two sweet chicks." 
 
 In fact the faithless male Berry complained of being 
 treated badly, and afBected a superb jealousy of the baby ; 
 but the good dame told him that if he suffered at all he 
 suffered his due. Berry's position was decidedly nncom.- 
 fortable. It could not be concealed from the lower house- 
 hold that he had a wife in the establishment, and for the 
 complications this gave rise to, his wife would not legiti- 
 mately console him. He devised to petition the baronet. 
 Lucy did intercede for him, but Mrs. Berry was obdurate. 
 She averred she would not give up the child till he was 
 weaned. " Then, perhaps," she said prospectively. " Ton 
 see I ain't se soft as you thought for." 
 
 " You're a very unkind, vindictive old woman," said 
 Lucy. 
 
 "Belike I am," Mrs. Berry was proud to agree. We like 
 a new character, now and then. Berry had delayed too 
 long. 
 
 She explained herself : " Let me see my Berry with his 
 toes up, and I'm his tender nurse. It's a nursewoman he've 
 found — not a wife. 'Tain't revengin' him, my darlin' ! She 
 never is to a baby — not a woman isn't — what she g^ow to a 
 man. I had to see my Berry again to learn that, it seem. 
 We goes off — somehow — to a man. Hard on em', it may be. 
 Nat'ral, it is. The Scripture tells of concubines. And there 
 was Abram, we read. But it's all a puzzle, man and woman ! 
 and we perplexes each other on toe the end. Nor 'tain't 
 that Berry's alter. That man's much as he was, in body 
 both and in spirit. It's me am changed, and Berry dis- 
 covers it to me I am. It's a mis'rable truth, it be, my 
 feelin's as a wedded wife seem gone now I got him. ' Kiss 
 me,' says he. I gives him my cheek. ' So cold, Bessy 
 Berry,' he says reproachful. I don't say nothin', for how'd 
 he understand if I tell him I gone back to a spinster ? So it 
 is ! and was I to see my Berry kissin' another woman now, 
 I'd only feel perhaps — just that," Mrs. Berry simulated a 
 short spasm. " And it makes me feel different about Eternal 
 Life now," she continued. " It was always a-marriagin' in 
 
446 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 it before : — couldn't think of it without partners : — all for 
 sex ! But now them words ' No givin' in Marriage ' comes 
 home to me. A man and a woman they does their work 
 below, and it's ended long afore they lays their bodies in the- 
 grave — leastways the woman. It's be hoped you won't feel 
 that, my darlin', yet awhile — you se rosy simmerin' there !" 
 
 " Be quiet, Mrs. Berry," says Lucy, wishing to be pen- 
 sive. 
 
 " Boilin', then. Bless her ! she knows she is !" And 
 Mrs. Berry, in contemplation of the reunion of the younger 
 couple, went into amorous strophes immediately. 
 
 Were it not notorious that the straightlaced prudish dare- 
 not listen to the natural chaste, certain things Mrs. Berry- 
 thought it ad-viseable to impart to the young wife -with regard 
 to Berry's infidelity, and the charity women should have 
 toward sinful men, might here be reproduced. Enough 
 that she thought proper to broach the matter, and cite her 
 o-wn Christian sentiments. 
 
 Oily calm is on the sea. At Raynham they look up at the 
 sky and speculate that Richard is approaching fairly speeded. 
 He comes to throw himself on his darling's mercy. Lucy 
 irradiated over forest and sea, tempest and peace— to her the 
 hero comes humbly. Great is that day when we see our folly ! 
 Ripton and he were the friends of old. Richard encouraged 
 him to talk of the two he could be eloquent on, and Ripton, 
 whose secret vanity was in his powers of speech, never tired 
 of enumerating Lucy's virtues, and the peculiar attributes of 
 the baby. 
 
 " She did not say a word against me. Rip ? " 
 
 " Against you, Richard ! The moment she knew she was 
 to be a mother, she thought of nothing but her duty to the 
 child. She's one who can't think of herself." 
 
 " You've seen her at Raynham, Rip ? " 
 
 " Tes, once. They asked me down. And your father's sa 
 fond of her — I'm sure he thinks no woman like her, and he's 
 right. She is so lovely, and so good." 
 
 Richard was too full of blame of himself to blame his 
 father : too British to expose his emotions. Ripton divined 
 how deep and changed they were by his manner. He had 
 cast aside the hero, and however Ripton had obeyed him 
 and looked up to him in the heroic time, he loved him ten- 
 fold now. He told his friend how much Lucy's mer& 
 
AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT. 447" 
 
 ■womanly sweetness and excellence liad done for him, and 
 Eichard contrasted his own profitless extravagance with the 
 patient beauty of his dear home-angel. He was not one tO' 
 take her on the easy terms that ofBered. There was that to 
 do which made his cheek burn as he thought of it, but he 
 was going to do it, even though it lost her to him. Just to 
 see her and kneel to her was joy sufficient to sustain him, 
 and warm his blood in the prospect. They marked the 
 ■white cliffs growing over the water. Nearer the sun made 
 them lustrous. Houses and people seemed to welcome the 
 wild youth to common-sense, simplicity, and home. 
 
 They were in to'wn by mid-day. Richard had a momen- 
 tary idea of not dri^ving to his hotel for letters. After a 
 short debate he determined to go there. The porter said he 
 had two letters for Mr. Richard Peverel — one had been 
 •waiting some time. He went to the box and fetched them. 
 The first Richard opened was from Lucy, and as he read it, 
 Ripton observed the colour deepen on his face, while a 
 quivering smile played about his mouth. He opened the 
 other indifferently. It began without any form of address. 
 Richard's forehead darkened at the signature. This letter 
 was in a sloping feminine hand, and flourished with light 
 strokes all over, like a field of the bearded barley. Thus it 
 
 " I know you are in a rage ■with me because I would not 
 consent to ruin you, you foolish fellow. What do you call 
 it ? Going to that unpleasant place together. Thank you, 
 my milliner is not ready yet, and I want to make a good 
 appearance when I do go. I suppose I shall have to some 
 day. Tour health. Sir Richard. Now let me speak to you 
 seriously. Go home to your wife at once. But I know the 
 sort of fellow you are, and I must be plain ■with you. Did I 
 ever say I loved you ? You may hate me as much as yoa 
 please, but I -will save you from being a fool. 
 
 " Now listen to me. Tou know my relations with Mount. 
 That heast Brayder offered to pay all my debts and set me 
 afloat, if I would keep you in town. I declare on my honour 
 I had no idea why, and I did not agree to it. But you were 
 such a handsome fellow — I noticed you in the Park before I 
 heard a word of you. But then you fought shy — you were 
 just as tempting as a girl. Tou stung me. Do you know 
 
448 THE OEDEAL OP EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 what that is ? I would make you care for me, and we know 
 how it ended, without any intention of mine, I swear. I'd 
 have cut off my hand rather than do you any harm, upon my 
 honour. Circumstances ! Then I saw it was all up between 
 us. Brayder came and began to chaff about you. I dealt the 
 animal a stroke on the face with my riding- whip — I shut him 
 up pretty quick. Do you think I would let a man speak 
 about you? — I was going to swear. Tou see I remember 
 Dick's lessons. O my God! I do feel unhappy. — Brayder 
 offered me money. Go and think I took it, if you like. 
 What do I care what anybody thinks ! Something that black- 
 guard said made me suspicious. I went down to the Isle of 
 Wight where Mount was, and your wife was just gone with an 
 old lady who came and took her way. I should so have liked 
 to see her. Tou said, you remember, she would take me as 
 a sister, and treat me — I laughed at it then. My God ! how 
 I could cry now, if water did any good to a devil, as you 
 politely call poor me. I called at your house and saw your 
 man-servant, who said Mount had just been there. In a 
 minute it struck me. I was sure Mount was after a woman, 
 but it never struck me that woman was your wife. Then I 
 saw why they wanted me to keep you away. I went to 
 Brayder. Tou know how I hate him. I made love to the 
 man to get it out of him. Richard ! my word of honour, 
 they have planned to carry her off, if Mount finds he cannot 
 seduce her. Talk of devils ! He's one ; but he is not so bad 
 as Brayder. I cannot forgive a mean dog his villany. 
 
 " Now after this, I am quite sure you are too much of a 
 man to stop away from her another moment. I have no 
 more to say. I suppose we shall not see each other again, 
 so good-bye, Dick ! I fancy I hear you cursing me. Why 
 can't you feel like other men on the subject ? But if you 
 were like the rest of them I should not have cared for you a 
 farthing. I have not worn lilac since I saw you last. I'll 
 be buried in your colour, Dick. That will not offend you — 
 will it ? 
 
 " Tou are not going to believe I took the money ? If I 
 thought you thought that — it makes me feel like a devil only 
 to fancy you think it. 
 
 " The first time you meet Brayder, cane Mm publicly. 
 
 " Adieu ! Say it's because you don't like his face. I sup- 
 pose devils must not say Adieu. Here's plain old good-bye, 
 
AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT. 449 
 
 tten, between you and me. Good-bye, dear Dick! Ton 
 •won't think that of me ? 
 
 " May I eat dry bread to the day of my death if I took, or 
 ever will tonch, a scrap of their money. Bella." 
 
 Richard folded up the letter silently. 
 
 " Jump into the cab," he said to Ripton. 
 
 " Anything the matter, Richard ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 The driver received directions. Richard sat without 
 speaking. His friend knew that face. He asked whether 
 there was bad news in the letter. For answer he had the 
 lie circumstantial. He ventured to remark that they were 
 going the wrong way. 
 
 " It's the right way," cried Richard, and his jaws were 
 hard and square, and his eyes looked heavy and full. 
 
 Ripton said no more, but thought. 
 
 The cabman pulled up at a Club. A gentleman, in whom 
 Ripton recognised the Hon. Peter Brayder, was just then 
 swinging a leg over his horse, with one foot in the stirrup. 
 Hearing his name called, the Hon. Peter turned about, and 
 stretched an affable hand. 
 
 " Is Mountfalcon in town ? " said Richard, taking the 
 horse's reins instead of the gentlemanly hand. His voice 
 and aspect were quite friendly. 
 
 " Mount ? " Brayder replied, curiously watching the 
 action ; " yes. He's oS this evening." 
 
 " He is in town ? " Richard released his horse. " I want 
 to see him. Where is he ? " 
 
 The young man looked pleasant : that which might have 
 aroused Brayder's suspicions was an old afiair in parasitical 
 register by this time. " Want to see him ? What about ? " 
 he said carelessly, and gave the address. 
 
 " By the way," he sung out, " we thought of putting your 
 name down, Peverel." He indicated the lofty structure. 
 " What do you say ? " 
 
 Richard nodded back to him, crying, " Hurry." Brayder 
 returned the nod, and those who promenaded the district 
 soon beheld his body in elegant motion to the stepping of his 
 well-earned horse. 
 
 " What do you want to see Lord Mountfalcon for, 
 Richard ? " said Ripton. 
 
 2g 
 
450 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 " I jtist want to see him," Ricliard replied. 
 
 Ripton was left in tlie cab at the door of my lord's resi- 
 dence. He had to wait there a space of about ten minntes, 
 when Richard returned with a clearer visage, though some- 
 what heated. He stood outside the cab, and Ripton was 
 conscious of being examined by those strong grey eyes. As 
 clear as speech he understood them to say to him, " Tou 
 won't do," but which of the many things on earth he would 
 not do for he was at loss to think. 
 
 " Go down to Raynham, Ripton. Say I shall be there to- 
 night certainly. Don't bother me with questions. Drive off 
 at once. Or wait. Get another cab. I'll take this." 
 
 Ripton was ejected, and found himself standing alone in 
 the street. As he was on the point of rushing after the 
 galloping cab-horse to get a word of elucidation, he heard 
 some one speak behind him. 
 
 " Tou are Feverel's friend." 
 
 Ripton had an eye for lords. An ambrosial footman, 
 standing at the open door of Lord Mountfalcon's house, and 
 a gentleman standing on the door-step, told him that he was 
 addressed by that nobleman. He was requested to step into 
 the house. When they were alone. Lord Mountfalcon, 
 slightly ruffled, said : " Feverel has insulted me grossly. I 
 must meet him, of course. It's a piece of infernal folly ! — I 
 suppose he is not quite mad ? " 
 
 Ripton's only definite answer was a gasping iteration of 
 " My lord." 
 
 My lord resumed : " I am perfectly guiltless of offending 
 him, as far as I know. In fact, I had a friendship for him. 
 Is he liable to fits of this sort of thing ? " 
 
 Not yet at conversation-point, Ripton stammered : " Fits, 
 my lord ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " went the other, eyeing Ripton in lordly cognizant 
 style. " Tou know nothing of this business perhaps ? " 
 
 Ripton said he did not. 
 
 " Have you any influence with him ? " 
 
 " ISTot much, my lord. Only now and then — a little." 
 
 " Tou are not in the Army ? " 
 
 The question was quite unnecessary. Ripton confessed to 
 the law, and my lord did not look surprised. 
 
 " I will not detain you," he said, distantly bowing. 
 
THE LAST SCENE. 451 
 
 Ripton gave Mm a commoner's obeisance ; but getting to 
 "the door, the sense of the matter enlightened him. 
 
 " It's a duel, my lord ? " 
 
 "No help for it, if his friends don't shut him up in 
 Bedlam between this and to-morrow morning." 
 
 Of all horrible things a duel was the worst in Ripton's 
 imagination. He stood holding the handle of the door, 
 revolving this last chapter of calamity suddenly opened 
 where happiness had promised. 
 
 " A duel ! but he won't, my lord, — he mustn't fight, my 
 lord." 
 
 " He must come on the ground," said my lord positively. 
 
 Ripton ejaculated unintelligible stuff. Finally Lord 
 Mountfalcon said ; " I went out of my way, sir, in speaking 
 to you. I saw you from the window. Tour friend is mad. 
 Deuced methodical, I admit, but mad. I have particular 
 reasons to wish not to injure the young man, and if an 
 apology is to be got out of him when we're on the ground, 
 I'll take it, and we'll stop the damned scandal, if possible. 
 Tou understand ? I'm the insulted party, and I shall only 
 require of him to use formal words of excuse to come to 
 an amicable settlement. Let him just say he regrets it. 
 Now, sir," the nobleman spoke with considerable earnest- 
 ness, " should anything happen — I have the honour to be 
 known to Mrs. Peverel — and I beg you will tell her. I very 
 particularly desire you to let her know that I was not to 
 blame." 
 
 Mountfalcon rang the bell, and bowed him out. With 
 this on his mind Ripton hiirried down to those who were 
 waiting in joyful trust at Raynham. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 THE LAST SCENE. 
 
 The watch consulted by Hippias alternately with his 
 ^ulse, in occult calculation hideous to mark, said half-past 
 eleven on the midnight. Adrian, wearing a composedly 
 amused expression on his dimpled plump face, — held slightly 
 sideways, aloof from paper and pen, — sat writing at the 
 
 2a2 
 
452 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 library table. Round the baronet's chair, in a semicircle, 
 were Lucy, Lady Blandish, Mrs. Doria, and Ripton, that 
 very ill bird at Raynham. They were silent as those who 
 question the flying minutes. Ripton had said that Richard 
 was sure to come ; but the feminine eyes reading him ever 
 and anon, had gathered matter for disqaietude, which 
 increased as time sped. Sir Austin persisted in his habitual 
 air of speculative repose. 
 
 Remote as he appeared from vulgar anxiety, he was the 
 first to speak and betray his state. 
 
 " Pray put up that watch. Impatience serves nothing," 
 he said, half- turning hastily to his brother behind him. 
 
 Hippias relinquished his pulse and mildly groaned : " It's, 
 no nightmare, this ! " 
 
 His remark was unheard, and the bearing of it remained 
 obscure. Adrian's pen made a louder flourish on his manu- 
 script ; whether in commiseration or infernal glee, none 
 might say. 
 
 " What are you writing ? " the baronet iuquired testily of 
 Adrian, after a pause ; twitched, it may be, by a sort of 
 jealousy of the wise youth's coolness. 
 
 " Do I disturb you, sir ? " rejoined Adrian. " I am 
 engaged on a portion of a Proposal for uniting the Empires 
 and Kingdoms of Europe under one Paternal Head, on the 
 model of the ever-to-be-admired and lamented Holy Roman. 
 This treats of the management of Youths and Maids, and of 
 certain magisterial functions connected therewith. ' It ia 
 decreed that these officers be all and every men of science,' 
 etc." And Adrian cheerily drove his pen afresh. 
 
 Mrs. Doria took Lucy's hand, mutely addressing encour- 
 agement to her, and Lucy brought as much of a smile as she 
 could command to reply with. 
 
 " I fear we must give him up to-night," observed Lady 
 Blandish. 
 
 " If he said he would come, he will come,'' Sir Austin, 
 interjected. Between him and the lady there was something 
 of a contest secretly going on. He was conscious that 
 nothing save perfect success would now hold this self- 
 emancipating mind. She had seen him through. 
 
 " He declared to me he would be certain to come," said 
 Ripton ; but he could look at none of them as he said it, for 
 he was growing aware that Richard might have deceived 
 
THE LAST SCENE. 453 
 
 him, and was feeling like a black conspirator against their 
 happiness. He determined to tell the baronet what he 
 knew, if Richard did not come by twelve. 
 
 " What is the time ? " he asked Hippias in a modest voice. 
 
 " Time for me to be in bed," growled Hippias, as if every- 
 body present had been treating him badly. 
 
 Mrs. Berry came in to apprise Lucy that she was wanted 
 above. She quietly rose. Sir Austin kissed her on the 
 forehead, saying : " Ton had better not come down again, 
 my child." She kept her eyes on him. " Oblige me by 
 retiring for the night," he added. Lucy shook their hands, 
 and went out accompanied by Mrs. Doria. 
 
 " This agitation will be bad for the child," he said, speak- 
 ing to himself aloud. 
 
 Lady Blandish remarked : " I think she might just as well 
 tiave returned. She will not sleep." 
 
 " She will control herself for the child's sake." 
 
 " Tou ask too much of her." 
 
 " Of her not," he emphasized. 
 
 It was twelve o'clock when Hippias shut his watch, and 
 said with vehemence : " I'm convinced my circtdation 
 gradually and steadily decreases." 
 
 " Going back to the pre-Harvey period," murmured 
 Adrian as he wrote. 
 
 Sir Austin and Lady Blandish knew well that any com- 
 ment would introduce them to the interior of his machinery, 
 the external view of which was suflficiently harrowing ; so 
 they maintained a discreet reserve. Taking it for acquies- 
 cence in his deplorable condition, Hippias resumed despair- 
 ingly : " It's a fact. I've brought you to see that. No one 
 can be more moderate than I am, and yet I get worse. My 
 System is organically sound — I believe : I do every possible 
 thing, and yet I get worse. Nature never forgives ! I'll go 
 to bed." 
 
 The Dyspepsy departed unconsoled. 
 
 Sir Austin took up his brother's thought : " I suppose 
 nothing short of a miracle helps us when we have offended 
 her." 
 
 " Nothing short of a quack satisfies us," said Adrian, 
 applying wax to an envelope of official dimensions. 
 
 Ripton sat accusing bis soul of cowardice while they 
 talked ; haunted by Lucy's last look at him. He got up bia 
 
454 THE OEDBAL OF EICHAED TETEEEL. 
 
 courage presently and went roimd to Adrian, who, after a 
 few whispered words, deliberately rose and accompanied 
 him out of the room, shrugging. When they had gone,. 
 Lady Blandish said to the baronet : " He is not coming." 
 
 " To-morrow, then, if not to-night," he replied. " But I 
 say he will come to-night." 
 
 " You do really wish to see him united to his wife ? " 
 
 The question made the baronet raise his brows with some 
 displeasure. 
 
 " Can you ask me ?" 
 
 "I mean," said the ungenerous woman, "your System 
 will require no further sacrifices from either of them ? " 
 
 When he did answer, it was to say : " I think her alto- 
 gether a superior person. I confess 1 should scarcely have 
 hoped to find one like her." 
 
 "Admit that your science does not accomplish every- 
 thing." 
 
 "No: it was presumptuous — beyond a certain point," 
 said the baronet, meaning deep things. 
 
 Lady Blandish eyed him. " Ah me !" she sighed, " if we 
 would always be true to our own wisdom !" 
 
 "You are very singular to-night, Bmmeline." Sir Austin^ 
 stopped his walk in front of her. 
 
 In truth, was she not unjust ? Here was an offending soa 
 freely forgiven. Here was a young woman of humble birth 
 freely accepted into his family and permitted to stand upon 
 her qualities. Who would have done more — or as much ? 
 This lady, for instance, had the case been hers, would have 
 fought it. All the people of position that he was acquainted 
 with would have fought it, and that without feeling it so- 
 peculiarly. But while the baronet thought this, he did not 
 think of the exceptional education his son had received. He 
 took the common ground of fathers, forgetting his System 
 when it was absolutely on trial. False to his son it could 
 not be said that he had been : false to his System he was. 
 Others saw it plainly, but he had to learn his lesson by 
 and by. 
 
 Lady Blandish gave him her face ; then stretched her 
 hand to the table, saying, " Well ! well !" She fingered a 
 half-opened parcel lying there, and drew forth a little book 
 she recognized. " Ha ! what is this ?" she said. 
 
 " Benson returned it this morning," he informed her. 
 
THE LAST SCENE. 455 
 
 " The stupid fellow took it away with him — by mischance, 
 I am bound to believe." 
 
 It was nothing other than the old Note-book. Lady 
 Blandish turned over the leaves, and came upon the later 
 jottings. 
 
 She read : " A maker of Proverbs — what is he but a narrow 
 mind the mouthpiece of narrower ?" 
 
 " I do not agree with that," she observed. He was in no 
 humour for argument. 
 
 " Was your humility feigned when you wrote it ?" 
 
 He merely said : " Consider the sort of minds influenced 
 by set sayings. A proverb is the half-way-house to an Idea, 
 I conceive ; and the majority rest there content : can the 
 keeper of such a house be flattered by his company ?" 
 
 She felt her feminine intelligence swaying under him 
 again. There must be greatness in a man who could thus 
 speak of his own special and admirable aptitude. 
 
 Further she read, " Which is the coward among us ?—He 
 who sneers at the failings of Humanity !" 
 
 " Oh ! that is true ! How much I admire that !" cried the 
 dark-eyed dame as she beamed intellectual raptures. 
 
 Another Aphorism seemed closely to apply to him : " There 
 is no more grievous sight, as there is no greater perversion, 
 than a wise man at the mercy of his feelings." 
 
 " He must have written it," she thought, " when he had 
 himself for an example — strange man that he is !" 
 
 Lady Blandish was still inclined to submission, though 
 decidedly insubordinate. She had once been fairly con- 
 quered : but if what she reverenced as a great mind could 
 conquer her, it must be a great man that should hold her 
 captive. The Autumn Primrose blooms for the loftiest 
 manhood; is a vindictive flower in lesser hands. Never- 
 theless Sir Austin had only to be successful, and this lady's 
 allegiance was his for ever. The trial was at hand. 
 
 She said again : " He is not coming to-night," and the 
 baronet, on whose visage a contemplative pleased look had 
 been rising for a minute past, quietly added : " He is 
 come." 
 
 Richard's voice was heard in the hall. 
 
 There was commotion all over the house at the return of 
 the young heir. Berry, seizing every possible occasion to 
 approach his Bessy now that her involuntary coldness had 
 
456 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEBL. 
 
 enhanced her value — " Such is men !" as the soft woman 
 reflected — Berry ascended to her and delivered the news in 
 pompous tones and wheedling gestures. " The best word 
 you've spoke for many a day," says she, and leaves him 
 unfee'd, in an attitude, to hurry and pour bliss into Lucy's ears. 
 
 " Lord be praised !" she entered the adjoining room 
 exclaiming, "we're goin' to be happy at last. They men 
 have come to their senses. I could cry to your Virgin and 
 kiss your Cross, you sweet !" 
 
 " Hush !" Lucy admonished her, and crooned over the 
 child on her knees. The tiny open hands, full of sleep, 
 clutched ; the large blue eyes started awake ; and his mother, 
 all trembling and palpitating, knowing, but thirsting to hear 
 it, covered him with her tresses, and tried to still her frame, 
 aud rocked, and sang low, interdicting even a whisper from 
 bursting Mrs. Berry. 
 
 Richard had come. He was under his father's roof, in the 
 old home that had so soon grown foreign to him. He stood 
 close to his wife and child. He might embrace them both : 
 and now the fulness of his anguish and the madness of the 
 thing he had done smote the young man : now first he tasted 
 hard earthly misery. 
 
 Had not God spoken to him in the tempest ? Had not the 
 finger of heaven directed him homeward ? And he had 
 come : here he stood : congratulations were thick in his ears : 
 the cup of happiness was held to him, and he was invited 
 to drink of it. Which was the dream ? his work for the 
 morrow, or this ? But for a leaden load he felt like a bullet 
 in his breast, he might have thought the morrow with death 
 sitting on it was the dream. Tes ; he was awake. Now 
 first the cloud of phantasms cleared away : he beheld his 
 real life, and the colours of true human joy • and on the 
 morrow perhaps he was to close his eyes on them. That 
 leaden bullet dispersed all unrealities. 
 
 They stood about him in the hall, his father. Lady 
 Blandish, Mrs. Doria, Adrian, Ripton; people who had 
 known him long. They shook his hand : they gave him 
 greetings he had never before understood the worth of or 
 the meaning. Now that he did they mocked him. There 
 was Mrs. Berry in the background bobbing, there was Martin 
 Berry bowing, there was Tom Bakewell grinning. Some- 
 how he loved the sight of these better. 
 
THE LAST SCENE. 457 
 
 "Ah, my old Penelope!" he said, breaking through the 
 circle of his relatives to go to her, " so you've found him at 
 last ? Tom ! how are you ? Berry ! I hope you're going to 
 behave like a man." 
 
 Berry inclined with dignified confusion, and drew up to 
 man's height — to indicate his honourable intentions, let us 
 hope. Tom Bakewell performed a motion as if to smear his 
 face with an arm, but decided on making his grin vocal. 
 
 " Bless ye, my Mr. Richard," whimpered Mrs. Berry, and 
 ■whispered rosily, " all's agreeable now. She's waiting up 
 in bed for ye, like a new-born." 
 
 The person who betrayed most agitation was Mrs. Doria. 
 She held close to him, and eagerly studied his face and every 
 movement, as one accustomed to masks. "Tou are pale, 
 Richard ?" He pleaded exhaustion. " What detained you, 
 dear ?" " Business," he said. She drew him imperiously 
 apart from the others. " Richard ! is it over ?" He asked 
 what she meant. " The dreadful duel, Richard." He looked 
 darkly. " Is it over ? is it done, Richard ?" Getting no 
 immediate answer, she continued — and such was her agita- 
 tion that the words were shaken by pieces from her mouth : 
 " Don't pretend not to understand me, Richard ! Is it over ? 
 Are you going to die the death of my child — Clare's death ? 
 Is not one in a family enough ? Think of your dear young 
 ■wife — we love her so ! — your child ! — your father ! Will 
 you kill us all ?" 
 
 Mrs. Doria had chanced to overhear a trifle of Ripton's 
 communication to Adrian, and had built thereon with the 
 dark forces of a stricken soul. 
 
 Wondering how this woman could have divined it, Richard 
 calmly said : " It's arranged — the matter you allude to." 
 
 " Indeed ! truly, dear ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Tell me " — but he broke away from her, saying : " Tou 
 ehall hear the particulars to-morrow," and she, not alive to 
 double meaning just then, allowed him to leave her. 
 
 He had eaten nothing for twelve hours, and called for 
 food, but he would take only dry bread and claret, which 
 was served on a tray in the library. He said, ■without any 
 show of feeling, that he must eat before he saw the younger 
 hope of Raynham : so there he sat, breaking bread, and 
 eating great mouthfuls, and washing them down with wine, 
 
458 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 talking of wliat they would. His father's studious mind felt 
 itself years behind him, he "was so completely altered. He- 
 had the precision of speech, the bearing of a man of thirty. 
 Indeed he had all that the necessity for cloaking an 
 infinite misery gives. But let things be as they might, he 
 was there. For one night in his life Sir Austin's perspective 
 of the future was bounded by the night. 
 
 " Will you go to your wife now ? " he had asked, and 
 Richard had replied with a strange indifference. The 
 baronet thought it better that their meeting should be 
 private, and sent word for Lucy to wait upstairs. The 
 others perceived that father and son should now be left 
 alone. Adrian went up to him, and said : " I can no longer 
 witness this painful sight, so Good-night, Sir Famish ! Tou 
 may cheat yourself into the belief that you've made a meal, 
 but depend upon it your progeny — and it threatens to be 
 numerous — ^will cry aloud and rue the day. Nature never 
 forgives ! A lost dinner can never be replaced ! Good- 
 night, my dear boy. And here — oblige me by taking this," 
 he handed Richard the enormous envelope containing what 
 he had written that evening. " Credentials ! " he exclaimed 
 humourously, slapping Richard on the shoulder. Ripton 
 heard also the words "propagator — species," but had no 
 idea of their import. The wise youth looked: Tou see 
 we've made matters all right for you here, and quitted the 
 room on that unusual gleam of earnestness. 
 
 Richard shook his hand, and Ripton's. Then Lady 
 Blandish said her good-night, praising Lucy, and promising 
 to pray for their mutual happiness. The two men who 
 knew what was hanging over him, spoke together outside. 
 Ripton was for getting a positive assurance that the duel 
 would not be fought, but Adrian said : " Time enough to- 
 morrow. He's safe enough while he's here. I'll stop it 
 to-morrow : " ending with banter of Ripton and allusions to 
 his adventures with Miss Random, which must, Adrian said, 
 have led him into many affairs of the sort. Certainly 
 Richard was there, and while he was there he must be safe. 
 So thought Ripton, and went to his bed. Mrs. Doria de- 
 liberated likewise, and likewise thought him safe while he 
 was there. For once in her life she thought it better not to 
 trust to her instinct, for fear of useless disturbance where 
 peace should be. So she said not a syllable of it to her 
 
THE LAST SCENE. 459" 
 
 brother. She only looked more deeply into Richard's eyes, 
 as she kissed him, praising Lucy. " I have found a second 
 daughter in her, dear. Oh ! may you both be happy ! " 
 
 They all praised Lucy, now. His father commenced the 
 moment they were alone. " Poor Helen ! Tour wife has 
 been a great comfort to her, Richard. I think Helen must 
 have sunk without her. So lovely a young person, possess- 
 ing mental faculty, and a conscience for her duties, I have 
 never before met." 
 
 He wished to gratify his son by these eulogies of Lucy,, 
 and some hours back he would have succeeded. Now it had 
 the contrary effect. 
 
 " Tou compliment me on my choice, sir ? " 
 
 Richard spoke sedately, but the irony was perceptible, 
 and he could speak no other way, his bitterness was so 
 intense. 
 
 " I think you very fortunate," said his father. 
 
 Sensitive to tone and manner as he was, his ebullition of 
 paternal feeling was frozen. Richard did not approach him. 
 He leaned against the chimney-piece, glancing at the floor, 
 and lifting his eyes only when he spoke. Fortunate ! very 
 fortunate ! As he revolved his later history, and remem- 
 bered how clearly he had seen that his father must love 
 Lucy if he but knew her, and remembered his efforts to 
 persuade her to come with him, a sting of miserable rage 
 blackened his brain. But could he blame that gentle soul ? 
 Whom could he blame ? Himself ? Not utterly. His 
 Father ? Tes, and no. The blame was here, the blame was 
 there : it was everywhere and nowhere, and the young man 
 cast it on the Fates, and looked angrily at heaven, and grew 
 reckless. 
 
 " Richard," said his father, coming close to him, " it is 
 late to-night. I do not wish Lucy to remain in expectation 
 longer, or I should have explained myself to you thoroughly, 
 and I think — or at least hope — you would have justified me. 
 I had cause to believe that you had not only violated my 
 confidence, but grossly deceived me. It was not so, I now 
 know. I was mistaken. Much of our misunderstanding has 
 resulted from that mistake. But you were married — a boy : 
 you knew nothing of the world, little of yourself. To save 
 you in after-life — ^for there is a period when mature men 
 and women who have married Tonng are more impelled to 
 
460 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED PBVEEEL. 
 
 temptation ttan in youth, — tliougli not so exposed to it, — to 
 save you, I say, I decreed that you should experience self- 
 denial and learn something of your fellows of both sexes, 
 before settling into a state that must have been otherwise 
 precarious, however excellent the woman who is your mate. 
 My System with you would have been otherwise imperfect, 
 and you would have felt the effects of it. It is over now. 
 You are a man. The dangers to which your nature was 
 open are, I trust, at an end. I wish you to be happy, and 
 I give you both my blessing, and pray God to conduct and 
 strengthen you both." 
 
 Sir Austin's mind was unconscious of not having spoken 
 devoutly. True or not, his words were idle to his son: his 
 talk of dangers over, and happiness, mockery. 
 
 Richard coldly took his father's extended hand. 
 
 " We will go to her," said the baronet. " I will leave you 
 at her door." 
 
 Not moving : looking fixedly at his father with a hard 
 face on which the colour rushed, Richard said : " A husband 
 who has been unfaithful to his wife may go to her there, 
 sir ? " 
 
 It was horrible, it was cruel : it was uncalled for — 
 Richard knew that. He wanted no advice on such a matter, 
 having fully resolved what to do. Yesterday he would 
 have listened to his father, and blamed himself alone, and 
 done what was to be done humbly before God and her : now 
 in the recklessness of his misery he had as little pity for 
 any other soul as for his own. Sir Austin's brows were 
 deep drawn down. 
 
 " What did you say, Richard ? " 
 
 Clearly his intelligence had taken it, but this — the worst 
 he could hear — this that he had dreaded once and doubted, 
 and smoothed over, and cast aside — could it be ? " 
 
 Richard said : " I told you all but the very words when 
 we last parted. What else do you think would have kept 
 me from her ? " 
 
 Angered at his callous aspect, his father cried : " What 
 brings you to her now ? " 
 
 " That will be between us two," was the reply. 
 
 Sir Austin fell into his chair. Meditation was impossible. 
 He spoke from a wrathful heart : " You will not dare to take 
 her without " 
 
THE LAST SCENE. 461 
 
 " No, sir," Ricliard interrupted him, " I shall not. Have 
 no fear." 
 
 " Then you did not love your wife ? " 
 
 " Did I not ? " A smile passed faintly over Richard's 
 face. 
 
 " Did you care so much for this — this other person ? " 
 
 " So much ? If you ask me whether I had afPection for 
 her, I can say I had none." 
 
 base human nature ! Then how ? then why ? A 
 thousand questions rose in the baronet's mind. Bessy Berry 
 could have answered them every one. 
 
 " Poor child ! poor child ! " he apostrophized Lucy, 
 paciug the room. Thinking of her, knowing her deep love 
 for his son — her true forgiving heart — it seemed she should 
 be spared this misery. 
 
 He proposed to Richard to spare her. Vast is the distinc- 
 tion between women and men in this one sin, he said, and 
 supported it with physical and moral citations. His argu- 
 ment carried him so far that to hear him one would have 
 imagined he thought the sin in men small indeed. His 
 words were idle. 
 
 " She must know it," said Richard sternly. " I will go to 
 her now, sir, if you please." 
 
 Sir Austin detaiaed him, expostulated, contradicted him- 
 self, confounded his principles, made nonsense of all his 
 theories. He could not induce his son to waver in his 
 resolve. Ultimately, their good-night being interchanged, 
 he understood that the happiness of Raynham depended on 
 Lucy's mercy. He had no fears of her sweet heart, but it 
 was a strange thing to have come to. On which should the 
 accusation fall — on science, or on human nature ? 
 
 He remained in the library pondering over the question, 
 at times breathing contempt for his son, and again seized 
 with unwonted suspicion of his own wisdom : troubled, 
 much to be pitied, even if he deserved that blow from his 
 son which had plunged him into wretchedness. 
 
 Richard went straight to Tom Bakewell, roused the heavy 
 sleeper, and told him to have his mare saddled and waiting 
 at the park gates East within an hour. Tom's nearest 
 approach to a hero was to be a faithful slave to his 
 master, and in doing this he acted to his conception of that 
 high and glorious character. He got up and heroically 
 
462 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAED FEVEEEL. 
 
 dasied his liead into cold water. " She shall be ready, sir," 
 he nodded. 
 
 " Tom ! if you don't see me back here at Raynham, your 
 money will go on being paid to you." 
 
 " Rather see you than the money, Mr. Richard," said Tom. 
 
 " And you will always watch and see no harm comes to 
 her, Tom.". 
 
 " Mrs. Richard, sir ? " Tom stared. " God bless me, Mr. 
 Richard" 
 
 " No questions. You'll do what I say.'' 
 
 " Ay, sir ; that I will. Did'n Isle o' Wight." 
 
 The very name of the island shocked Richard's blood, and 
 he had to walk up and down before he could knock at Lucy's 
 door. That infamous conspiracy to which he owed his 
 degradation and misery scarce left him the feelings of a man 
 when he thought of it. 
 
 The soft beloved voice responded to his knock. He opened 
 the door, and stood before her. Lucy was half-way toward 
 him. In the moment that passed ere she was in his arms, 
 he had time to observe the change in her. He had left her 
 a girl : he beheld a woman — a blooming woman : for pale at 
 first, no sooner did she see him than the colour was rich and 
 deep on her face and neck and bosom half shown through 
 the loose dressing-robe, and the sense of her exceeding beauty 
 made his heart thump and his eyes swim. 
 
 " My darling ! " each cried, and they clung together, and 
 her mouth was fastened on his. 
 
 They spoke no more. His soul was drowned in her kiss. 
 Supporting her, whose strength was gone, he, almost as weak 
 as she, hung over her, and clasped her closer, closer, till they 
 were as one body, and in the oblivion her lips put upon him 
 he was free to the bliss of her embrace. Heaven granted him 
 that. He placed her in a chair and knelt at her feet with 
 both arms around her. Her bosom heaved ; her eyes never 
 quitted him : their light as the light on a rolling wave. 
 This young creature, commonly so frank and straightfor- 
 ward, was broken with bashfulness in her husband's arms — 
 womanly bashfulness on the torrent of womanly love ; ten- 
 fold more seductive than the bashfulness of girlhood. 
 ■ Terrible tenfold the loss of her seemed now, as distantly — 
 far on the horizon of memory — the fatal truth returned to 
 him. 
 
THE LAST SCENE, 463 
 
 Lose her ? lose this ? He looked up as if to ask God to 
 confirm it. 
 
 The same sweet blue eyes ! the eyes that he had often seen 
 in the dying glories of evening ; on him they dwelt, shifting, 
 and fluttering, and glittering, hut constant: the light of 
 them as the light on a rolling wave. 
 
 And true to him ! true, good, glorious, as the angels of 
 heaven ! And his she was ! a woman — his wife ! The 
 temptation to take her, and be dumb, was all powerful : the 
 wish to die against her bosom so strong as to be the prayer 
 of his vital forces. Again he strained her to him, but this 
 time it was as a robber grasps priceless treasure — with fierce 
 exultation and defiance. One instant of this. Lucy, whose 
 pure tenderness had now surmounted the first wild passion 
 ■of their meeting, bent back her head from her surrendered 
 body, and said almost voicelessly, her underlids wistfully 
 quivering : " Come and see him — ha,hj ;" and then in great 
 hope of the happiness she was going to give her husband, 
 and share with him, and in tremour and doubt of what his 
 feelings would be, she blushed, and her brows worked : she 
 tried to throw ojBE the strangeness of a year of separation, 
 misunderstanding, and uncertainty. 
 
 " Darling ! come and see him. He is here." She spoke 
 more clearly, though no louder. 
 
 Richard had released her, and she took his hand, and he 
 suffered himself to be led to the other side of the bed. His 
 heart began rapidly throbbing at the sight of a little rosy- 
 curtained cot covered with lace like milky summer cloud. 
 
 It seemed to him he would lose his manhood if he looked 
 ■on that child's face. 
 
 " Stop !" he cried suddenly. 
 
 Lucy txirned first to him, and then to her infant, fearing it 
 should have been disturbed. 
 
 " Lucy, come back." 
 
 " What is it, darling ?" said she, in alarm at his voice and 
 the grip he had unwittingly given her hand. 
 
 O God ! what an Ordeal was this ! that to-morrow he must 
 face death, perhaps die and be torn from his darling — his 
 wife and his child ; and that ere he went forth, ere he could 
 ■dare to see his child and lean his head reproachfully on his 
 youEg wife's breast — for the last time, it might be — he must 
 stab her to the heart, shatter the image she held of him. 
 
464 THE OEDEAL OE EICHAED EEVEEEL. 
 
 " Lucy !" Ste saw him wreiiclied. witli agony, and her 
 own face took the whiteness of his — she bending forward to 
 him, all her faculties strung to hearing. 
 
 He held her two hands that she might look on him and not 
 spare the horrible wound he was going to lay open to her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Lucy. Do yon know why I came to you to-night ? " 
 
 She moved her lips repeating his words. 
 
 " Lucy. Have yon guessed why I did not come before ? " 
 
 Her head shook widened eyes. 
 
 " Lucy. I did not come because I was not worthy of my 
 wife ! Do yon understand ? " 
 
 Again the widened eyes were shaken negatively. 
 
 " You do not ? " 
 
 " Darling," she faltered plaintively, and hung crouching 
 under him, " what have I done to make you angry with me ? " 
 
 " O beloved ! " cried he, the tears bursting out of his eyes. 
 " beloved ! " was all he could say, kissing her hands pas- 
 sionately. 
 
 She waited, reassured, but in terror. 
 
 " Lucy. I stayed away from you — I could not come to 
 you, because ... I dared not come to you, my wife, my be- 
 loved ! I could not come because I was a coward : because 
 — hear me — this was the reason : I have broken my marriage 
 oath." 
 
 Again her lips moved repeating his words. She caught 
 at a dim fleshless meaning in them. " But you love me ? 
 Richard ! My husband ! you love me ? " 
 
 " Yes. I have never loved, I never shall love, woman but 
 you." 
 
 " Darling ! Kiss me." 
 
 " Have you understood what I have told you ? " 
 
 " Kiss me," she said. 
 
 He did not join lips. " I have come to you to-night to ask 
 your forgiveness." 
 
 Her answer was : " Kiss me." 
 
 " Can you forgive a man so base ? " 
 
 " But you love me, Richard ? " 
 
 " Yes : that I can say before God. I love you, and I have 
 betrayed you, and am unworthy of you — ^not worthy to touch 
 your hand, to kneel at your feet, to breathe the same air with 
 you." 
 
THE lAST SCENE. 465 
 
 Her eyes shone brilliantly. "You love me! yon love me, 
 darling!" And as one wlio has sailed through dark fears 
 into daylight, she said : " My husband ! my darling ! you 
 will never leave me ? We never shall be parted again ?" 
 
 He drew his breath painfully. To smooth her face grow- 
 ing rigid with fresh fears at his silence, he met her mouth. 
 That kiss in which she spoke what her soul had to say, 
 calmed her, and she smiled happily from it, and in her man- 
 ner reminded him of his first vision of her on. the summer 
 morning in the field of the meadow-sweet. He held her to 
 him, and thought then of a holier picture : of Mother and 
 Child : of the sweet wonders of life she had made real to 
 hitn. 
 
 Had he not absolved his conscience ? At least the pangs 
 to come made him think so. He now followed her leading 
 hand. Lucy whispered : " You mustn't disturb him— 
 mustn't touch him, dear ! " and with dainty fingers drew off 
 the covering to the little shoulder. One arm of the child 
 was out along the pillow ; the small hand open. His baby- 
 mouth was pouted full ; the dark lashes of his eyes seemed 
 to lie on his plump cheeks. Richard stooped lower down to 
 liim, hungering for some movement as a sign that he lived. 
 Lucy whispered. " He sleeps like yoa, Richard — one arm 
 under his head." Great wonder, and the stir of a grasping 
 tenderness was in Richard. He breathed quick and soft, 
 bending lower, till Lucy's curls, as she nestled and bent with 
 him, rolled on the crimson quilt of the cot. A smile went 
 up the plump cheeks : forthwith the bud of a mouth was in 
 rapid motion. The young mother whispered, blushing : 
 " He's dreaming of me," and the simple words did more than 
 Richard's eyes to make him see what was. Then Lucy 
 began to hum and buzz sweet baby-language, and some of 
 the tiny fingers stirred, and he made as if to change his cosy 
 position, but reconsidered, and deferred it, with a peaceful 
 little sigh. Lucy whispered : " He is such a big fellow. 
 Oh ! when you see him awake he is so like you, Richard." 
 He did not hear her immediately : it seemed a bit of heaven 
 dropped there in his likeness : the more human the fact of 
 the child grew the more heavenly it seemed. His son ! his 
 child ! should he ever see him awake ? At the thought he 
 took tie words that had been spoken, and started from the 
 dream he had been in. " Will he wake soon, Lucy ? " 
 
 2h 
 
466 THE ORDEAL OP EICHAED FEVBEEL. 
 
 " Oh no ! not yet, dear : not for hours. I would have kept 
 him awake for you, but he was so sleepy." 
 
 Richard stood back from the cot. He thought that if he 
 saw the eyes of his boy, and had him once on his heart, he 
 never should have force to leave him. Then he looked down 
 on him, again struggled to tear himself away. Two natures 
 warred in his bosom, or it may have been the Magian Conflict 
 still going on. He had come to see his child once and to 
 make peace with his wife before it should be too late. Might 
 he not stop with them ? Might he not relinquish that 
 devilish pledge r" Was not divine happiness here offered to 
 him ? — If foolish Ripton had not delayed to tell hina of his 
 interview with Mountfalcon all might have been well. But 
 pride said it was impossible. And then injury spoke. For 
 why was he thus base and spotted to the darling of his love ? 
 A mad pleasure in the prospect of wreaking vengeance on 
 the villain who had laid the trap for him, once more blackened 
 his brain. If he would stay he could not. So he resolved, 
 throwing the burden on Fate. The struggle was over, but 
 oh, the pain ! Lucy beheld the tears streaming hot from his 
 face on the child's cot. She marvelled at such excess of 
 emotion. But when his chest heaved, and the extremity of 
 mortal anguish appeared to have seized him, her heart sank, 
 and she tried to get him in her arms. He turned away 
 from her and went to the window. A half-moon was over 
 the lake. 
 
 " Look !" he said, " do you remember our rowing there one 
 night, and we saw the shadow of the cypress ? I wish I could 
 have come early to-night that we might have had another 
 row, and I have heard you sing there !" 
 
 " Darling !" said she, " will it make you happier if I go 
 with you now ? I will." 
 
 " No, Lucy. Lucy, you are brave !" 
 
 " Oh, no ! that I'm not. I thought so once. I know I am 
 not now." 
 
 " Tes ! to have lived — the child on your heart — and never 
 to have uttered a complaint ! — you are brave. O my Lucy ! 
 my wife ! you that have made me man ! I called you a 
 coward. I remember it. I was the coward — I the wretched 
 vain fool ! Darling ! I am going to leave you now. You are 
 brave, and you will bear it. Listen ; in two days, or three, 
 I may be back — back for good, if you will accept me. 
 
THE LAST SCENE. 467 
 
 Promise me to go to bed quietly. Kiss the child for me, 
 and tell him his father has seen him. He will learn to speak 
 soon. Will he soon speak, Lucy ?" 
 
 Dreadful suspicion kept her speechless ; she could only 
 clutch one arm of his with both her hands. 
 
 " Going ?" she presently gasped. 
 
 " For two or three days. No more— I hope." 
 
 " To-night ?" 
 
 "Yes. Now." 
 
 " Going now ? my husband !" her faculties abandoned 
 her. 
 
 " You will be brave, my Lucy !" 
 
 " Richard ! my darling husband ! Going ? What is it 
 takes you from me ?" But questioning no further, she fell 
 on her knees, and cried piteously to him to stay — not to leave 
 them. Then she dragged him to the little sleeper, and urged 
 him to pray by his side, and he did, but rose abruptly from 
 his prayer when he had muttered a few broken words — she 
 praying on with tight-strung nerves in the faith that what 
 she said to the interceding Mother above would be stronger 
 than human hands on him. Nor could he go while she 
 knelt there. 
 
 And he wavered. He had not reckoned on her terrible 
 suffering. She came to him, quiet. " I knew you would 
 remain." And taking his hand, innocently fondling it : " Am 
 I so changed from her he loved ? You will not leave me, 
 dear?" But dread returned, and the words quavered as sho 
 spoke them. 
 
 He was almost vanquished by the loveliness of her woman- 
 hood. She drew his hand to her heart, and strained it there 
 under one breast. " Come : lie on my heart," she murmured 
 with a smile of holy sweetness. 
 
 He wavered more, and drooped to her, but summoning 
 the powers of hell, kissed her suddenly, cried the words of 
 parting, and hurried to the door. It was over in an instant. 
 She cried out his name, clinging to him wildly, and was 
 adjured to be brave, for he would be dishonoured if he did 
 not go. Then she was shaken off. 
 
 Mrs. Berry was aroused by an unusual prolonged wailing of 
 the child, which showed that no one was comforting it, and 
 failing to get any answer to her applications for admittance, 
 she made bold to enter. There she saw Lucy, the child in 
 
468 THE OEDEAL OP RICHARD PEVEEEL. 
 
 her lap, sitting on the floor senseless : — she had taken it 
 from its sleep and tried to follow her husband with it as her 
 strongest appeal to him, and had fainted. 
 
 " Oh my ! Oh my !" Mrs. Berry moaned, " and I just now 
 thinkin' they was so happy !" 
 
 Warming and caressing the poor infant she managed by 
 degrees to revive Lucy, and heard what had brought her to 
 that situation. 
 
 " Go to his father," said Mrs. Bei-ry. " Ta-te-tiddle-te- 
 heighty-0 ! Go, my love, and every horse in Raynham shall 
 be out after 'm. This is what men brings us to ! Heighty- 
 oighty-iddlety-Ah ! Or you take blessed baby, and I'll 
 go." 
 
 The baronet himself knocked at the door. " What is 
 this ?" he said. " I heard a noise and a step descend." 
 
 " It's Mr. Richard have gone. Sir Austin ! have gone from 
 his wife and babe ! Rum-te-um-te-iddledy — Oh, my good- 
 ness ! what sorrow's come on us !" and Mrs. Berry wept, and 
 sang to baby, and baby cried vehemently, and Lucy, sobbing, 
 took him and danced him and sang to him with drawn lips 
 and tears dropping over him. And if the Scientific Humanist 
 to the day of his death forgets the sight of those two poor 
 true women jigging on their wretched hearts to calm the 
 child, he must have very little of the human in him. 
 
 There was no more sleep for Raynham that night. 
 
 CHAPTER XL VI. 
 
 LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWORTH. 
 
 His ordeal is over. I have just come from his room and 
 seen him bear the worst that could be. Return at once — 
 he has asked for you. I can hardly write intelligibly, but I 
 will tell you what we know. 
 
 " Two days after the dreadful night when he left us, his 
 father heard from Ralph Morton. Richard had fought a 
 duel in France with Lord Mountfalcon, and was lying 
 wounded at a hamlet on the coast. His father started 
 immediately with his poor vnfe, and I followed in company 
 with his aunt and his child. The wound was not dangerous. 
 
LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWOETH. 469 
 
 He was shot in the side somewhere, but the ball injured no 
 vital part. We thought all would be well. Oh ! how sick 
 I am of theories, and Systems, and the pretensions of men ! 
 There was his son lying all but dead, and the man was still 
 nnoonvinced of the folly he had been guilty of. I could 
 hardly bear the sight of his composure. I shall hate the 
 name of Science till the day I die. Give me nothing but 
 commonplace unpretending people ! 
 
 " They were at a wretched French cabaret, smelling 
 vilely, where we still remain, and the people try as much 
 as they can do to compensate for our discomforts by their 
 kindness. The French poor people are very considerate 
 where they see suffering. I will say that for them. The 
 doctors had not allowed his poor Lucy to go near him, 
 She sat outside his door, and none of us dared disturb 
 her. That was a sight for Science. His father and myself, 
 and Mrs. Berry, were the only ones permitted to wait on 
 him, and whenever we came out, there she sat, not 
 speaking a word — for she had been told it would endanger 
 his life — but she looked such awful eagerness. She had 
 the sort of eye I fancy mad persons have. I was sure 
 her reason was going. We did everything we could think of 
 to comfort her. A bed was made up for her and her meals 
 were brought to her there. Of course there was no getting 
 her to eat. What do you suppose Ms alarm was fixed on ? 
 He absolutely said to me — but I have not patience to repeat 
 his words. He thought her to blame for not commanding 
 herself for the sake of her maternal duties. He had abso- 
 lutely an idea of insisting that she should make an effort to 
 suckle the child. I shall love that Mrs. Berry to the end of 
 my days. I really believe she has twice the sense of any of 
 us — Science and all. She asked him plainly if he wished to 
 poison the child, and then he gave way, but with a bad grace. 
 
 " Poor man ! perhaps I am hard on him. I remember 
 that you said Richard had done wrong. Yes ; well, that 
 may be. But his father eclipsed his wrong in a greater 
 wrong- — a crime, or quite as bad ; for if he deceived himself 
 in the belief that he was acting righteously in separating 
 husband and wife, and exposing his son as he did I can only 
 say that there are some who are worse than people who 
 deliberately commit crimes. No doubt science will benefit 
 by it. They kill little animals for the sake of science. 
 
470 THE ORDEAL OF EICHAED PEVEEEL. 
 
 " We have with us Doctor Bairam, and a French physician 
 from Dieppe, a very skilful man. It was he who told us 
 where the real danger lay. We thought all would be well. 
 A week had passed, and no fever supervened. We told 
 Richard that his wife was coming to him, and he could bear 
 to hear it. I went to her and began to circumlocute, think- 
 ing she listened — she had the same eager look. When I told 
 her she might go in with me to see her dear husband, her 
 features did not change. M. Despres, who held her pulse 
 at the time, told me, in a whisper, it was cerebral fever — 
 brain fever coming on. We have talked of her since. I 
 noticed that though she did not seem to understand me, her 
 bosom heaved, and she appeared to be trying to repress it, 
 and choke something. I am sure now, from what I know of 
 her character, that she — even in the approaches of delirium 
 — was preventing herself from crying out. Her last hold of 
 reason was a thought for Richard. It was against a creature 
 like this that we plotted ! I have the comfort of knowing 
 that I did my share in helping to destroy her. Had she 
 seen her husband a day or two before — but no ! there was a 
 new System to interdict that ! Or had she not so violently 
 controlled her nature as she did, I believe she might have 
 been saved. 
 
 " He said once of a man, that his conscience was a cox- 
 comb. Will you believe that when he saw his son's wife — 
 poor victim ! lying delirious, he could not even then see his 
 eiTor. Ton said he wished to take Providence out of God's 
 hands. His mad self-deceit would not leave him. I am 
 positive that, while he was standing over her, he was blam- 
 ing her for not having considered the child. Indeed he 
 made a remark to me that it was unfortunate — ' disastrous,' 
 I think he said — that the child should have to be fed by 
 hand. I dare say it is. All I pray is that this young child 
 may be saved from him. I cannot bear to see him look on 
 it. He does not spare himself bodily fatigue — but what is 
 that ? that is the vulgarest form of love. I know what you 
 will say. You will say I have lost all charity, and I have. 
 But I should not feel so, Austin, if I could be quite sure that 
 he is an altered man even now the blow has struck him. He 
 is reserved and simple in his speech ,and his grief is evident, 
 but I have doubts. He heard her while she was senseless 
 call him cruel and hai'sh, and cry that she had suffered, and 
 
LA.DY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWOKTH. 171 
 
 I saw then his mouth contract as if he had been touched. 
 Perhaps, when he thinks, his mind will be clearer, but what 
 he has done cannot be undone. I do not imagine he will 
 abuse women any more. The doctor called her a ' forte et 
 belle jeune femme : ' and Tie said she was as noble a soul as 
 ever God moulded clay upon. A noble soul ' forte et belle ! ' 
 She lies upstairs. If he can look on her and not see his sin, 
 I almost fear God will never enlighten him. 
 
 " She died five days after she had been removed. The 
 shock had utterly deranged her. I was with her. She died 
 very quietly, breathing her last breath without pain— asking 
 for no one — a death I should like to die. 
 
 " Her cries at one time were dreadfully loud. She 
 screamed that she was ' drowning in fire,' and that her hus- 
 band would not come to her to save her. We deadened the 
 sound as much as we could, but it was impossible to prevent 
 Richard from hearing. He knew her voice, and it produced 
 an effect like fever on him. Whenever she called he 
 answered. Ton could not hear them without weeping. 
 Mrs. Berry sat with her, Sbud I sat with him, and his father 
 moved from one to the other. 
 
 " But the trial for us came when she was gone. How to 
 communicate it to Richard — or whether to do so at all ! His 
 father consulted with us. We were quite decided that it 
 ■would be madness to breathe it while he was in that state. 
 I can admit now — as things have turned out — we were 
 wrong. His father left us — I believe he spent the time in 
 prayer — and then leaning on me, he went to Richard, and 
 said in so many words, that his Lucy was no more. I 
 thought it must kill him. He listened, and smiled. I never 
 saw a smile so sweet and so sad. He said he had seen her 
 die, as if he had passed through his suffering a long time 
 ago. He shut his eyes. I could see by the motion of his 
 eyeballs up that he was straining his sight to some inner 
 heaven. — I cannot go on. 
 
 " I think Richard is safe. Had we postponed the tidings, 
 till he came to his clear senses, it must have killed him. 
 His father was right for once, then. But if he has saved his 
 son's body, he has given the death-blow to his heart. Richard 
 will never be what he promised. 
 
 " A letter found on his clothes tells us the origin of the 
 quarrel. I have had an interview with Lord M. this morn- 
 
472 THE OEDEAL OF EICHAKD FEVEREL. 
 
 ing. I cannot say I think him exactly to blame : Richard 
 forced him to fight. At least I do not select him the fore- 
 most for blame. He was deeply and sincerely affected by 
 the calamity he has caused. Alas ! he was only an instru- 
 ment. Your poor aunt is utterly prostrate and talks strange 
 things of her daughter's death. She is only happy in 
 drudging. Dr. Bairam says we must under any circum- 
 stances keep her employed. Whilst she is doing something, 
 she can chat freely, but the moment her hands are not occu- 
 pied she gives me an idea that she is going into a fit. 
 
 "We expect the dear child's uncle to-day. Mr. Thompson 
 is here. I have taken him upstairs to look at her. That 
 poor young man has a true heart. 
 
 " Come at once. You will not be in time to see her. She 
 will lie at Raynham. If you could you would see an angel. 
 He sits by her side for hours. I can give you no description 
 of her beauty. 
 
 " You will not delay, I know, dear Austin, and I want 
 you, for your presence will make me more charitable than 
 I find it possible to be. Have you noticed the expression 
 in tlic eyes of blind men ? That is just how Richard look.s, 
 as lie lies there silent in his bed — striving to image her on 
 his brain." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 WESTMINSTER : PRINTED BY N1CH0L3 AND SONS, 25, PAKLIAMEKT STBEET.