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 ILLINOIS » IPRARY 
 
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 It is now safe to handle
 
 A 
 
 STRUGGLE FOR FAME. 
 
 31 ^obel. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. J. H. RIDDELL, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 THE MYSTERY IN PALACE GARDENS,' ' GEORGE GEIT H OK 
 FEN COURT,' ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. T. 
 
 LONDON : 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 
 
 Ipublishcvs in ©rbinars io ^tc iB;ai«stu the (^uccn. 
 
 1883. 
 
 [A// Rig/its Reserved.}
 
 ■^ 
 
 
 i 
 
 4 
 
 Mi 
 
 h. 
 
 
 ©tiritafeb to 
 MES. SKIEEOW, 
 
 20, SUSSEX GARDENS, HYDE PARK, 
 
 IX EE3IE1IBRAXCE OF 
 STACXCH FRIENDSHIP AND TENDER SYMPATHY. 
 
 \^
 
 COXTEXTS OF VOL. L 
 
 UAPTER 
 
 r. PILGRIMS 
 
 II. MR. KELLY'S FRIENDS - 
 in. MR. P. VASSETT, PUBLISHER 
 IV. AX ASPIRANT FOR FAME 
 V. LADY HILDA HICKS 
 VL ' how's MARIA ?' - 
 \'IL THE DAWTONS AT HOME 
 VI I L GLENARVA - - - 
 
 IX. MR. DUFFORD 
 
 X. FATHER AND DAUGHTER 
 
 XL STONY-HEARTED LONDON 
 
 NIL EVERY DOG H.\S HIS DAY 
 
 1 
 
 39 
 
 8.3 
 lOS 
 128 
 141 
 1G9 
 210 
 232 
 274 
 29:i 
 309
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR FAME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PILGRIMS. 
 
 ^^HE 17th October, 1854 ; adull, cloudy 
 C^ ^^ morning, a mist of rain making e veiy- 
 ^Oo^ thing damp and uncomfortable, a 
 raw wind blowing off the Channel, 
 Morecambe Bay looking its dreariest, the 
 Irish steamer, very late, just in, laden with 
 passengers and cattle ; the former in time to 
 hear the London express had gone, the latter 
 frightened and troublesome, already giving 
 assurance — subsequently, no doubt, amjDly 
 fulfilled — that the work of debarkation would 
 not be light or easy. 
 
 A Babel of voices, ropes tripping up unwary 
 passers-by, chains rattling, beasts bellowing, 
 
 VOL. I. 1
 
 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 sheep bleating, drovers swearing, sailors shout- 
 ing, porters shouldering luggage, a good column 
 of black smoke issuing from the funnel, the 
 deck wet and slippery, a smell of fried fish 
 mingling with odours of bilge-water, coffee, and 
 tar, rushing up the cabin- stairs, men and women 
 with all the colour washed out of their faces 
 looking mournfully at the weather : altogether 
 a miserable scene, which appeared the more 
 wretched because on the previous afternoon the 
 sun had been shining brightly in Ireland, and 
 it seemed as if in England the sun never meant 
 to shine again. 
 
 Standing a little out of the confusion, look- 
 ing at the spectacle presented with strange and 
 unaccustomed eyes, were two passengers, whose 
 worldly position it would have been difficult at 
 the first glance to decide. 
 
 Judging from their features and carriage, 
 they seemed to belong to the better class ; but 
 their dress betokened narrow means, and their 
 manner was that of persons who shrank from 
 ordinary contact with their fellows. There 
 was an indescribable air of holding themselves 
 apart, which seemed to proceed more from the 
 fear of being rudely touched or intruded on
 
 Pilgrims. 
 
 thaa from any feeling of pride. They appeared 
 interested, although half frightened, and they 
 cast looks upon the land that lay close beside 
 the steamer, which showed they had not 
 crossed to it for a mere visit, but were anxious 
 to forecast what of evil or of good the country 
 which now held out so chilly a welcome might 
 have in store. 
 
 Not belonging to them, but travelling quite 
 alone, was a young man, who scrutinized the 
 strange shore with a keener and more impatient 
 regard. He was better clad than either of his 
 fellow-passengers ; he owned an assured self- 
 reliance they apparently lacked ; he seemed 
 more fit to eno-ao-e in the battle of life, and 
 yet he looked restless and anxious, perhaps 
 because he was eager for the fray to begin, or 
 possibly because at heart, so far as his own 
 future was concerned, he felt doubtful of its 
 issue. 
 
 At an earlier period of the morning, while 
 the vessel was still creaking and groaning 
 towards her destination, he had exchanged a 
 few words with one of the two persons men- 
 tioned, and, having done so, he at all events 
 entertained no doubts concerning the social 
 
 1— •
 
 A Struggle for Fa 
 
 me. 
 
 position of the father and daughter, for in that 
 relation they stood to one another. 
 
 Mr. Bernard Kelly instantly put them down 
 in his own mind as what he called 'has beens,' 
 and considering the state of popular feeling in 
 Ireland at that time concerning the numerous 
 class thus tersely indicated, he was wonderfully 
 little impressed by his conviction ; the fact 
 being that he had decided to ' cut Ireland,' 
 because he was heartily tired of everything in 
 the country — turf, poor gentry, bacon, and the 
 very few chances it offered to a ' clever fellow 
 like himself.' Mr. Kelly was a very clever 
 fellow, and he was going to London to see 
 w^hether the metropolis would greet him with 
 effusion. Morecambe seemed singularly in 
 different to his advent, which perhaps damped 
 his expectations a little, and caused him to 
 throw a certain amount of cordiality into the 
 remark he made as he passed Mr. and Miss 
 Westley on his way to the narrow gangway 
 which, placed high above the terrified cattle, 
 led to the landing-place. 
 
 Mr. Westley's answer was courteous, but 
 not familiar. He knew the rank from which
 
 PiJfpims. 
 
 Mr. Kelly had spnuig. He luiderstood it was 
 he, and such as he, who got on, and pushed 
 themselves forward into the front rows of life. 
 He felt content such things should be, but as 
 yet he could not quite fraternize w^ith a person 
 he considered so completely below himself. 
 
 Mr. Kelly, being unembarrassed by any 
 luggage save a carpet-bag which he carried in 
 his hand, made his w^ay ashore as soon as it 
 was possible for him to do so ; but Mr. 
 Westley, who could not boast good health, 
 and who dreaded a crush, and who owned, 
 moreover, under the tarpaulins a considerable 
 amount of baggage, the moment he heard the 
 express had gone, drew his daughter to a seat, 
 and taking his place beside her, would have 
 waited there calmly for an hour or two perhaps, 
 had not the mate suggested it might be well 
 for him to 'keep an eye on his boxes.' 
 
 Poor Mr. Westley, who had never during 
 the whole course of his sixty years of life been 
 able to keep an eye on anything, rose and 
 proceeded limply to act upon this hint, but he 
 was swayed hither and thither by loud-talking 
 men and shrill- voiced women; his mild ex- 
 postulations were drowned amidst the noise
 
 6 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 caused by frenzied passengers clamouring for 
 portmanteaus, trunks, hampers, packages, 
 sacks, and he was glad speedily to retreat upon 
 the word of a porter who, in the dear familiar 
 accents of a land left behind for ever, assured 
 him : ' There^s no call for ye to stand here to 
 be shoved about, yer honour. Troth and faith, 
 ye may trust me to see to yer boxes myself. 
 You'll find them and me at the station sure 
 enough, if ye walk up there quietly when the 
 throng clears a bit.' 
 
 No advice could have been given more in 
 accordance with Mr. Westley's own incli- 
 nations. There never existed a person who so 
 cordially detested bustle and turmoil as this 
 tall, worn-looking gentleman, upon whose 
 figure his coat hung far too loosely, and who, 
 moving slowly back to the bench where he had 
 left his daughter, sank down beside her as 
 though the slight exertion of moving across 
 the deck was too much for his strength. 
 
 ' Tired, papa V asked his daughter. 
 
 ' No — oh no,' he answered, but his tone 
 belied his words ; ' only I shall be glad when 
 we can get out of this smoke, and confusion, 
 and din.'
 
 Pilginiiis. 
 
 * We could laud uow if you like/ 
 
 * There is no hurry,' he replied ; ' we had 
 better wait till the luo^oaae is out.' 
 
 ' What a pity the express is gone !' 
 
 ' Yes. I wonder when there will be another 
 train.' 
 
 ' There is one going in about three-quarters 
 of an hour,' volunteered the steward, w^ho 
 chanced to be close at hand, *but you'll be 
 just as soon if you wait till the afternoon. 
 This one stops at all stations, and the next goes 
 right through. They would make you and the 
 young lady comfortable up at the hotel.' 
 
 ' Thank you,' said Mr. Westley, but he did 
 not tell the man he meant to follow his 
 advice. 
 
 * Your luggage would be quite safe at the 
 station, sir,' added the steward, ' and then the 
 young lady needn't be hurried over her break- 
 fast.' He knew these passengers had declined 
 to partake of that meal on board the boat. 
 
 ' And how much later do you say we should 
 be getting into London ?' 
 
 The steward had not said they would be at 
 all later, and uow repeated that statement, 
 with the addition that although he could not
 
 8 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 speak from liis own knowledge, he believed 
 they would reach London sooner. ks> a rule, 
 he explained, passengers who failed to catch 
 the first express — and from his manner Mr. 
 AYestley imagined such failure to be generally 
 the case — preferred waiting for the second. 
 
 ' I think we had better be moving now, 
 dear,' remarked Mr. Westley to his daughter, 
 seeing that the way was at length clear. 
 
 Civil to the last, the steward followed them 
 with a cloak and umbrella, which Miss Westley 
 took from him when they reached the shore. 
 
 ' It is only a step to the station,' he ex- 
 plained, * and after you've seen to your 
 luggage, anyone will tell you which is the 
 hotel. Good-morning, sir, and I wish you a 
 pleasant journey.' 
 
 * Thank you,' answered Mr. Westley, once 
 again. In his best days he had never been a 
 man flush of words, brimming over with talk ; 
 and now, when those days were all behind, 
 sj^eech did not flow very readily from his 
 lips. 
 
 Nevertheless, indeed all the more perhaps, 
 the steward felt no doubt on his mind as to 
 what he ' had been,' and for a minute he stood
 
 Pilgrims. 
 
 looking after father and daughter, with a 
 mingled expression of wonder and compassion 
 in his eyes. 
 
 ' Lord helj) them !' he said to the mate, 
 who chanced to come up at the time. ' They're 
 no better than a couple of children.' 
 
 ' Do you know who that is V asked the 
 captain from the paddlebox. He had lifted 
 his cap as the passengers left the boat. 
 
 ' No,' answered the mate, * and yet I think 
 I have seen him before. Who is he ?' 
 
 ' Mr. Westley of Glenarva.' 
 
 * You don't say so !' 
 
 * Yes, I do.' 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Westley of Glenarva and his 
 daughter were pacing slowly towards the rail- 
 way station. 
 
 ' You must have some breakfast, dear,' he 
 said. 
 
 ' Oh no, papa ; but you ' 
 
 ' I could not eat anything.' 
 
 They had a quantity of luggage, which was, 
 however, all on the platform in charge of the 
 porter who had passed his word for its safety. 
 As the man reckoned up the number of bags, 
 boxes, trunks, and baskets, Mr. Westley glanced
 
 10 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 at the pile and sighed. He was marvelling, 
 not without reason, what in the world they 
 were to do with all their things when tliey 
 got them to London. 
 
 ' I think,' observed Mr. Westley to his 
 daughter, as they stood surveying their worldly 
 goods, ' we had better go on by the first train. 
 It will save a great deal of trouble.' 
 
 ' I am sure it will.' 
 
 ' We may just as well be sitting in the car- 
 riage as in the hotel.' 
 
 ' We shall be far more comfortable.' 
 
 ' But I do not like the idea of your not 
 having any breakfast.' 
 
 'I have plenty of biscuits and apples in my 
 bag ; but I wish you would take even a cup 
 of tea.' 
 
 ' I could not, dear ; later on, perhaps.' 
 
 And then they walked along the platform, 
 and peered into the different compartments ; 
 and at length, having settled upon one near 
 the middle of the train, put in their wraps 
 and small parcels, after which Mr. Westley, 
 relieved, went to see their luggage placed in 
 the van. 
 
 * You are not going by this train, sir, are
 
 Filgrims. 11 
 
 you V asked one of the officials, after he had 
 looked at Mr. Westley's tickets ; ' you'll be just 
 as soon if you wait for the express.' 
 
 * We may as well be getting on,' answered 
 Mr. Westley. 
 
 ' That's as you like, of course, sir.' 
 
 ' Now, papa,' said his daughter, when he 
 returned to their com23artment, ' do take a 
 biscuit.' 
 
 More to please her, apparently, than from 
 any desire to eat, he took the biscuit, and 
 drank a little wine and water. 
 
 ' I shan't want anything else till we get to 
 London,' he remarked, with a smile which 
 lit up a face that had once been strikingly 
 handsome. 
 
 ^ I wish we were there,' answered the girl 
 wistfully. 
 
 ' Upon the whole, Glen,' observed her 
 father, ' I am afraid we have been penny wise 
 and pound foolish. We had better, I fancy, 
 have paid a little more and gone by the usual 
 route.' 
 
 ' Why, papa !' — Miss Westley 's surjmse at 
 the proposition advanced was beautiful to 
 behold — ' we shall travel first-class for less
 
 12 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 than second ayouIcI have cost the other 
 way.' 
 
 'There is something in that/ he agreed, 
 ghmcing round at the cushioned seats, which 
 to the eye of modern extravagance would have 
 seemed very poor and uncomfortable ; ' but 
 only consider the time of night it will be before 
 we get into London.' 
 
 ' The Fleetwood boat might have been late, 
 too,' she insisted. 
 
 * It might,' said Mr. Westley ; but his tone 
 seemed to imply his convictions were opposed 
 to her surmise. 
 
 * I hope we shall have the carriage all to 
 ourselves,' observed his daughter. 
 
 'Most likely we shall. The steward said 
 through passengers generally waited for the 
 express.' 
 
 ' For my part, I feel sure the slow train will 
 be the pleasantest. We shall have time to 
 see more of the country. AYhat do you say, 
 papa V 
 
 * I think I will defer giving my opinion till 
 we arrive at Euston,' answered her father, 
 leaning back in his place. 
 
 * I am so dad we decided to come first class,'
 
 Pilgrims. 13 
 
 exclaimed the girl, observing how naturally he 
 laid his head against the well-padded parti- 
 tion, and then she turned and looked out at 
 the station for a minute or two. She was 
 thinking, perhaps, how little of comfort or 
 pleasure or luxury life had held for him for 
 many a year. 
 
 ]\Ir. Westley of Glenar^\a ! Yes, he was 
 that still, and would be nominall}- till he died ; 
 but for all the good Glenarva was doing him, 
 or was ever likely to do him, he might have 
 been Mr. Westley of any other place. 
 
 In the whole of Ulster there were few 
 more beautiful domains than Glenarva. Mr. 
 Westley himself believed, and there were others 
 of the same opinion, that no estate of the same 
 size could have been found to equal it. Neither 
 the memory of man nor local history knew of 
 a time when a Westley did not own Glenarva. 
 Its gates had opened wide to receive heirs of 
 all ages and all temperaments. The nondescript 
 animals surmounting the pillars which guarded 
 the entrance to the long, dark avenue, could, 
 had voice been given them, have told of all 
 sorts of funerals that wound slowly up the 
 side of the hill, and then dipped behind its
 
 14 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 crest and disappeared, as one Westley after 
 another had compulsorily sought a more enduring 
 dwelling than Glenarva. The spendthrift, the 
 miser, the keen politician, the man of pleasure, 
 the recluse, the eager sportsman, the gallant 
 officer, the bronzed sailor, had all in turn 
 entered into their patrimony, and had each, 
 after few years or many, been borne out from 
 it to the family vault in a ruined church, 
 which lay desolate, surrounded by the lonel}' 
 moors inland. And now there was a AYestley 
 of Glenarva who knew the gates of his old 
 home would never, living or dead, swing open 
 again for him. He had possessed, and he had 
 lost ; his chance had been given him, and he 
 had misused it. Strangers resided now in the 
 familiar house; their servants brought their 
 horses round for them to mount ; for them the 
 gardens yielded their produce ; for them the 
 trees produced their fruit, and the crocuses 
 peeped forth in the spring, and the summer 
 roses bloomed, and mignonette and heliotrope 
 mingled with the sad odours of the autumnal 
 days. His heritage was to all intents and 
 purposes gone, not through vice, but folly ; 
 when he died another Westley would take
 
 Pilgrims. 1 5 
 
 possession, one who had sons to inherit, instead 
 of his daughter, the only child ever born to 
 him ; the slim, unformed, shabbily dressed 
 girl, whose heart was so full of pity for her 
 father's trouble that it often felt fit to break. 
 
 There was something about Mr. Westley, 
 indeed, which evoked an extraordinary amount 
 of sympathy even from strangers ; how much 
 more, then, of sorro'^^ul devotion from his 
 daughter, whose passionate love for him had 
 been so far the love of her life. 
 
 ' If no one else comes in,' she said, after that 
 pause, ' you will be able to have a long sleep, 
 papa. I dare say you had none at all on board 
 the steamer.* 
 
 ' Not much,' he answered. 
 
 * Well, you must have some now,' she ex- 
 claimed, taking up a plaid and laying it over 
 his knees. 
 
 ' What, this minute. Glen V remonstrated 
 her father. ' Give me till the train starts, at 
 any rate. What an impetuous child you 
 are !' 
 
 ' Glen,' as he called her, smiled, while a little 
 suspicious moisture still hung upon her eye- 
 lashes. Whatever her sins in the way of
 
 16 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 impetuosity, no one would have thought of 
 accusing Mr. Westley of a simiLar error. 
 
 ' I never was in a hurry but once that I can 
 remember,' he often declared ; ' and it proved 
 once too often.' 
 
 * Was that to be married V sometimes ven- 
 tured a listener. 
 
 And then Mr. Westley's answer was invari- 
 ably a severe — 
 
 *No, sir, it was not.' 
 
 ' Now they are shutting the doors,' re- 
 marked his daughter ; ' so we may consider 
 ourselves safe.' 
 
 But no. Just as she spoke, a passenger, 
 carpet-bag in hand, came hurriedly along the 
 platform. The whistle sounded. ' Here you 
 are, sir,' said a porter, reopening a door he had 
 just slammed. The new arrival jumped in, 
 and Mr. Westley, unclosing his eyes, which he 
 had shut in horror of the din, recognised his 
 fellow-traveller of the steamboat. 
 
 * I did not intend to shave it so close,' ob- 
 served that individual breathlessly. 
 
 ' You are only just in time,' said Mr. 
 Westley. 
 
 * And had to run sharp for it, too,' was the
 
 Pilgrims. 17 
 
 answer. * Bub I saw no fun in waiting for the 
 express.' 
 
 If any remark occurred to Mr. Westley with 
 reference to this statement he did not make 
 it. He closed his eyes again as if excessively 
 tired, whilst the young man, who was to 
 journey in the same compartment to London, 
 opened his bag, and, as is the fashion of many 
 travellers, began sedulously searching among 
 its contents for something which, again in un- 
 conscious emulation of other travellers, he 
 failed to find. 
 
 Whilst he was engaged in the prosecution 
 of this ever-hopeless task, Miss Westley looked 
 at him curiously. 
 
 She saw a man of four or five and twenty, 
 with dark brown hair, which had probably at 
 some former period been red, as his whiskers 
 were still. He wore no beard or moustache ; 
 his eyes were of that yellowish-hazel which so 
 often accompanies hair originally red. His 
 face was rather pallid, and its expression in- 
 scrutable. His features were fairly good, though 
 in no way noticeable. His topcoat was of an 
 — ^it is not going too far to say — ofi'ensive 
 shade of brown, and all his garments lacked 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
 ^1
 
 18 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 the stamp of even such fashion as the provin- 
 cial towns then conferred. They had evi- 
 dently been made strongly and slowly, out of 
 abundant material, by some too honest village 
 tailor. His boots were new and clumsy, his 
 hat new also ; and he looked, as Miss "Westley's 
 dear friends, the vicar's sons, would have said, 
 * just caught.' 
 
 As the idea occurred to her, an irresistible 
 smile wandered, like the rays of a wintry sun, 
 over Miss Westley's face, and she turned it 
 aside. 
 
 At that moment the young man, having 
 ended his vain exploration, closed and locked 
 his bag, and looked at her. 
 
 He saw what he mentally termed ' a slip of 
 a girl,' whose features while in repose all seemed 
 out of proportion. Her mouth was too wide, 
 her eyes too large, her nose too short, her hair 
 too sunny for the dark heavy lashes that lay 
 on her pale cheeks. Her figure was perfectly 
 unformed, and set off to no advantage by her 
 dress — an English poplin of a dark blue colour ; 
 an old silk jacket, too thin by far for the time 
 of year ; a brown straw bonnet trimmed with 
 brown ribbons and lined with dark blue silk ;
 
 Pilgrims. ^ 19 
 
 a pair of old kid gloves, and a 23air of new cash- 
 mere boots, goloshed round, and laced up the 
 side, as was then universal. 
 
 ' She's not much to look at,' thought Mr. 
 Bernard Kelly, candidly critical ; and he was 
 right, though any one of the six sons in whom 
 the Vicar of Bally shane rejoiced would have 
 said : 
 
 * Why, Glen Westley is the prettiest girl I 
 ever saw. I don't believe there is a prettier 
 anywhere.' 
 
 But they knew a different Glen "Westley — a 
 laughing girl, with bright merry eyes, hair 
 tossed by mountain breezes, red parted lips, 
 showing white, even teeth ; cheeks rosy with 
 exercise — a girl springing from rock to rock, 
 riding over the hills, bending hither and 
 thither to escape a shower of salt sea-spray. 
 Not this Glen — oh no. That other who had 
 run races with them on the sands, and 
 gathered shells with them on the shore, and 
 galloped with them across the moors, and 
 burnt nuts with them at Hallowe'en, and 
 dyed eggs with them at Easter, and eaten 
 gingerbread nuts purchased at the nearest 
 fair, and gone surreptitiously with them to 
 
 2—2
 
 20 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 penny shows, and been for years the compa- 
 nion and delight of their young lives ; where 
 was she ? Gone, like last spring's flowers. 
 They would never see her again while suns 
 rose and moons waned for ever. 
 
 Most truly the Miss Westley upon whom 
 Mr. Bernard Kelly bent his speculative gaze 
 was not much to look at. She was in a very 
 transition state ; further, she felt at the mo- 
 ment most miserable. The wretched weather, 
 the tardy landing, the look of utter weariness 
 on her father's face, the feeling that she was 
 in a totally strange country, to which, per- 
 haps, they ought not to have come ; the want 
 of a proper night's rest, the absence of any 
 great store of physical strength on which to 
 fall back when an extra demand was made 
 upon her energies, all conspired, not exactly 
 to make her regret having left Ireland, but to 
 doubt whether she had not proved in this, as 
 in other matters of minor import, too impe- 
 tuous. 
 
 After she had done a thing — but never 
 before — Glen always believed she had been 
 too hasty ; she felt sure she was right till 
 a thing was beyond recall ; then she began to
 
 Pilgrims. 21 
 
 doubt. She experienced no fear of her own 
 powers while retreat was possible ; but when 
 once it was too late to draw back, she was 
 seized with dreadful miso;iving;s, which hiding 
 within her own breast, she had acquired the 
 character of being a most resolute and deter- 
 mined young person, possessed of a courage 
 beyond her years, and an obstinacy which 
 would some day land her in a position of 
 considerable difficulty. 
 
 When she was a child it had been freely 
 prophesied she ' would break every bone in 
 her body,' be brought home ' maimed for life,' 
 share the fate the country-side fully believed 
 in store for the Vicar's sons, of being drowned 
 and borne out to sea ; and now she had * done 
 growing ' and settled down into a ' young- 
 lady,' it did seem hard to those who had loved 
 and ^trembled for her personal safety, that she 
 should turn so wilful in other ways, and give 
 her poor father no rest till he left a place in 
 which he was at least known and respected, 
 and drag him off to London, where he might 
 as well be nobody. It was not generally 
 known that ^Ir. Westley was as anxious to 
 leave Ireland as his daughter, but those who
 
 22 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 were acquainted with him thoroughly under- 
 stood that but for 'Miss Glen' he would never 
 have stirred a step. Of that fact Miss Glen 
 herself was as fully persuaded as any of her 
 Job's comforters could have been ; and what 
 she sat considering as the train sped south 
 was, whether it had been really wrong of her 
 to urge him to adopt the course he said he 
 believed was desirable. She had been very 
 earnest in pressing matters on ; she had re- 
 fused to listen to the words of wisdom of the 
 country-side ; she had turned a deaf ear to all 
 remonstrance and to all lamentation, and yet 
 when the final parting came, and she realized 
 that she would never look on sea or land, on 
 green hill or kindly face with the same eyes 
 again for ever, she fairly broke down, and her 
 last memory of Bally shane was that she could 
 not see the stumpy church tower, or the grand 
 headlands, or Shane's Bay, or the friends who 
 came to see them off, or the children at the 
 cabin doors, or the pigs grunting on the 
 roadside, or the donkey that at the moment 
 lifted up his voice, or the white goats stand- 
 ing on their hind-legs to nibble the hedges, 
 or the . ducks in the stream, by reason of
 
 Pilgrims, 23 
 
 a mist of tears that blurred every familiar 
 object. 
 
 And it was of all these things left behind 
 for ever, and the unseen, unknown future 
 which now seemed so terrible lying before, 
 Miss Westley chanced to be thinking, while 
 Mr. Kelly was mentally deciding, * Your face 
 will never make your fortune, my dear.' 
 
 At that moment the young lady, whose 
 matrimonial charms were thus so summarily 
 disposed of, moved her hands towards a bundle 
 of wraps lying on the opposite seat. 
 
 Watchfully gallant, Mr. Kelly anticipated 
 her wish, and while he was unfastening 
 the straps remarked, in a light and airy 
 manner : 
 
 ' Old gentleman seems tired I' 
 
 Miss Westley stared at the speaker. She 
 had not been accustomed to hear her father 
 alluded to as * old,' and the word struck her 
 like a blow. It was a question, however, 
 she could not well argue, and so contented 
 herself with answering : * He is not very 
 strong.' 
 
 ' He does not look strong, at any rate/ was 
 the too ready reply.
 
 24 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' Not much used to travelling either, I sup- 
 pose/ continued Mr. Kelly volubly. 
 
 Now this was a point on which Miss 
 Westley could have held forth with advan- 
 tage. ' Not used to travelling !' She felt 
 inclined to explain to this irreverent young 
 man her father had seen more in one month 
 than he probably would ever see in his whole 
 life. 
 
 All the recollections of foreign towns and 
 scenery, which had made the romance and 
 pleasure of long winter evenings, while the 
 waves of the Atlantic came thundering in on 
 the coast, and the wind was sweeping across 
 barren moors and lonely hills, recurred in an 
 instant to her memory. She could have told 
 him stories by the hour, the scenes of which 
 were laid in Paris, Rome, Madrid, and other 
 towns, the very names of which he had most 
 likely never heard ; but she refrained. She 
 only smiled faintly, and left Mr. Bernard 
 Kelly with the impression that even the 
 elder of his fellow-passengers had never 
 been more than a dozen miles from home in 
 his life.
 
 Pilgrims, 25 
 
 ' Going through, miss ?' asked Mr. Kelly, 
 after a short pause. 
 
 ' We are going to London,' answered the 
 girl ; and there was a little hesitation in her 
 tone, as if she felt reluctant to confess the 
 fact. 
 
 ' That is what they call " going through " 
 here,' explained Mr. Kelly, in kindly con- 
 sideration for her ignorance. ' Shall you make 
 a long stay V 
 
 ' I do not know ; it depends upon 
 
 that is, most probably we shall stay there 
 altogether.' 
 
 * That is what I mean to do,' said her fellow- 
 passenger ; ' no place like London ;' and he 
 drummed an air with his fing;ers on the arm 
 of his seat, after having fortified his courage 
 with this general declaration, which has pro- 
 bably wrought more disappointment individu- 
 ally to thousands than will ever be known on 
 earth. 
 
 ' You are fond of London, then V Miss AVest- 
 ley observed tentatively. It was the first 
 remark she had volunteered. 
 
 * Yes, as fond as I can be of any place I have 
 never seen.'
 
 26 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 * Oh, you have never been there then V 
 
 * No ; but I have an uncle there. He is a 
 magistrate or something.' 
 
 ' Is he r 
 
 ' Yes. He has done well for himself, I can 
 tell you. He might have stayed in Ireland 
 long enough before he could have got up as 
 high as he has. He lives some place near 
 Cavendish Square, if you know where that is.' 
 
 ' I have never been to London.' 
 
 ' No ; but you might be acquainted with 
 somebody who has. And so you think you 
 will stop in England altogether ?' 
 
 * It is most likely.' 
 
 ' I dare say you were glad enough to leave 
 Ireland V 
 
 ' No ; I was very, very sorry.' 
 
 * Were you, now ? That is more than I can 
 say.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you were not leaving any friends 
 behind V 
 
 ' Oh, as for that, I was leaving my father 
 and mother, and sisters, and brothers, and 
 cousins, and aunts, and uncles.' 
 
 ' I wonder how you could do it.' 
 
 * Do you ? Now, my wonder is why I
 
 Pilgi^ms. 27 
 
 stayed among them so long. If lie has any 
 stuff in him, a man wants to get on in the 
 world, and what is the use of stopping where 
 there is no opening of any sort, kind, or 
 description V 
 
 This question was so identical with that she 
 had herself propounded to her father, Miss 
 Westley felt she could not possibly nega 
 tive it. 
 
 ' We are not having a very fine day for our 
 journey, are we V said Mr. Kelly, after a 
 pause. ' May I look at one of your books ? It 
 will serve to pass the time,' he explained, in 
 unconscious derogation of his companion's 
 conversational powers to do so. 
 
 ' I am afraid you wiU not find much in 
 them to amuse you,' answered Miss Westley ; 
 * they are only some odd volumes that were 
 forgotten till after our boxes were corded. 
 Falconer's "Shipwreck," Thomson's "Seasons," 
 Moore's " Melodies" ' 
 
 ' You seem to be uncommonly fond of 
 poetry,' observed Mr. Kelly. 
 
 ' I used to be,' answered Miss Westley, 
 speaking as if from the heights of years. 
 
 ' It is a taste we grow out of as we get old,'
 
 28 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 remarked her auditor, with a suspicious twinkle 
 in his eyes. 
 
 ' Yes, I think so,' agreed the young lady 
 simply. 
 
 The long journey dragged slowly on. At 
 almost every petty station the train seemed to 
 stop. The travellers stayed a considerable 
 time at Preston ; they were shunted at Crewe ; 
 they dawdled at the outskirts of towns, and 
 waited where they could contemplate turnip 
 fields at their leisure. Mr. Westley slept and 
 woke again to find himself but little nearer 
 London. At Crewe some variety promised to 
 be imparted to the proceedings by the entrance 
 of a lady who was handed into the compart- 
 ment by a meek-looking clergyman, with 
 whom, through the open window, she remained 
 in earnest conversation till the train again 
 started ; but all Mr. Kelly's hopes were dashed 
 to the ground when he beheld her produce 
 Berlin wools and an ivory needle, and commence 
 to crochet a shawl. 
 
 After she took her seat, that gentleman had 
 no eyes for Miss Westley. The new-comer 
 was about the same age as himself; richly 
 dressed, self-possessed of manner, comely of
 
 Pilgrims. 29 
 
 person ; her wavy black hair, her dark eyes, 
 her round cheeks, her regular features, her 
 utter absorption in her work, her indiifference 
 to the country they were passing through, the 
 way in which she totally ignored the presence 
 of any other person in the compartment be- 
 sides herself, produced a deep impression on 
 Mr. Kelly. 
 
 He imagined she must be some great lady ; 
 that she was rich — beino; Eno;lish — went, in 
 his idea, without saying. He watched the 
 progress made by those busy white fingers, on 
 which rings glittered, with a fascination which 
 did not fail to produce its effect upon Miss 
 Westley. Upon the whole it was a relief to 
 everyone except the lady, when at Stafford 
 another passenger joined their company : this 
 time a short, thin, active gentleman of about 
 thirty, evidently of an inquiring turn of mind, 
 for even while settling himself in the corner 
 seat Mr. Kelly vacated for his benefit, he 
 threw a comprehensive look over the occu- 
 pants of the compartment, bestowing on each 
 a swift scrutinizing glance, which Mr. Westley 
 lazily returned, but that made his daughter 
 feel somewhat abashed.
 
 30 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' Thank you ; so much obliged,' he said to 
 Mr. Kelly, with an ineffable smile, as that 
 gentleman cleared away Falconer, Thomson, 
 and Moore. * Do not let me disturb you ; it 
 is very good of you, I am sure ;' and then he 
 dropped down opposite the lady, and picked 
 up her wool, which he had swept down, and 
 bowed and smiled, and received a gracious 
 inclination of the head in acknowledgment. 
 
 ^Miserable day,' he remarked to the company 
 generally. 
 
 'And it gets worse,' answered Mr. Kelly, 
 accepting the observation as a delicate personal 
 attention to himself. 
 
 ' The weather always is bad when one goes 
 to London ;' just as if, thought Mr. Kelly, he 
 was travelling backwards and forwards three 
 times a week. But he said nothing audibly ; 
 and feeling, perhaps, that he had done his 
 duty, and broken the ice in an agreeable 
 manner, the stranger took some papers from 
 his left-hand breast-pocket, and began to look 
 them over. He could not make much of 
 them, however, for already darkness was be- 
 ginning to close in ; so, putting each care- 
 fully back one by one in his pocket-book, he
 
 Pilgrims. 3 1 
 
 asked Mr. Kelly, in a light and cheerful 
 manner : 
 
 * And how did you leave Ireland V ' 
 
 ' By the Belfast boat,' answered Mr. Kelly, 
 taking the question literally. He was deeply 
 offended; the stranorer's English accent seemed 
 in itself an insult, and that he could possibly 
 from his own speech be known for an Irishman 
 assumed the form of a orrievance too sjreat to 
 endure. 
 
 ' Oh, I did not mean that exactly,' said the 
 other, confident his conversation was proving 
 productive of the most unqualified pleasure. 
 * What is the position of the country ? What 
 is the state of popular feeling V 
 
 ' About as usual,' was the reply. ' The 
 people are not satisfied ; they never have been, 
 and they never will be.' 
 
 ' Dear me, that is very serious.' 
 
 ' I don't see w^hy they should,' went on Mr. 
 Kelly argumentatively. ' Perhaps if the Eng- 
 lish lived on potatoes and salt they might not 
 be satisfied either.' 
 
 * But why do the Irish live on potatoes and 
 salt?' inquired the gentleman in search of 
 information.
 
 32 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 Mr. Kellj, looking at liim, decided he was a 
 man who would go on asking questions till he 
 dropped down dead. 
 
 ' Because they can't get anything else ; at 
 least, now they can only get meal and salt, 
 since the blight, you know.' 
 
 * But surely if they worked ' 
 
 ' There is no work to be had.' 
 
 ' Not in tilling the soil V 
 
 ' It is of no use tilling the soil ; there is no 
 sun in Ireland to ripen crops if they were 
 planted. Nothing does well in the country 
 but grass.' 
 
 ' Then it ought to be converted into a great 
 dairy farm.' 
 
 ' That would require money.' 
 
 ' But that could be got ' 
 
 ' We'd be very much obliged to you if you'd 
 tell us where.' 
 
 ' Capitalists are always glad to find a good 
 investment for their money.' 
 
 ' The last place on earth they will send it to 
 is Ireland.' 
 
 ' Isn't that the fault of the Irish V 
 
 ' Time enough to answer that question when 
 the experiment has been tried.'
 
 Pilgmms. 33 
 
 ' In the north, where capital has been in- 
 vested, the people are fairly prosperous,' said 
 Mr. Westley, who felt it incumbent on him to 
 fire a shot for the honour of his native land. 
 
 ' But the question of religion does not enter 
 there. I have always understood it is Eoman- 
 ism which makes the difficulty in other parts 
 of the island.' 
 
 * It does no such thing,' said Mr. Kelly 
 brusquely. 
 
 ' What do you think, then, keeps the country 
 backr 
 
 * The " three curses " of Ireland — dirt, drink, 
 and tobacco,' was the prompt and decisive 
 answer. 
 
 'Dear me, I never heard that before. It 
 is very interesting. Then you think, sir, 
 if the people ceased smoking and drinking 
 and washed themselves, they would be pros- 
 perous.' 
 
 ' They need one other thing — to be thrown 
 over openly by England.' 
 
 ' I hardly grasp your meaning/ 
 
 ' I'll make it plain enough. England's the 
 rich relation, who, while professing a great 
 deal, really does nothing for Ireland. Still 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 the Irish are always expecting help from her. 
 That is, the notion keeps them unsettled. 
 Instead of turnino: to themselves and seeing 
 whether they can't do anything with an un- 
 drained island and a wretched climate, they 
 are always waiting for assistance that never 
 has, and that never will come. What can 
 England do for Ireland except pour her mil- 
 lions of money into the country ? and she is 
 not such a fool as to do any such thing. If 
 she could pluck up courage enough to say to 
 Ireland in plain words, ''Go to the devil !" — 
 which is what she really feels — it would be the 
 best day's work she ever did both for herself 
 and her " sister," as she calls the green isle ; 
 — green isle indeed ! — green enough in all 
 conscience !' 
 
 The gentleman of an inquiring turn of 
 mind looked at the lady with the rings, who 
 slightly raised her eyebrows and shrugged her 
 shoulders. 
 
 Observing this, Mr. Kelly turned to her and 
 said : ' I meant no offence, ma'am ; the remark 
 slipped out before I was aware of it. I have 
 not displeased you, I hope V 
 
 * Displeased ! oh no !' she answered
 
 Pilgrims. 35 
 
 suavely ; ' you have amused me very much 
 indeed/ 
 
 ' Amused f thought Mr. Kelly, hot with 
 indignation. * There is scarcely a man you'll 
 meet with in Ireland/ he went on desperately, 
 turning to his male auditor, ' but is waiting 
 for a commission, waiting for an appointment, 
 waiting to get into the constabulary, waiting 
 for an agency, waiting to be made something 
 in the Excise ; in England a lad is apprenticed 
 to some trade by the time he is fourteen, 
 but whenever you get across the water the 
 young fellows are doing nothing but trying to 
 kill time till they are made inspectors, or 
 officers, or such like.' 
 
 * You do not think that is the fault of the 
 English, I suppose V 
 
 ' I do not think it is the fault of the Irish, 
 at any rate,' returned Mr. Kelly. 
 
 *And what,' asked the gentleman still in 
 search of information, addressing Mr. Westley, 
 * is your opinion about the state of things in 
 Ireland V 
 
 ' I am afraid,' said Mr. Westley, and the 
 tone of his voice was a positive relief after 
 the uncultured brogue in which Mr. Kelly 
 
 3—2
 
 36 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 liad delivered his sentiments — ' I am afraid I 
 liave no opinion to contribute to the general 
 store.' 
 
 It was noticeable that after this the Irish 
 and the English passengers divided into two 
 contingents. 
 
 The last comer and his vis-a-vis drifted into 
 conversation, of which only occasional scraps 
 were caught by Mr. Kelly ; he on his part 
 devoted himself to the Westleys, suggesting 
 various little expedients calculated to make 
 the journey less wearisome to Mr. Westley 
 and Miss Westley, asking her at one stopping- 
 place to allow him to take her to get a cup of 
 tea, which offer, however, she declined. 
 
 Father and daug-hter might nV)t be, and in 
 his opinion were not much, but he considered 
 them infinitely preferable to English * upstarts,* 
 for which reason he did what he could for their 
 comfort ; but withal both seemed quite worn 
 out when, at nearly eleven o'clock p.m., the 
 train stopped at Camden Town to collect 
 tickets. 
 
 ' How near are we to London now V asked 
 Mr. Kelly of the guard. 
 
 * Next station, sir.'
 
 Pilgmms. 37 
 
 ' Next station,' repeated Miss Westley. 'Do 
 you hear that, papa V 
 
 In a few minutes they were standing on the 
 platform at Euston, dazzled with the bright 
 light of the gas-lamps. They had reached 
 the goal of their hopes at last, cold, tired, and 
 exhausted. 
 
 It was too late even to think of trying to 
 find the lodgings they hoped had been secured, 
 so a cab was eng-ao-ed to take them and their 
 
 o o 
 
 luggage to some quiet and reasonable hotel. 
 
 ' I am now quite sure,' said Mr. Westley 
 wearily, as he stood looking at the porters 
 piling box after box on the roof of the cab, 
 * we should have done better to come by the 
 dearer route. ' Penny wise and pound foolish, 
 my child.' 
 
 Glen did not answer. She felt too tired 
 and too miserable to speak. Just then, with- 
 out a hair ruffled, the lady who had travelled 
 with them drove out of the station, looking as 
 prosperous and comfortable as ever. The gen- 
 tleman who thirsted for knowledge had bidden 
 them good-night and was gone too ; and the 
 last thing she saw and heard as they also 
 departed was Mr. Kelly arguing with an in-
 
 38 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 dignant cabman, who refused to take him to 
 Stratford ' getting on for twelve/ 
 
 ' Why, it's six miles if it's a yard,' said that 
 irate individual. 
 
 ' Then I'll walk,' decided Mr. Kelly ; but, in- 
 fluenced by the representations of a porter, he 
 thought better of this project, and, carpet-bag 
 in hand, started for an hotel in the City he 
 had heard favourably mentioned by a certain 
 Timothy Neill, who, travelling for a firm of 
 Irish butter merchants, sometimes used the 
 house.
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 MR. KELLY S FRIEXDS. 
 
 SSEX is a somewhat wide address, 
 yet when anyone of Mr. Matthew 
 Donagh's many acquaintances asked 
 him where he lived, it w^as the near- 
 est they were able to obtain. Mr. Donagh 
 had an airy way of answ^ering all such 
 questions, and the manner in which he said, 
 * Whenever I have leisure to go home I run 
 down to my little place in Essex,' left an im- 
 pression in the minds of his hearers that their 
 friend's little place was, to use their own 
 simple phraseology, ' a very snug sort of crib, 
 situated probably somewhere near Eomford, or 
 Loughton, or Eainham, or perhaps even farther 
 out. Mr. Donagh vouchsafed no more accurate
 
 40 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 information on the subject of his residence, 
 and those whom he consorted with in the City 
 and at the West-end had not the faintest idea 
 that when in London he went home every 
 night of his life to a small house with a large 
 garden he had been fortunate enough to dis- 
 cover in West Ham Lane, within two or 
 three minutes' walk of The Broadway, Strat- 
 ford. 
 
 Incredible as it now sounds, such residences 
 at moderate rents were then to be found within 
 a few miles of the Eoyal Exchange. Eailway 
 accommodation was bad, omnibus not much 
 better, and trams were unknown ; but people 
 did not think as much of any distance which 
 could be traversed on foot as they do now, and 
 Mr. Donagh often in the cheerful companion- 
 ship of his home circle declared to sympathetic 
 listeners that Abbey Cottage suited him to 
 a'T.' 
 
 In the county of Essex, where Abbey Cot- 
 tage was situated, he maintained as masterly a 
 reserve concerning his occupation in London 
 as he did in London about the precise locality 
 of his 'little crib.' All even his female be- 
 longings knew about him may be summed up
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 41 
 
 in three words : he was ' connected with liter- 
 ature.' 
 
 To his credit be it said, he contrived to do 
 what many persons connected wdth, literature 
 fail to accomplish — viz., make a good thing 
 out of it. He made so good a thing, indeed, 
 lie might have been a very prosperous indivi- 
 dual if he had taken care of his money, and 
 curbed his likins; for his national beverag;e, the 
 soft dew of the mountains. 
 
 Mr. Donao'b was an Irishman, thouQ-h indeed 
 few persons grasped the fact. He would 
 much rather not have been, but amongst other 
 mistakes made by Fate regarding him, she had 
 ceded to the Emerald Isle the privilege of 
 being his birth^Dlace. Circumstances, however, 
 causing his removal while still a lad to Eng- 
 land, he employed his early energies so 
 diligently in mastering the difiiculties of the 
 Saxon tongue, that in the periods which flowed 
 volubly from his mouth it was almost impos- 
 sible for the uninitiated to detect a trace of his 
 origin. The man who could achieve such a 
 victory as this was capable of great things. 
 In his way, Mr. Donagh had done great things, 
 of which he felt deservedly proud.
 
 42 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 Personally, he was a remarkable-looking 
 individual. At the first glance anyone might 
 have taken him for a man of some import- 
 ance. His aquiline nose, his regular features, 
 his slightly arched eyebrows, his ruddy 
 complexion, his handsome mouth, his white 
 teeth, his closely shaven chin, his light hair, 
 a little curly, clustering around a forehead 
 where hioh thoug-hts and aims mis^ht well 
 find a home ; his keen blue eyes, his upright 
 carriage, his walk, which was firm and self- 
 asserting ; his command of language, his 
 manner, which was a good imitation of the 
 manners of society — all seemed to indicate Mr. 
 Donagh was no common person. Constant 
 mistakes were made concerning him. He was 
 continually accosted for a dignitary of the 
 Church, believed to be a well-known bar- 
 rister, again addressed as Dr. , in lieu of 
 
 a famous physician of the time, and more 
 than once he had been deferentially spoken 
 to in the City, so great was his resemblance 
 to a celebrated financier of the period. 
 
 All these honours he accepted with a 
 gracious dignity all his own, though he was 
 perhaps conscious he owed them to his cb-ess
 
 3I}\ Kelly's Friends. 43 
 
 rather than to his actual man. Accident or 
 desio-n had guided him to a style of costume 
 which was very effective, and which included, 
 amongst other details, a shirt the immaculate 
 whiteness of which was set off by jet studs ; 
 a faultless collar, and a cravat like the driven 
 snow. The season might necessitate a change 
 of coat, but nothing else in his attire varied. 
 Black and white like a magpie, he was to be 
 met about London in all parts and in all 
 weathers. He would stand in pouring rain 
 under an umbrella to exchange confidences 
 ^nth a friend, and roll out mellow sentences 
 full of strange words to an acquaintance. He 
 seemed equally at home on the deck of a 
 penny steamer, and in the first-class coupe of 
 an express train. He was willing to go any- 
 where and talk to anyone. Many considered 
 him a person well worth conciliating. Indeed, 
 those who knew him best deemed the promise 
 of his co-operation on a new journal an augury 
 of success. 
 
 As regards temperament, Mr. Donagh was 
 easily uplifted, and still more easily depressed. 
 He possessed indomitable perseverance ; he had 
 a bad temper ; the ability of saying most
 
 44 A Struggle Jor Fame. 
 
 insolent things in a most offensive manner ; a 
 keen sense of humour, so long as the light- 
 nings of wit were not playing around his own 
 person ; a fatal tendency to believe good for- 
 tune would last for ever ; a habit, if he earned 
 a sovereign, of instantly spending ten shillings 
 on something he did not in the least require ; 
 a haughty, domineering disposition, which 
 might not have been altogether inappropriate 
 had he been the Emperor of Eussia, but which 
 in a person obliged to earn his bread seemed 
 ridiculous in the extreme. He was shallow, 
 affectionate, capable of feeling grateful, apt to 
 take offence, ready to forgive when there was 
 anything to be made by forgiving, econo- 
 mical, extravagant, scrupulously honest in 
 some things, eminently unprincipled in others, 
 honourable in many ways, chivalrous in his 
 sentiments and with a gift for lying that 
 amounted to genius. 
 
 What with his fluent tongue, his ready 
 pen, his power of repartee, his overflowing 
 imagination, his faculty for believing anything 
 he wished others to believe in, not merely 
 possible, but accomplished, Mr. Donagh was in 
 any literary enterprise a valuable friend and
 
 M)\ Kelly s Friends. 45 
 
 a dangerous foe. He was willing enough to 
 help any lame dog over a stile, to lend the 
 lame doo; half a crown or five shillino;s if he 
 had it to spare — a matter of rare occurrence — 
 and to speak for him when perhaps indeed 
 there was not much that ought to have been 
 said in his favour. 
 
 Mr. Donacrh was not married. ' For ob^-ious 
 reasons,' he once observed to an acquaintance, 
 who ventured an inquiry on the subject, ' I 
 never married.' 
 
 The acquaintance lacked presence of mind 
 to ask what the ob^^ous reasons were. Cer- 
 tainly not any real want of means to support 
 a wife who might have helped him to save 
 what he did make. In the absence of a Mrs. 
 Donagh, he resided ^^ith an aunt and cousin ; 
 or, to put the matter on a sounder footing, an 
 aunt and cousin resided with him. They also 
 were unmarried, and nobody could have told 
 which was the elder, had not one worn a cap, 
 and the other gone about what she called 
 ' bare-headed.' 
 
 If Mr. Donag;h had contrived to eliminate 
 from his speech all marks of his Irish extrac- 
 tion, not so his mother's sister, Miss Cavan,
 
 46 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 and his uncle's daughter, Hester Donagh. 
 They were sweetly, beautifully Hibernian. 
 If they had only just landed at St. Kather- 
 ine's Wharf from the Dublin steamer, they 
 could not have been more un-English — in 
 mind, manner, accent, and mode of expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Mr. Donagh regarded them with a tolerant 
 sort of pity, accepting their devotion in a 
 lordly spirit, taking all they did for him as 
 a matter of right, which indeed they considered 
 it, and treating them kindly, though not 
 familiarly — permitting no interference with 
 his affairs — and keeping them in utter 
 ignorance of where he went, what he did, the 
 persons he knew, and the amount of money he 
 made. 
 
 If they had been serfs and he a king, he 
 could not socially have drawn a wider line of 
 demarcation than he did between his relatives 
 and himself. He attended church in the 
 morning and they in the evening. * They 
 had their pursuits,' he said, ' and he had his.' 
 Neither of them had ever been asked by Mr. 
 Donagh to walk out with him, or to take a 
 day's, or even an evening's, recreation in his
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 47 
 
 company ; and it was clearly understood that 
 if by any evil chance they met each other in 
 the City or at the AYest-end, no notice was to 
 be taken by the ladies of their relation. 
 
 What had led to this arrangement was a 
 contretemps which might, but for Mr. Donagh's 
 presence of mind, have resulted in harrowing 
 consequences. 
 
 One day he was standing with a number of 
 young fellows, just at that point where Dun- 
 cannon Street debouches into Charino: Cross. 
 They were what Mr. Donagh termed ' swells 
 — cigars, rings, chains, canes, and eye- 
 glasses,' and it was all ' Mat, my boy,' and 
 * Donagh, old fellow,' and the 'rest of it,' 
 when j ust as ' Mat, my boy ' was in the 
 middle of a peal of laughter — and his laugh 
 was something to remember, so hearty, so 
 spontaneous, so infectious — the muscles of his 
 face seemed to petrify into a horrible con- 
 tortion as he beheld a sight of dread and 
 disgrace. 
 
 It assumed the shape of an elderly woman 
 dressed in a rusty black gown, an equally 
 rusty black shawl falling back off her 
 shoulders (for the day was sultry), an old
 
 48 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 black bonnet that had got knocked to one side, 
 and black cotton gloves out at the fingers. 
 With a fatuous smile on its old face this 
 apparition, on catching sight of the fault- 
 lessly equipped Mat, quickened its steps, 
 evidently with the intention of accosting its 
 relative ; but ' by the mercy of Providence,* 
 afterwards thought Mr. Donagh piously, / I 
 was equal to the occasion.' 
 
 Moving back a pace, he raised his hat with 
 such preternatural courtesy and solemnity that 
 the demon was exorcised. If it did not flee 
 howling, it retreated at all events with an ex- 
 pedition which soon removed its obnoxious 
 habiliments from sight. 
 
 ' A worthy creature,' remarked Mr. Donagh, 
 in answer to earnest inquiries as to whether 
 that was his ' young woman,' ' but ignorant 
 of les convenances. Most faithful ; attached to 
 
 my family. Knew my father .' And so 
 
 in disconnected sentences he diplomatically, to 
 use one of his pet phrases, ' averted a denoue- 
 ment! 
 
 To say, however, he did not feel greatly 
 vexed with himself would be to slander his 
 better nature. He was more than vexed. If
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 49 
 
 he could have admitted such a thing, he was 
 ashamed. As he walked home that evening, 
 earlier than usual be it noted, he argued the 
 question out. 
 
 ' It boots not,' he considered — even in 
 soliloquy he never condescended to the 
 common words affected by an inferior order of 
 mind — 'what matter of urgent importance 
 called the poor old soul from the peaceful 
 seclusion of West Ham to the human vortex 
 whirling and seething in the West Strand. 
 She was not there of her own free will, of 
 deliberate intention. Oug;ht I to have acted 
 differently, and boldly acknowledged our 
 relative positions ? I do not conceive so. 
 There are persons capable of such deeds of 
 heroism, it is true, but in destroying them- 
 selves they sacrifice others ; yet I regret such 
 a catastrophe should have occurred. From all 
 points of view it is to be lamented.' 
 
 He was very silent during tea, a fact Miss 
 Oavan attributed to annoyance, for which 
 reason, when * Hetty ' chanced to leave the 
 room, she began : 
 
 * I have been thinking I ought not to 
 have thought of stopping to-day, but I 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 was so taken aback at " lighting " upon you 
 that ' 
 
 'Not a word, I beg,' interrupted Mr. 
 Donagh. *It grieved me deeply, I assure 
 you, to have to initiate the part I did ; but 
 mine is a most difficult and delicate position. 
 You do not know the world, and therefore 
 you can perhaps scarcely comprehend the ruin 
 it would have wTought had those men, seeing 
 you dressed in the garments of poverty, 
 suspected you were my aunt. They would 
 have thought themselves ever after entitled 
 to treat me like a dog — like a dog,' repeated 
 Mr. Donagh. rising from the tea-table, 
 and with heightened colour walking to the 
 window. 
 
 ' Dear me ! I am thankful you put it off as 
 you did,' said poor Miss Cavan. ' I was 
 obliged to go to Piccadilly, and remarked to 
 Hetty as it looked likely to rain I would not 
 chance my silk ; and when the sky cleared, 
 as it did about twelve, I thought I would 
 walk from the Bank and take a look at the 
 shops as I went along; and then all in a 
 minute I saw you, and I was so surprised and 
 j)leased '
 
 Mr. Kelhjs Friends. 51 
 
 It was at that juncture Mr. Donagh, cut- 
 ting across the thread of his aunt's discourse, 
 said he thouorht, * havino; a view to the 
 possibilities of what might happen,' it would 
 be well to determine that for the future, no 
 matter when or with whom he might chance to 
 be, his aunt and Hetty had, ' in the interests 
 of prudence,' better affect not to see him. 
 
 * You might speak to me at a most mal 
 a propos time,' he explained ; ' break off an 
 important negotiation, for example, or compel 
 me to introduce you to some one it would be 
 undesirable for you to know. Of course, I 
 am about amongst all sorts and conditions 
 of people, and perforce I have to be civil to 
 them, but with you the case is different ; you 
 are in the happy position of being able to 
 choose your acquaintances.' 
 
 Though it served its turn, this was a pleas- 
 ing fiction on the part of Mr. Donagh. 
 
 What chance had two ladies of uncertain 
 age, whose personal income was under forty 
 pounds a year, generally forestalled ; who 
 were neither clever nor beautiful, whose time 
 was principally occupied in ironing Mr. 
 Donagh's shirts and hemming Mr. Donagh's 
 
 4—2
 
 52 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 cravats, and nagging their little maid-of-all- 
 work, and making frantic exertions to keep 
 the house as Mr. Donagh considered a house 
 should be kept — hearth-stoned, black-leaded, 
 window-cleaned, scrubbed, polished, and cur- 
 tained — to make acquaintances in what they 
 liked to term their own rank of life ? 
 
 Heaven only knew what that rank might 
 be. They certainly did not. Though fond of 
 referring to Castle Donagh, and a certain Daniel 
 Donagh of wild and famous memory, it was 
 quite certain they did not come even within 
 the category w^hich Mr. Bernard Kelly indi- 
 cated as * has beens.' They at all events had 
 never socially been any better than they were. 
 They had known more prosperous times, when 
 they could have ' sat down to turlcey every 
 day,' for the same reason perhaps which Doctor 
 Johnson assigned for eggs being only a penny 
 a dozen in the Highlands ; when ' everybody 
 knew who they were,' and they drove to church 
 on their jaunting-car ; but [even then their 
 acquaintances were not what Mr. Donagh would 
 have termed the creme de la creme. Far from 
 it, indeed, though it suited them to forget that 
 fact, and talk, even in the ' charmed privacy of
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 53 
 
 domestic life,' as though they had visited with 
 the ' best in the county,' and ruffled it with all 
 the ' quality' of their native land. 
 
 Abbey Cottage was a good index to the 
 character of those who inhabited it. The 
 garden in front — both wide and long, for the 
 house stood well back from the road — was 
 always neatly kept ; but the garden at the 
 rear could only be considered a howling wilder- 
 ness, where, amongst weeds, a few superannu- 
 ated fruit trees fought hard for existence, and 
 the family washing was hung to dry. Inside 
 the cottage one sitting-room was fairly fur 
 nished, and another, where Mr. Donagh wrote, 
 not totally destitute of comfort ; but the par- 
 lour — appropriated to meals, needlework, the 
 ladies, a cat, and a canary— was an awful 
 apartment, the untidiness and poverty of 
 which could only have found a counterpart in 
 the person of Miss Bridgetta Cavan. 
 
 Towards evening; a struo;o;le was made to 
 render this room presentable, in case 'Mat' 
 should return to tea. When he signified his 
 intention of not appearing at that meal, Miss 
 Cavan and her niece 'took a bite' anyhow. 
 They were in the habit of 'taking bites' in
 
 54 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 very * anyhow' fashion — in the kitchen, in the 
 washhouse, any place — and they preferred 
 their food when eaten thus in haste and stand- 
 ing. They were most unselfish w^omen, caring 
 little what the * bite and sup' consisted of, so 
 that 'Mat, poor fellow,' had something nice 
 and hot and appetizing, so that his shirt 
 buttons were all right, and his cravats stiff, 
 and his collar unfrayed, and his pocket hand- 
 kerchiefs fine and of a lovely colour. 
 
 Mat's linen, as Mat liked to wear it, was a 
 very serious trouble and expense ; but his will- 
 ing slaves felt more than repaid for many a 
 small personal deprivation and many an 
 anxiety regarding irons that would not get 
 hot, and starch that would stick, when they 
 saw him de]3art in all the glory of the ' best 
 Irish,* bleached to a whiteness, and got up with 
 a ' gloss,' they believed and declared could be 
 ' touched ' by no English laundress. 
 
 The small amount of correspondence in 
 which they indulged w^as kept up with a few 
 old friends in their native country, one of 
 whom chanced to be Mrs. Kelly, mother to 
 that Bernard who was tired of many things in 
 the Isle of Saints. Miss Cavan had always
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 55 
 
 considered Mrs. Kelly a more profitable than 
 pleasant acquaintance. She looked down on 
 the worthy matron, in fact, and but for the 
 receipt of occasional hampers, which were 
 acknowledged by Mr. Donagh's womenkind by 
 such little presents as they could afford, and 
 the execution of trifling commissions in Lon- 
 don, it is possible they would have dropped 
 the connection altogether. 
 
 As matters stood, however, occasional epistles 
 were exchanged between West Ham and Cal- 
 linacoan, and this was how it came about that 
 one morninp; Miss Brido;etta informed her 
 nephew, Barney Kelly was coming to London, 
 and wanted to know if they could tell him of 
 a decent lodo;ino;. 
 
 When Miss Cavan made that remark about 
 Mrs. Kelly's son, Mr. Donagh looked up from 
 what his aunt pathetically called ' that weary 
 writing,' and inquired with more asperity of 
 tone than the occasion seemed to warrant, 
 what the young man was coming to London 
 for. 
 
 ' To better himself, I suppose,' answered 
 ]VIiss Bridgetta. * Ye know Mrs. Kelly has a 
 brother here it was always said would one day
 
 56 A Strnggle for Fame. 
 
 send for them all. He pushed on beyond the 
 common, got made a magistrate, and married 
 some rich lady that brought a great fortune 
 in her hand.' 
 
 * I remember now, to be sure/ said Mr. 
 Donagh, mollified, and thoughtfully biting 
 the top of a quill as he spoke. ' But Bernard 
 •cannot be coming over to him, or Mrs. Kelly 
 would not ask you to recommend lodgings.' 
 
 ' It is to Mr. Balmoy, for all that, he's 
 coming : not to stay at his house, ye know ; 
 but the uncle's going to do something for 
 him. By what Mrs. Kelly writes, Barney is 
 just full of genius, and only wants the chance 
 to do as well as anybody. Trust those Bal- 
 moys for shoving themselves along. There's 
 another of her brothers in Australia it is 
 reported has made a mint of money ; and we 
 know she brought Kelly five hundred pounds, 
 which he ran through before the first child 
 was born ; and the old man had only a general 
 shop in Derry ! Many's the time Miss Keady 
 told me she had been in it as a child to buy 
 sweets ' 
 
 * You can write,' said Mr. Donagh, inter- 
 rupting this harangue with a graceful wave of
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 57 
 
 his pen, ' and ask Bernard Kelly to make our 
 modest abode his home till he has time to 
 look about him.' 
 
 ' Ask him here ! Is it that ye mean V cried 
 Miss Cavan, bewildered. 
 
 'Why not?' inquired her nephew. 'Though 
 Abbey Cottage is not Castle Donagh, and the 
 casualties of generations preclude my enter- 
 taining guests with the princely hospitality 
 that characterized the economy of my pro- 
 genitor Dan, still we can offer this young man 
 a bed and a pitcher of water, and I dare sa}^ a 
 morsel of bread. Write, I say; or shall I V 
 
 ' If ye wiU,' hesitated Miss Cavan. ' But 
 before ye put pen to paper, Mat, just think a 
 bit. We know nothing about Barney. I've 
 never set eyes on him since he was in short 
 frocks, and bare legs and red socks, and 
 knitted boots ; and the Kellys aren't of any 
 account, and the Balmoys are of less. Ye've 
 but to look at Mrs. Kelly to know what she 
 is. Good-hearted enough, and free-handed, 
 I am sure w^e have a right to say; but 
 stiU ' 
 
 ' I suppose,' interposed Mr. Donagh, ' that 
 what is exercising a deterrent influence on
 
 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 you is the idea that Abbey Cottage is not grand 
 enough to receive such a guest. Make your 
 mind quite easy on that score. The meanest 
 house in England is, as regards its appoint- 
 ments, a palace — literally a palace — in com- 
 parison with mansions in Ireland. Why, 
 when I was there last, a gentleman in a large 
 way of business asked me to dine with him, 
 and we were waited on — you may not believe 
 this, but it is a fact— by a strapping wench in 
 a bedgown, with her sleeves turned up, and 
 showing arms as thick as a navvy's, and as 
 red as fire. Why, the veriest little drab in a 
 lodging-house here would have felt ashamed 
 to be seen in such a plight.' 
 
 * Ye told me that before,' said Miss Cavan, 
 who indeed had not been so much impressed 
 by the anecdote as she might. ' But still, 
 Mat ' 
 
 ' We need not discuss the question any 
 further. I will write the invitation, and do 
 you get a room ready. When is he to 
 arrive V 
 
 ' He leaves the latter part of next week. 
 He is coming round by the Dublin boat for 
 cheapness.'
 
 31 r. Kelhjs Friends. 59 
 
 * Then that gives you plenty of time ; and 
 see here,' added Mr. Donagh, dropping into 
 the vulgar idiom, as he saw his aunt in a 
 somewhat desponding mood about to retire, 
 ' you may require to lay out a few shillings in 
 muslin and so on. Here is a sovereign;' and 
 he presented that sum to Miss Cavan as 
 though the coin in question were possessed of 
 the purchasing power of a Eothschild. 
 
 Poor Miss Cavan ! there was scarcely a 
 necessary article that guest's chamber con- 
 tained. 
 
 * Mat has forgotten himself this time, I'm 
 thinking,' she remarked to her niece. ' Nothing 
 less will serve him than to ask Barney Kelly 
 to stop here, and you know all the Kellys 
 have eyes like gimlets ; and there's not a 
 thing in the spare room but a bedstead and 
 the feather-bed.' 
 
 ' We'll just have to strip our own,' observed 
 Hester. 
 
 ' And after we've done that it won't look 
 much,' remarked Miss Cavan dolorously ; 
 * and as for food, why, it is well known the 
 Kellys never were within half a dozen flitches 
 of bacon, and beautiful hams, and the best of
 
 60 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 poultry; and though Mat talks about a pitcher 
 of water, if the son is like the father he'd 
 drink the Shannon dry, but only if it was 
 whisky. However, there is no use talking ; 
 we'll have to get on with the work next w^eek, 
 that we may be clear to see to his room before 
 he comes.' 
 
 Work with poor Miss Cavan meant seeing 
 to Mat's linen. Seven shirts a week, at least, 
 were required by that gentleman, besides an 
 additional one now^ and then w^hen he ' dined 
 out,^ or w^ent to the theatre. To see ' Mat * of 
 a fine summer evening strolling along in full- 
 dress to the ' play,' was better to some people 
 than the play itself. 
 
 Somew^hat as the troubadour touched his 
 guitar, Mr. Donagh lightly and gaily flung ofi' 
 his friendly epistle. He w^as, as he himself 
 said, ' a master of all styles' — the prosaic, the 
 persuasive, the defiant, the bantering, the sar- 
 castic, the curt, the playful, the scathing. In 
 every one of these he considered himself 
 unique. The graceful way in which he ac- 
 cepted an invitation either to take * pot-luck' 
 or to go down wdth a few fellow^s to an ela- 
 borate dinner at the Star and Garter, was ' all
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 61 
 
 his own.' The ease with which be dashed off 
 what any other person might have considered 
 difficult letters was indeed remarkable, and the 
 grace of his note to.JMr. Bernard Kelly should 
 have charmed that young gentleman, though 
 it failed to do so. 
 
 * He writes like a fool,' said ]VIr. Kelly to 
 his mother. 
 
 ' You're too ready with your tongue, Barney,' 
 observed Mrs. Kelly ; for at that precise period 
 Barney chanced to be somewhat out of fa- 
 vour. 
 
 * Oh, I make no doubt he means to be civil 
 enough,' was the answer, ' but it is ridiculous 
 writing such a parcel of rubbish. Here's a bit 
 from Shakespeare, and a line from Milton, and 
 a quotation from Pope, and ' 
 
 * You'll be able to hold your own with the 
 best of them there,' exclaimed his parent 
 proudly ; ' why, you might have done nothing 
 else but sit and read all your life I' 
 
 * I haven't done much else, but I hope it 
 will come in of use to me now. Don't trouble 
 yourself, mother, about old Donagh ; I'll send 
 him a grateful enough reply, never fear.' 
 
 ' And tell him the day you are leaving, and
 
 62 A Struggle foo' Fame. 
 
 the time he may be looking out for you ;' all 
 of which Mr. Bernard Kelly did, and then, 
 changing his mind at the last minute, started 
 for Belfast instead of Dublin, and leaving his 
 heavy luggage to go round by *long sea,' 
 crossed himself by the * cheap excursion,' ar- 
 riving in London quite a week before anyone 
 there expected the pleasure of seeing him, 
 
 Mr. Donagh was sauntering about his front 
 garden before breakfast (he had a way of doing 
 this without his hat, and of scrutinizing the 
 flowers and bushes with apparently the keenest 
 interest, which won for him the approval and 
 admiration of many passers-by), when a young 
 man, putting his arm over the gate, unfastened 
 the latch, and, unmindful of the request 
 plainly painted on the right-hand post, 
 ' Please to ring the bell,' walked straight up 
 the path without ' with your leave,' or ' by it' 
 either. 
 
 Mr. Donagh advanced a few steps to meet 
 him, and then paused, patiently awaiting the 
 stranger's approach. 
 
 * Your business, sir V he asked, in his best 
 and loftiest manner. 
 
 The new-comer burst out laughing.
 
 3fr. Kelly s Friends. 63 
 
 * My name is Kelly, and you are Mr. 
 Donagh, I suppose V 
 
 The words were simple. But oh, oh! as 
 Mr. Donagh subsequently explained, if a shell 
 had burst at his feet he would have been less 
 surprised and horrified. 
 
 This Bernard Kelly — this the guest he had 
 so rashly invited under his modest roof — this 
 the monster after a fashion created by himself — 
 this the nephew of the great Mr. Balmoy — this 
 a young gentleman coming to push his for- 
 tunes in London ! 
 
 * I am delighted to see you,' and Mat's face 
 beamed, literally beamed with the brightness 
 of the smile he wasted on the arid desert of 
 Barney Kelly's gratitude ; ' but how does it 
 happen you are here so soon ? AYe did not 
 hope to see you for a week yet.' 
 
 ' There was a cheap trip, and so I took ad- 
 vantage of it. I trust I am not putting you 
 out. If 1 am, say the word, and 111 go back 
 to the hotel where I stopped last night.' 
 
 * Oh dear, no ; put us out, indeed !' and Mr. 
 Donagh, placing one hand on Mr. Kelly's 
 shoulder, surveyed him afiectionately the 
 while he considered how on earth he |hould
 
 64 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 manage to give Miss Bridgetta notice of this 
 arrival, and prevent the awful spectacle of 
 that spinster in the undress she wore at break- 
 fast appearing before the eyes of her rough- 
 and-ready compatriot. 
 
 ' How did you leave them at home V And 
 something in the tone and the question re- 
 calling his friend of the train to recollection, 
 Mr. Kelly smiled. Naturally, Mr. Donagh 
 could not see what he was smiling at. 
 
 ' All right. How are the old ladies V 
 
 ' My aunt and cousin are quite well, I thank 
 you,' said Mr. Donagh stiffly. ' This creature 
 has no reverence,' he considered. 
 
 ' What an awful prig !' thought Mr. Kelly. 
 
 * If you will walk into the drawing-room 
 for a moment,' suggested Mr. Donagh — he 
 had been edging slowly up to the house, 
 trusting they might be observed from the 
 window^s — *I will apprise the ladies of your 
 arrival.' 
 
 Too late. The la^t word was barely uttered 
 before Miss Cavan, in a sketchy but not pic- 
 turesque costume, wearing a pair of blue 
 worsted stockings, her feet slipping about in a 
 pair Qf Mat's old carpet-shoes, her hair in curl-
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 65 
 
 papers, her cap awry, her whole aspect that 
 of some arointed witch, appeared in the hall, 
 exclaiming : 
 
 ' The tea'll be ' 
 
 The rest of the sentence froze on her lips. 
 The look of horror on Mat's countenance was 
 reflected on her own, and she stood speechless, 
 staring at Mat's companion, who, with wonder- 
 ful composure, said : 
 
 ' I am Barney Kelly, Miss Cavan. I am a 
 good deal earlier than you expected, but I 
 hope I am not too early for you to be glad to 
 see me.' 
 
 ' It was done wonderfully neatly,' observed 
 Mr. Donagh, when talking over the matter at 
 a later period. 
 
 The sound of the well-beloved brogue, the 
 touch from a vanished past, instantly broke 
 the spell which had bound Miss Cavan, and in 
 accents which fairly matched his own, she bade 
 Mr. Kelly heartily welcome. 
 
 * This is Barney himself, Hetty,' she cried, 
 as another lady in an equally unstudied 
 toilette, attracted by the bustle, appeared in 
 the hall, and then there ensued what the 
 
 yoL. I. 5
 
 66 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 maid-of- all- work in the adjacent kitchen called 
 a jabber of Irish. 
 
 Ten minutes later Mr. Bernard Kelly was sit- 
 ting in Mr. Donagh's parlour, with his back to 
 the wild garden, as much at home as if he had 
 lived at Abbey Cottage all his life. He had a 
 bushel of news to communicate about the people 
 Miss Cavan used to know in the happy past, 
 when the Donaghs drove to church on their own 
 jaunting-car : who was married, who was dead, 
 who had gone to the bad, who had emigrated to 
 America, who was living at Castle Donagh, 
 who was coming to Keady's old place. The 
 ladies might never have seen London, never 
 been privileged to reside in West Ham 
 Lane, so fresh and green did their memory seem 
 concerning a number of persons who ought, 
 Mr. Donagh considered, to have been 'beneath 
 their notice.' 
 
 For himself, he took refuge in the Times, and 
 when breakfast was finished asked Mr. Kelly 
 if he meant to go into the City then, or wait 
 till later in the day. 
 
 * Faith, I don't mean to go out at all again 
 to-day, if Miss Cavan will let me stop where 
 I am/ answered Mr. Kelly. ' I have scarcely
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 67 
 
 had a wink of sleep the last three nights, 
 and that's a mighty comfortable-looking sofa 
 over there.' 
 
 ' Yes, and it's as comfortable as it looks, 
 and so yell say when ye stretch yourself upon 
 it,' exclaimed Miss Cavan. 
 
 ' Then if you will excuse me ' observed 
 
 Mr. Donagh. 
 
 ' Oh, I'll excuse you fast enough,' said Mr. 
 Kelly. ' Take yourself off, and don't mind me. 
 The ladies and I will find plenty to talk about, 
 never fear.' 
 
 'Plenty to talk about,' thought Mr. 
 Donagh, as he went into his own special 
 sanctum preparatory to starting for the * centre 
 of civilization ;' ' but how,' and he placed his 
 hand on his forehead, ' shall I ever be able to 
 endure the crudities of this barely civilized 
 creature V 
 
 Whilst Mr. Donao;h was absent attendino- 
 to whatever business mio-ht be claiminor his 
 attention, the ' creature ' he thus disparagingly 
 referred to washed, brushed, slept, dined, had 
 a glass of punch, talked to Miss Cavan, and 
 evinced a laudable amount of curiosity as to 
 what the redoubtable Mat wrote. In Ireland 
 
 5—2
 
 68 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 they knew he had done very well, or, as Mr. 
 Kelly otherwise expressed it, ' made a great 
 hit ;' but nobody there had ever met with any 
 of his books. 
 
 * Find me one of them, Miss Cavan,' he en- 
 treated, * and I'll be as quiet all the afternoon 
 as a mouse in a meal-chest.* 
 
 * I only wish I could find ye one,' answered 
 Miss Cavan, who, now arrayed in a silk gown, 
 and having her hair dressed in two pensive 
 ringlets, and a cap ornamented with blue 
 ribands covering her head, looked a very dif- 
 ferent figure from that she had presented 
 a few hours previously. ' But Mat never 
 tells us what he writes ; he might never 
 have appeared in print for all we know 
 about it.' 
 
 ' What does he contribute to V asked Mr. 
 Kelly, after he had digested this unexpected 
 piece of information. 
 
 * Everything, I think,' answered Miss Cavan 
 vaguely. ' Looking over the magazines and 
 journals and papers he brings home, we often 
 come across bits we feel sure are his ; but it 
 vexes him so if we put any questions, we have 
 stopped asking them.'
 
 3Ir. Kelly s Friends. 69 
 
 ' Well, that's a queer notion, too,' said Mr. 
 Kelly, referring to Mat's reticence. 
 
 ' He says we wouldn't understand,' went on 
 Miss Cavan, between whom and their guest 
 had sprung up one of those sudden friend- 
 ships which are sure to wither away almost as 
 rapidly as Jonah's gourd ; ' but if we can un- 
 derstand other things, what is there to hinder 
 us " making off " his V 
 
 ' Nothing, unless he writes in an unknown 
 tongue.' 
 
 ' It might be Hebrew for all we know,' 
 maundered on poor Miss Cavan. ' Now, 
 there's a new thing come out called the Galaxij, 
 and I feel sure he has to do with that ; but do 
 you think he will tell us which article is his V 
 And the lady's voice was uplifted as she spoke, 
 more in sorrow than in anger. 
 
 That first day passed off, so far as the ladies 
 were concerned, very well indeed. There was 
 one little cloud, when, Miss Donagh playfully 
 suggesting a love-affair must have been at the 
 bottom of Mr. Kelly's sudden determination 
 to come to England, that gentleman blazed up 
 for a moment, and angrily inquired if any- 
 body had been telling anything The charm-
 
 70 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ing Hester's wondering disclaimer, however, in- 
 stantly calmed down liis excitement, and he 
 apologized for his hasty speech by remarking 
 that Callinacoan was such a place for scandal 
 no man could imas^ine what stories mio-ht o-et 
 about concerning him. 
 
 With Mr. Donagh, however, things did not 
 go on quite comfortably. That gentleman 
 saw so much about Mr. Kelly which in his 
 opinion required ' toning down,' he was 
 unable to refrain from dropping various hints 
 which, though his guest at first wisely ignored, 
 he felt compelled at last to notice. 
 
 Mr. Balmoy was the peg Mr. Donagh chose 
 to hang all his remarks on. He warned ]\Ir. 
 Kelly against this, that, and the other, because 
 the society in which the magistrate had no 
 doubt moved since he crossed the Channel 
 must have given him a distaste for accent, 
 phrases, and manners Hibernian. 
 
 He advised his young friend to pay a little 
 more attention to his personal appearance. 
 * People think so much of dress nowadays,' he 
 was kind enough to explain. 
 
 The more he drank, and he drank a good 
 deal, the more he seemed disposed to assume
 
 Mr, Kdhjs Friends. 
 
 the role of Mentor. It was excessively irri- 
 tating, but Mr. Kelly, though not a good- 
 tempered man, bore all his host's strictures 
 with wonderful patience, till at length it struck 
 him it might be well to nip this sort of im- 
 pertinence in the bud. 
 
 * Look here, Donagh,' he said accordingly ; 
 * I didn't come to England meaning to keep 
 my eyes shut, but for all that I am not going 
 to adopt the speech, ways, and customs of the 
 first fellow who tries to make me believe he 
 knows more of the inner life of what is called 
 good society than I do myself. I have much 
 to learn. I am aware ; but, to be quite ^^lain, 
 I don't think vou are the man to teach me.' 
 
 It is doubtful if ^Ir. Donagh had ever in 
 the whole course of his life before been hit 
 so hard ; the blow was given so straight from 
 the shoulder — it was delivered with such force 
 between the eyes — that Miss Cavan s Mat was 
 sobered in a moment. 
 
 ' If I have been intrusive, pardon me,' he 
 said, with frigid politeness. ' Taking an inte- 
 rest I now perceive to have been foolish in 
 your welfare, I could not refrain from men- 
 tioning a few trifles I thought you would do
 
 72 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 well to attend to. My interference, I 
 see, however, though conceived in a friendly 
 spirit, was officious. I shall not offend 
 again.' 
 
 'I shall really be obliged if you refrain 
 from criticism, at all events till I feel some- 
 what less of a stranger in a strange land,* said 
 Mr. Kelly, with that readiness of speech and 
 manner which had already surprised Mr. 
 Donagh. 
 
 ' I shouldn't wonder if he has something in 
 him,' thought that gentleman, with a sort of 
 lofty incredulity. * At all events, he has 
 qtiite brains enough for a Government clerk, 
 which is what his uncle seems disposed to 
 make of him.' 
 
 The next day was Sunday, during the 
 course of w^hich nothing remarkable occurred ; 
 but on Monday matters did not progress very 
 well. Before they started for town, w^hich on 
 this occasion they did together, Mr. Donagh 
 made two discoveries — one, that Mr. Kelly 
 was not flush of cash ; and the other, that he 
 was inclined to be impertinent. 
 
 ' My dear fellow,' cried Mat, rushing in his 
 shirt-sleeves into his young friend's bedroom,
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends, 
 
 * do you happen to have change for a twenty- 
 pound note ?' 
 
 ' Do I happen to be Governor of the Bank 
 of England ?' retorted Mr. Kelly. 
 
 ' Well, have you got a couple of sovereigns V 
 
 * Yes. Do you want them V 
 
 ' If you would be so kind, just till I can 
 get change.' 
 
 It was when Mr. Kelly was ' so kind ' his 
 host saw the whole of his worldly wealth did 
 not appear to exceed ten pounds. 
 
 * Hum]Dh !' considered Mr. Donagh, who felt 
 this amount was scarcely sufficient to start on 
 in London. However, the uncle, of course, 
 might come down handsomely, and no doubt 
 in the home stocking, knitted and filled by 
 ^Irs. Kelly without her husband's knowledge, 
 there were many pound-notes. 
 
 The other matter seemed more serious. 
 
 As they passed to the hall-door. Miss Cavan 
 and Miss Donagh, both wearing stays, and 
 having their bair out of paper, detained their 
 beloved Mat for the tender embrace and 
 rapturous kiss without which he was never 
 permitted to cross the threshold. 
 
 From the step outside Mr. Kelly viewed
 
 74 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 this performance, and Mr. Donagh heard him 
 mutter quite audibly : 
 
 ' Well, I'm !' 
 
 They argued the question out going up 
 West Ham Lane, Mr. Donagh asserting this 
 *osculatory farewell gratified two most faithful 
 and loving creatures,' and Mr. Kelly saying 
 ' he didn't care who got the kiss so long as it 
 wasn't himself.' 
 
 His tone implied such an amount of thank- 
 fulness on this score, Mr. Donagh felt quite 
 down-hearted, and began to realize he had 
 taken an Old Man of the Sea on his back, 
 whose powers of observation were far too 
 acute to prove agreeable. 
 
 * I wish I had taken my aunt's advice, and 
 never asked him to the house,' thought poor 
 Mat. * However, if the uncle is civil, that 
 will pay for all.' 
 
 Mr. Kelly could not imagine why his friend 
 should ask so many questions and appear so 
 anxious concerning the magistrate. 
 
 ' He is out of town at present,' ex- 
 plained this candidate for an appointment. 
 ' He has not been well. I will call early next 
 week.'
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 75 
 
 * It was a wonder he didn't ask you to stop 
 at his house,' said Mr. Donagh. 
 
 ' Oh, they are grand people — too grand by 
 far to have a wild fellow from Callinacoan 
 quartered on them,' said Mr. Kelly slily. 
 
 The time wore by slowly. There was a 
 nameless something about his guest Mr. 
 Donagh could not fraternize with. He was a 
 ' strange specimen,' he decided. 
 
 The specimen annoyed Mr. Donagh greatly 
 with trying to discover what he wrote. 
 
 ' That is my Blue Beard's chamber,' said 
 the master of Abbey Cottage. ' Everything 
 else about me is free to you, but respect the 
 one locked door.' 
 
 ' It is mighty odd,' answered Mr. Kelly. 
 * Why can't you tell us what you do V 
 
 ' Because I love Truth,' w^as the reply. ' I 
 revere, I worship her. I could easily tell you 
 I write leaders in the Times ; but I do not, be- 
 cause that would not be fact — it would be 
 fiction.' 
 
 * I shouldn't believe you if you said you 
 wrote for the Times,' remarked Mr. Kelly, with 
 disconcerting frankness. 
 
 ' No, and I never will tell vou anvthing of
 
 76 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 the sort. If you must know, I am a disap- 
 pointed man. I have not made my mark as 
 I expected, and so, instead of grumbling, I 
 maintain a discreet silence.' 
 
 ' I suppose it is very difficult to make a 
 mark.' 
 
 ' The experience of the ages would seem to 
 imply as much.' 
 
 ' Do you know, I have tried my hand at 
 authorship myself,' and Mr. Kelly laughed 
 and coloured. 
 
 ' Have you V Mr. Donagh's tone was the 
 reverse of encouraging. ' In some " Poet's 
 Corner," no doubt.' 
 
 ' Yes, there and elsewhere. I used to think 
 I could turn out something worth reading, 
 but now I have given up the notion.' 
 
 ' Wisely, I should say.' 
 
 ' Judging from the results even you have 
 achieved, I should say so.' 
 
 It was this sort of thing which Mr. Donagh 
 called ' banter,' but felt really like a sword- 
 thrust, which caused him to long for Mr. 
 Kelly's departure. 
 
 To do Mr. Kelly justice, he troubled the 
 Abbey Cottage with very little of his society.
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 77 
 
 He went out directly after breakfast, and 
 scarcely ever returned till tea-time ; so that as 
 far as food was concerned the cost of his main- 
 tenance could not be regarded as excessive. 
 
 ' But he takes it out in the drink,* whim- 
 pered Miss Bridgetta. ' There's a gallon gone 
 already, and it makes no more impression on 
 him than if it was pure spring water.' 
 
 Which was perhaps the less extraordinary 
 as his share of the gallon, which could only be 
 regarded as the lion's, produced a considerable 
 effect on Mat. 
 
 That gentleman, however, by confining his 
 libations to the City and West - end, had 
 earned for himself a character for sobriety in 
 his domestic circle a teetotaler might have 
 envied. Even Miss Bridgetta often urged him 
 to take 'just a thimbleful ' when he was pros- 
 trate with one of his ' dreadful headaches,' and 
 almost weeping told Hetty how, almost with 
 loathing, he refused to try a prescription she 
 knew would * give him a lift.' 
 
 At a very early period of his visit Mr. 
 Kelly perceived Mr. Donagh had no intention 
 of taking him about London — that is to say, 
 about any part of London where they were
 
 78 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 likely to meet many of Mat's numerous ac- 
 quaintances. 
 
 ' He's ashamed of me/ thought Mr. Kelly 
 bitterly ; but as it suited him to take no notice 
 of this feeling on his friend's part, he went his 
 way and Mat went his. During the course of 
 the week which seemed so long to the dwellers 
 at Abbey Cottage, he contrived to see a great 
 deal of London, and found many opportunities 
 of comparing his own personal appearance 
 with that of other young men of a like grade 
 in life. As he truly said, he had not come to 
 England to keep his eyes shut, and for this 
 reason he astonished Miss Donagh by appear- 
 ing one evening at tea with his hair cut in 
 the latest style and his whiskers trimmed 
 ' just elegant,' as the lady expressed the fact 
 in her simple vernacular. 
 
 More wonders, however, were in store. On 
 the Saturday week following Mr. Kelly's ap- 
 pearance at West Ham, a letter arrived from 
 his uncle, to say he had now returned to 
 Upper Wimpole Street, and would be glad to 
 see Bernard if he called between three and 
 four o'clock on the Monday following. This 
 epistle, which, indeed, he had not expected,
 
 3Ir. KeUifs Jfriends. 79 
 
 put Mr. Kelly into the highest spirits, and 
 possibly induced him the next morning to 
 electrify his host by descending to breakfast 
 ' decently dressed.' 
 
 When or how he had procured the new suit 
 of WTJl-made clothes, which made him ' look 
 another person,' he did not inform Mr. Donagh ; 
 but there they were, and there was he in 
 them. 
 
 ^ Come, there is hope,' thought Mat, with a 
 gratified smile : ' after all, my words have borne 
 fruit ;' while Miss Donagh openly expressed 
 her admiration, and assured Mr. Kelly in an 
 easy and friendly manner, * There was money 
 bid for him.' 
 
 As a man gets uneasy the day before his 
 execution, it was noticeable that Mr. Balmoy's 
 nephew lost some portion of courage as the 
 time for the momentous interview drew nio-h. 
 It is not too much to say he grew nervous ; 
 and finally, during the progress of that friendly 
 tumbler which wound up the evening, asked 
 Mr. Donagh if he would mind accompanying 
 him to Upper Wimpole Street on the morrow. 
 
 Mat snapped at the proposal, and declared 
 that in the cause of friendship he was willing
 
 80 A Struggle f 07^ Fame. 
 
 to forego appointments, invitations, every- 
 thing. 
 
 ' I'll see you through it, my boy,' he said, 
 clapping Mr. Kelly on the shoulder with an 
 air of patronage which made the young man 
 almost repent his invitation. 
 
 ' However,' he thought, ' anything is better 
 than going alone, and the fellow is presentable 
 enough.' 
 
 ' Presentable enough !' Heaven and earth 
 must have come together had Mat heard him. 
 
 In the cause of friendship Mat the next day 
 ' stood ' a luncheon at a well-known City tavern, 
 after which meal the pair started, both in the 
 best of spirits, for Upper Wimpole Street. 
 
 Mr. Bernard was indeed in the wildest humour. 
 He talked and rattled on as they walked up 
 Chancery Lane to meet a West-end omnibus, 
 and proved that he could be what Mr. Donagh 
 had much doubted — a pleasant and witty 
 companion. 
 
 ' He has a great deal in him which only 
 wants bringing out,' decided that gentleman, 
 as with neatly furled umbrella he signalled a 
 passing 'bus. 
 
 Mr. Kelly got in first. Mr. Donagh follow-
 
 Mr. Kelly s Friends. 81 
 
 ing, took a seat beside him next the door. 
 Opposite Mr. Donagh a gentleman was already 
 seated, most elaborately got up — a regular 
 buck of the old school — with frilled shirt, 
 diamond brooch, tremendous cravat, long- 
 waistcoat, high coat-collar, best su|)erfine 
 hat, kid gloves, gold-headed cane, highly 
 polished boots, and gold watch-chain, from 
 which depended a bunch of seals and 
 charms. 
 
 His head, long and narrow, was surmounted 
 by beautiful white curls, his whiskers, nicely 
 curled also, were white as snow\ He looked 
 some superannuated leader of fashion — some 
 one who might have been a contemporary of 
 Brummel, but had survived to a more pros- 
 perous old age. 
 
 To Mr. Donag;h's amazement, the moment 
 Mr. Kelly caught sight of this old * swell,' he 
 greeted him with a friendly — 
 
 * Ah ! how d'ye do V 
 
 The gentleman looked as much astonished 
 as ^Ir. Donagh felt. 
 
 ' T — aw — really, sir, have not the pleashau 
 of your acquaintance,' he said. 
 
 Mr. Kelly looked at him and nodded. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 A Stmiggle for Fame. 
 
 * How's Maria V he asked, smiling plea- 
 santly. 
 
 By this time the attention of the other pas- 
 sengers began to be aroused. 
 
 * Sir — I repeat, sir — I do not know who you 
 are, sir,' spluttered out the gentleman, purple 
 with indignation. 
 
 ' Where is Tom now ?' went on Mr. Kelly, 
 after he had apparently received and digested 
 a satisfactory answer concerning Maria. 
 
 ' The man's mad !' cried his victim, looking 
 helplessly round on the occupants of the omni- 
 bus, who by this time were laughing outright. 
 ' Sir, I have to tell you I never saw you, sir, 
 in my life before, and I trust I shall never see 
 you again.' 
 
 ' I always told you he was the flower of the 
 flock,' said Mt. Kelly. 
 
 It was too much. The passengers screamed ; 
 the omnibus was full, and nine persons roared 
 in concert as the poor old gentleman yelled: 
 
 ' Conductor ! conductor ! I say, conductor, 
 let me out ; you have got a lunatic inside. I 
 shall summon you and him. And ' 
 
 ' m come round and see you one of these 
 days,' were Mr. Kelly's last words, as the gen-
 
 Mr, Kelly s Friends. 83 
 
 tleman was set down in the very muddiest 
 portion of the road, where they left him 
 shaking his stick after the retreating vehicle. 
 
 ' What on earth possessed you to do such a 
 thing V asked Mr. Donagh. 
 
 ' I don't know. There was something in 
 the look of the old fellow I couldn't resist.' 
 
 ^[r. Donagh shook his head gravely, but 
 made no further remark ; and shortly after- 
 wards they got out, and proceeded on foot 
 towards Wimpole Street. Arrived there, the 
 butler, who opened the door, said Mr. Balmoy 
 was not at home, but asked them to walk 
 in, as that gjentleman would return almost 
 directly. 
 
 With a feeling; amountins; to reverence, Mr. 
 Donagh trod the thick carpets, and surveyed 
 the wealth and luxury which was presented at 
 every step. 
 
 * This is somethino- like,' said Mr. Kellv, 
 flinging himself into an easy-chair. ' He seems 
 better off even than I expected.' 
 
 * I wonder if we shall be asked to dinner,' 
 marvelled Mr. Donagh to himself 
 
 They waited patiently five minutes, ten 
 minutes, fifteen minutes, half an hour ; at the 
 
 6—2
 
 84 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 end of that time a step was heard, the door 
 opened, a gentleman entered, and in his uncle 
 Mr. Kelly recognised their companion of the 
 omnibus ! 
 
 Mr. Donagh never could accurately recall 
 what happened after that. He had a con- 
 fused memory of angry words, of an attempted 
 apology, of a bell being rung violently, of 
 hearing himself and his friend ordered out of 
 the house, of seeing the butler glide before 
 and quietly and deferentially fling wide the 
 door for them to depart, of feeling that Mr. 
 Balmoy stood in the hall to see them actually 
 off the premises, and of finding himself in 
 Wimpole Street, ready to sink under the pave- 
 ment with mortification and shame.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MR. P. VASSETT, PUBLISHER. 
 
 ON G before the Thames Embankment 
 was thought of, save as a scheme 
 of Sir Christopher Wren's — ^which 
 it was a pity had not been carried 
 out by him, but that never in the later times 
 could by anybody be made a reality — Craven 
 Street, Strand, was as quiet, respectable, and 
 central a position for a residence as could 
 have been desired by a person whose ideas 
 were moderate and tastes urban. 
 
 Mr. Yassett had no extravagant notions, and 
 he dearly loved a town, more especially he 
 aflfected London, in particular those small por- 
 tions of it described in legal documents as 
 ' The Cities of London and Westminster ;'
 
 86 A Struggle f 07^ Fame. 
 
 and though, to a certain extent, it might be 
 true that chance first led him to take up 
 his abode in Craven Street, there can be no 
 cjuestion but that choice induced him to con- 
 tinue living there. 
 
 As a boy he had often been in the then no 
 thoroughfare, one end of which was close by 
 Charing Cross and the other abutting on the 
 river, and he used to think, looking at the 
 staid, comfortable residences, that men and 
 women who dwelt in them ought to be very 
 happy ; while as a man he considered, when, 
 having secured a long lease of one of the 
 houses situated on the east side, he took pos- 
 session, that he would never leave Craven 
 Street till — he could not help it. 
 
 His mind was deeply imbued with that taste 
 for antiquity which enables an individual 
 familiar with the history of former days to 
 make companions of the very stones of the 
 street. 
 
 To outward view a lonely man, Mr. Vassett, 
 in reality, never felt solitary. He had his 
 business to interest him by day, and w^hen, in 
 the evenings, he took a stroll round the neigh- 
 bourhood, there came to him from out the
 
 31 }\ P. Vassett, Publisher, 87 
 
 past — on the one hand, lords and ladies, kings, 
 courtiers, statesmen, who had lived and loved, 
 sinned and suffered, and rejoiced and made 
 merry, and died and been buried within the 
 Liberties of Westminster ; and on the other, 
 trooping through Temple Bar and over Ivy 
 Bridge, grave citizens, turbulent apprentices, 
 rebels, traitors, the martyrs of Smithfield, 
 authors from Grub Street, Milton from under 
 the shadow of All Hallows ; Shakespeare, 
 straight from Golden Lane or Playhouse Yard ; 
 Johnson, from Gough Square ; and Goldsmith, 
 on his way to clothe himself with confusion at 
 Northumberland House. 
 
 Standing just within hearing of the din of 
 the Strand, there was nothing which pleased 
 Mr. Vassett better at times than to picture 
 the period when that thoroughfare, where now 
 all is ' crowding and bustle,' and ' continual 
 hurrying to and fro,' was ' a bare and marshy 
 shore,' where, doubtless, the ' hollow-sound- 
 ing ' cry of the bittern from its reedy nest has 
 often broke upon the ear of the half-naked, 
 but gaily ornamented, human wanderer from 
 the neighbouring City of Mists.' 
 
 Nature had made Mr. Yassett an antiquarian
 
 88 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 — necessity, a publisher. It is not often that 
 nature and necessity, hand locked in hand, 
 manage to tread the road of life together. 
 
 There was no violent antipathy between his 
 tastes and his business ; though had Heaven 
 seen fit to place him in a connection where 
 amongst the accumulated dust of centuries he 
 could have been perpetually unearthing some 
 treasure of the past, he would have preferred 
 it undoubtedly to considering manuscripts, 
 possibly more legible, but certainly much less 
 interesting than black-letter. Dead authors 
 never could have given the trouble and annoy- 
 ance living writers contrived to do ; but still, 
 neither in the world we live in nor in any 
 other, so far as we know, can people have 
 everything their own way. Mr. Yassett was 
 a philosopher, and recognised this fact ; more- 
 over, out of living writers he had done very 
 well indeed, which perhaps did more to re- 
 concile him to their existence than even j)hilo- 
 sophy. 
 
 He was a j)rosperous man ; his lot chanced 
 to be cast at a time when, to quote the words 
 of those who recently have not been so pros- 
 perous, * Some money con Id be made out of
 
 Mr. P. Vassett, PuhJisher. 89 
 
 publishing.' Owing to circumstances or liim- 
 self, Mr. Yassett had achieved this feat, and 
 another equally important, viz., keeping his 
 money when he had got it. From the agree- 
 able seclusion of Craven Street he was able, at 
 the period when this story opens, to contem- 
 plate coming years without any terror of 
 poverty ; on the contrary, he had thousands 
 w^ell invested, and was able to think of both 
 his printers and the firm that supplied him 
 with paper without any fear of that day of 
 reckoning which, though deferred, looms 
 darkly and certainly before the mind's eye of 
 many a modern publisher in an apparently 
 large and prosperous way of business. 
 
 As has been intimated, Mr. Yassett's ideas 
 were modest, his notions perhaps a little old- 
 fashioned, his views somewhat circumscribed. 
 He was doing a very safe trade, and stood 
 very w^elL If he could not claim to be a 
 Murray, no one could speak of him as a dis- 
 ciple of the Minerva Press. 
 
 No one knew' better than he did that the 
 w^orks he published were not likely to live, 
 but in their generation they were good, useful 
 amusing. That they were not likely to go
 
 90 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 down through the ages did not much trouble 
 the gentleman who had assisted at their birth. 
 He felt they would live long enough ; they 
 had served their purpose, and could die when 
 they pleased. He felt no such frantic desire 
 for posthumous fame as rendered him un- 
 happy because he could not compass it. If 
 Shakespeare had come back to earth, Mr. 
 Vassett would not have risked anything he 
 considered very valuable — say, for instance, 
 the lease of his house in Craven Street — for 
 the honour of standing godfather even to a 
 second Shylock. The world's applause he did 
 not consider worth the loss of one night's 
 sleep : further, he had a notion not uncommon 
 amongst those who prefer to seek their mental 
 food among the past of literature, rather than 
 browns e on the light productions of the present, 
 that no more great books would ever be 
 written. Mr. Vassett was no optimist con- 
 cerning the books of the future. Looking 
 around, he saw what he considered almost a 
 dead level of mediocrity. Whether the few 
 who struo-o;led out of the mass and achieved 
 
 CO 
 
 distinction, who were run after by readers, 
 and run down by the critics, would be thought
 
 Mr. P. Vassett, Fuhlisher, 91 
 
 much of in succeeding generations, was a 
 question he professed himself glad he had not 
 to decide. He admitted they had many merits; 
 but when asked if he considered they would 
 stand the test of time, he returned the safe 
 answer that he did not know. 
 
 There was another thing also he did not 
 know, as he sat at breakfast one November 
 morning in the same year when Mr. Bernard 
 Kelly, and Mr. and Miss Westley, and the 
 gentleman of an inquiring turn of mind, and 
 the lady with the wavy hair, all travelled 
 together in the same compartment to Euston 
 ■ — viz., anything about the sword which was 
 impending over his devoted head. Mr. 
 Vassett entertained an antipathy towards new 
 authors which must be indigenous in the 
 publishing bosom, since it obtains to the 
 present day, unless indeed in those cases 
 where one of the * new school ' spreads wide 
 his arms to welcome some pigeon with sheeny 
 plumage who professes his desire to be 
 plucked forthwith. Publishing, he felt, 
 might not prove an uujDleasant business if 
 tyros would but refrain from bringing manu- 
 scripts : poor Mr. Vassett had seen so much
 
 92 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 of ' inglorious Miltons,' of would-be Sheri- 
 dans, of young persons who believed they had 
 the * gift ' of historical romance, of poets, 
 novelists, essayists, and travellers, that could 
 he only have conceived the possibility of four 
 would-be authors entering London on the 
 same day, and the same hour, and by the 
 same line of rail, he must have been reduced 
 to despair. All unconscious of what fate held 
 in store for him, he was on that November 
 mornins: wrestlino; in imagination with one 
 author, a letter from whom lay open before 
 him. He felt firmly determined to oust 
 her out, but he gave no thought to the other 
 four demons waiting to enter in. 
 
 His correspondent was a lady of title, who, 
 having married a wealthy City man and then 
 separated from him, had decided to take the 
 public fully into her confidence, and state in 
 several three -volume novels the causes, the 
 many causes of complaint she considered she 
 had aoainst the o-entleman whose name she 
 still bore. 
 
 That sort of thing was not so common in 
 those days as it has since become, and Lady 
 Hilda Hickfe's books sold remarkably well : not
 
 3Ir. P. VasseU, Publisher. 03 
 
 so much on account of any great intrinsic 
 merit tliey possessed — though Lady Hilda 
 was in her way clever — as of the amount of 
 ill-nature and scandal and misrepresentation 
 she managed to put into them. 
 
 Lady Hilda was extremely inconsistent. 
 She had married Mr. Hicks for his money, she 
 never pretended she had married him for any- 
 thing else, and then she turned round and 
 abused her husband for possessing money. 
 No Billingsgate fish-wife could have be- 
 spattered a man with fouler insinuations and 
 accusations than this daughter of an earl, 
 who had sold herself willingly for the 
 'almighty dollar.' 
 
 There was scarcely a crime in the Decalogue 
 she failed to lay — by implication — to his 
 charge. Under the poor disguise of Bicks, 
 Cricks, Fricks, Licks, and Picks, she held up 
 his honoured name to scorn and ridicule. 
 Hicks had been a power in the City ; now, 
 unless it was on a cheque or a bill, the words 
 served as a mere peg on which to hang irreve- 
 rent jokes and scurrilous jests. 
 
 Lady Hilda ridiculed her husband's friends, 
 ideas, house, business, manners, with an utter
 
 94 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 absence of shame, reticence, or the most 
 ordinary womanly feeling, which might have 
 put to the rout even some later writers upon 
 the subject of matrimonial grievances. 
 
 People were always wondering what she 
 would say next. She had her party of 
 sympathizers, and a large following of readers, 
 and, as has been before said, her books sold 
 remarkably well. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Vassett was beginning to 
 feel he had brought out enough of them. 
 Naturally he was loth to refuse novels written 
 by a woman of fashion as well as of talent, 
 but, as he said very truly, ' there is a limit to 
 al] things ;' and in his opinion Lady Hilda, 
 rendered daring by success, was passing the 
 limit within which he cared to have anything 
 to do with her. So far Mr. Hicks's lawyer had 
 not written to him, but if he went on pub- 
 lishing all the lady indited he knew that any 
 morning he might expect to see an ominous 
 legal-looking envelope lying on his breakfast- 
 table. Annoyance Mr. Vassett was well 
 aware fell to the lot of everyone in business ; 
 but this special annoyance he was determined 
 should not disturb his peace, even though
 
 Mr, P. Vassett, Publisher. 95 
 
 Lady Hilda left him, as she often threatened, 
 to go to one of what she insultingly called the 
 * good houses.' Having ventured to remon- 
 strate with her ladyship on some passages in 
 her latest manuscript, to which his reader had 
 not without reason called his attention, her 
 ladyship replied in a letter which brought the 
 blood to Mr. Yassett's cheeks, and took the 
 flavour out of his coffee and the freshness 
 from his roll. 
 
 'Pretty well — pretty well — vastly well, 
 Lady Hilda Hicks!' he exclaimed, with a sj^ite- 
 ful accent on the last word. 'No, I won't 
 publish another of your novels, let the conse- 
 quences be what they may. Take them where 
 
 you like. Take them to the !' and here 
 
 Mr. Vassett became exceedingly emj^hatic, 'but 
 don't bring them to me. If your husband is a 
 fiend, I pity him, earl's daughter or no earl's 
 
 daughter. If you were my wife I'd — I'd ;' 
 
 but when Mr. Yassett tried to imagine what he 
 would do were Lady Hilda his wife, he was 
 obliged to relinquish the attempt. He really 
 failed utterly to conceive what he would do 
 were that awful woman, who could — crowning: 
 horror ! — write, tied to him for life.
 
 96 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' Thank Heaven !' piously exclaimed Mr. 
 Vassett ; * things are bad enough, but they 
 are not so bad as that. I can get rid of her, 
 and Hicks can't. I have made money out of 
 her, and he has to find her even the money 
 that pays the printer who sets up the type in 
 which he is abused. Unhappy man ! what 
 could have induced him to marry such a 
 virago V And with equanimity quite restored 
 by these agreeable considerations Mr. Yassett 
 resumed his breakfast, finding his appetite had 
 returned— that flavour was restored to the 
 cofl'ee and freshness to the roll. 
 
 A good-looking man, though not handsome ; 
 good-looking in all senses. Honest, whole- 
 some, truthful, kindly, despite a certain stern- 
 ness of expression which had come with the 
 lonely years, just like the grey hairs that, 
 so far as the man's age was concerned, 
 should not yet have been sprinkled among the 
 black. 
 
 There was a little romance, a little sad 
 plaintive story in his life with which few were 
 acquainted, and of w^hich he never spoke. 
 When he was quite young, a mere lad, in 
 the employment of a bookseller in Soho,
 
 Mr. P. Vassett, Publisher. 97 
 
 lie lodged witk some people who had known 
 his father, and were kind to the boy on that 
 account. 
 
 They had one little daughter, a fair flaxen- 
 haired child, between whom and himself there 
 sprang up one of those attachments which 
 seem so unintelligible, and yet which some- 
 times prove so enduring. 
 
 In this case, at all events, it endured. 
 When the lad was grown to manhood, when 
 the child's flaxen curls were smoothed in 
 sunny braids from the maiden s brow, they 
 remained just as fond and foolish, as simply, 
 innocently devoted to each other as had 
 been the case in the early days of their ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 Then her family was in a worldly point of 
 view above him, but things were more equal 
 now. He had climbed up many rungs of 
 the social ladder, and they were coming 
 down. 
 
 Maggie's father was something in the City, 
 and as time went on it needed no gift of 
 second sight to prophesy he would have 
 eventually to make his way into the Bank- 
 ruptcy Court. A. series of misfortunes over- 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 took him. The posts, like the messengers 
 who came to Job, brought nothing save 
 tidings of some fresh disaster. Duly and 
 truly he ran the allotted course of trouble, 
 anxiety, despair. He went through ' the 
 court,' and then he died. 
 
 After that Maggie and her mother left 
 London and removed to Halliford, near 
 which hamlet a relative farmed some sixty 
 acres. 
 
 It was not then Mr. Vassett conceived that 
 aversion to the country which remained with 
 him through life. Quite the contrary. On 
 the Sundays and holidays, ' when the relaxa- 
 tion of the claims of literature,' as Mr. Mat 
 Donap-h would have said, left him at leisure 
 to visit his former playmate and present 
 sweetheart, the embryo publisher thought 
 nothing could be fairer than all that pensive 
 valley of the Thames — the river, the swans, 
 the cygnets, the aits, the bulrushes, the water- 
 lilies, the blue expanse of heaven, the low- 
 lying fields where the cows looked at him 
 with mild, wondering eyes, the hawthorn trees 
 white with bloom, the wealth of wild-flowers,
 
 Mr. P. Vassett, Publisher. 99 
 
 the tall poplars, the quivering aspens, the 
 lonely houses, the quaint little towns. 
 
 He was young then — young and soft, and 
 in love, and the best of life lay, as he fancied, 
 before him, and there was a glamour over 
 the landscape — that glamour which sheds its 
 rainbow hues over any earthly landscape but 
 once in our short existence, — and all things 
 seemed fair to him, and all the future full of 
 happiness ! 
 
 Well, he had his innings, and it is not every 
 man who can say that. He and Maggie were 
 married, and for fourteen months not even a 
 cloudlet obscured the brightness of their 
 sunny home. Then, unaccountably, the 
 young wife began to droop. It was in the 
 early part of September, when all that part 
 of the country is aglow with ripening crops 
 and ruddy cheeked apples, that the doctor 
 sent Mrs. Vassett back to Halliford to try 
 whether the fresh sweet air would chase the 
 pallor from her face, and restore strength to 
 her slight frame. Had they told the husband 
 then her case was hopeless, he might have 
 borne the blow that came so soon better ; but 
 as matters stood he kept believing she w^ould 
 
 7—2
 
 100 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ere long be restored to health — that when their 
 child was born he should see her well and 
 strong again. 
 
 All in the dull winter months, the worst 
 which could happen happened. He was sent 
 for in haste, and though he did not lose an 
 hour or second was too late. AVhen he ar- 
 rived there were no loving tones to greet him, 
 no sweet eyes to smile their welcome. Instead 
 of greeting or smile there was only that which 
 had been his wife, lying white and still, with 
 her dead baby by her side. 
 
 So it ended. The dream of spring-time, 
 the summer's idyl, the fruition of autumn : 
 the human harvest was ripe, and the dread 
 reaper had put in his sickle and garnered the 
 grain. It was all over — the love, the hope, 
 the anxiety ; nothing remained save the cer- 
 tainty of loss. It was then the blue in the 
 sky, and the green of the trees, and the scents, 
 and songs, and rustle, and silence of nature 
 grew distasteful to Mr. Vassett. 
 
 It was a dull, grey, chilly afternoon when 
 they laid the young wife down to rest in 
 Shepperton Churchyard. Once he had thought 
 that a sweet and lovely place, but as he wan-
 
 Mr. P. Vassett, Puhlisher. 101 
 
 dered miserably about alone whilst the short 
 winter day darkened down, it seemed to him 
 the most mournful spot on the whole of God's 
 wide earth. He went sadly to the swollen 
 Thames, where the discoloured waters were 
 rushing by with a threatening yet sullen 
 fury ; he looked across at the fields they had 
 paced many and many a time hand in hand 
 together ; he stood beneath the trees where 
 they had waited side by side for the boat into 
 which she stepped so lightly; he saw one lonely 
 swan trying to stem the current — and then he 
 burst into a passion of tears and wejDt as if 
 his heart would break. 
 
 What were success, money, position, to him 
 then ? What were happiness, prosperity, 
 worldly consideration ? Words, mere words 
 that might to others bear some significa- 
 tion, but to his mind seemed unintelligible 
 sounds. 
 
 He returned to town a changed man. The 
 blessed necessity for work after a time brought 
 some mitigation to his grief. Once more he 
 took up the burden of life, to find that there 
 was even for him a meaning in the words 
 that seemed, standing beside the Thames on
 
 102 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 that desolate winters day when he left his 
 wife in Shepperton Churchyard, to be but 
 bitter mockery. Business went well with 
 him ; he possessed everything he would have 
 liked to own when she walked with him. His 
 love and his loss had grown such an old, old 
 story that when he thought over it all he felt 
 sometimes as if the boy and girl who wandered 
 about Soho, or the pretty green at Halliford, 
 and that quaintest of quaint villages Littleton, 
 who had plucked the wild-flowers, and walked 
 across the meadows, were some creatures who 
 had never really been part and parcel of his 
 later most prosaic life. 
 
 Yet it was the memory of what they had 
 done and said, and hoped and fancied, which 
 brought that occasional softness into his face, 
 and tender light into his eyes, many an author, 
 discouraged by his words and manner, took 
 heart of grace again at sight of. 
 
 He had a weak spot in his nature, and 
 Lady Hilda Hicks knew it. He was not so 
 hard as he looked, or so resolute as he wished 
 people to think him. 
 
 He could not bear to say ' No ' to a woman, 
 and he disliked refusing help to a man. For-
 
 Mr. P. Vassett, Publisher. 103 
 
 tunate Mr. Yassett, whose lot was cast in days 
 when women as a rule were not pushing, and 
 men had not grown quite so hopelessly im- 
 pecunious as they have since become ; when, 
 in a word, in the literary world females still 
 retained some reticence, and males the tradi- 
 tions at least of self-respect ; when the world 
 was nearly thirty years younger, and authors 
 were about three hundred times more modest, 
 retiring, and simple than they are now ; 
 when Lady Hilda Hicks was an exception 
 to all known rules, and old-fashioned 
 people felt doubtful as to whether a young- 
 person who wrote novels could be ' quite 
 proper.' 
 
 If Mr. Yassett had only realized the fact, 
 it was in Arcadia and not Craven Street he 
 was deliberately finishing his breakfast, when 
 a lean, clean-shaven, closely buttoned-up, 
 ascetic-lookino; individual, after havinor knocked 
 gently at the door, turned the handle and 
 entered the room. 
 
 ' Well, Pierson, what is it V asked Mr. 
 Yassett, without going through the ceremony 
 of good-morning, which after years is some- 
 what apt to pall.
 
 104 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 * An elderly gentleman and a young lady 
 want to see you.' 
 
 ' AVell, they can wait, I suppose V 
 
 * They have been waiting.' 
 
 ' Give him the Times, and ' 
 
 * He has read the Times, and she does not 
 seem to care for a book/ interrupted Mr. 
 Pierson. 
 
 * What is their business V 
 
 * Won't confide it to me ; the usual thing, 
 however, I suppose — for he carries the inevit- 
 able roll of paper.' 
 
 ' What does he mean by coming here at 
 such an unearthly hour ? Can't you ask him 
 to call again later in the day V 
 
 ' No, I think not.' 
 
 ' Why not V 
 
 ' He looks ill ; and — and — they are not the 
 usual run.' 
 
 ' Perhaps he is a prince in disguise.' 
 
 * No, he is not that ; but he has travelled 
 and read, and he can talk, and there is a some- 
 thing about him I fancy you would rather not 
 send away.' 
 
 * Pierson, you are a fool.' 
 
 ' Well, that's not my fault, is it V
 
 Mr. P. Vassetty Publisher. 105 
 
 ' When you know that, although you are 
 not worth your salt as a reader, I keep you on 
 out of ' 
 
 ' Charity,' supplied Mr. Pierson, with un- 
 moved countenance. 
 
 * No ; out of a mistaken notion you will 
 stand between me and the incursions of people 
 who fancy they can w^ite. 1 would not give 
 ten shillings — not five shillings — a week for 
 your opinion on manuscripts, but you could, 
 if you liked, prevent my being worried to 
 death with incompetent authors, and you 
 won't. I do call it too bad of you, Pierson.' 
 
 * I am of some use to you, though, I sup- 
 pose,* suggested Mr. Pierson. 
 
 ' I do not know in what way.' 
 
 ' AVhy, to speak of nothing else — I intro- 
 duced Lady Hilda ' 
 
 ' Lady Hilda !' exclaimed Mr. Vassett. ' I 
 wish I had never heard of or seen her. I wish 
 I had never published a book for her. I wish 
 she was at Peru or anywhere else I should 
 never set eyes on her again.' 
 
 ' Dear me,' said Mr. Pierson mildly, ' what 
 has her ladyship done 1 What is the cause 
 of this outburst V
 
 106 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' Read that, and you will know/ answered 
 Mr. Yassett, throwing her ladyship's letter 
 across to his factotum. ' I suppose I had 
 better go down and get rid of this gentleman 
 you seem somewhat afraid of.' 
 
 * Oh dear, no ! I am not afraid of him,' re- 
 marked Mr. Pierson, looking up from the 
 perusal of Lady Hilda's epistle. 
 
 ' I thought you observed you would rather 
 not send him away.' 
 
 ^ I did make some remark of the kind ; but 
 that is a horse of quite another colour to being 
 afraid of the man.' 
 
 ' Though he does come armed with a manu- 
 script.' 
 
 ' I fancy the manuscript is his daughter's.' 
 
 * Worse and worse I' ejaculated Mr. Yassett. 
 ' Poor wretches ! they are not very formid 
 
 able,' said Mr. Pierson, ' but they are quite 
 new ; we have not had anything like them in 
 Craven Street before. Don't go down with a 
 prepossession against them. Hear what they 
 have got to say, at any rate.' 
 
 * I suppose I shall be forced to do so, 
 w^hether I like it or not.'
 
 Mr, P. Vassett, Publisher. 107 
 
 * I should say in this case you will find that 
 perfectly oj)tional ;' and Mr. Pierson returned 
 to his perusal of Lady Hilda Hicks's letter with 
 the most exemplary composure.
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 AX ASPIEAXT FOR FAME. 
 
 IME and circumstances had imparted 
 to Mr. Vassett's face and demean- 
 our a stern gravity, which stood 
 him frequently in better stead even than the 
 discourag-ing; words he so often believed it his 
 duty to utter. 
 
 The author did not live who could with any 
 truth say that on the occasion of his first 
 interview Mr. Yassett had seemed glad to see 
 him. Quite the contrary. The publisher re- 
 ceived all new writers with a manner which 
 implied that, as there were already far too 
 many candidates for literary honours, it was 
 ridiculous to expect any help from him to 
 introduce another.
 
 An Aspirant for Fame, 109 
 
 He was weary of persons 'possessed of 
 genius,' of persons who brought manuscripts, 
 of men and women who, regarding him as a 
 mere porter at the gates of the temple of 
 Fame, came clamorously demanding admission 
 into the sacred precincts. 
 
 "With known authors he could fill his lists 
 as full as he cared to do any day, and it was 
 therefore with the most prudential motives 
 he steeled his heart against the prayers of 
 young beginners, and set his face to repel the 
 attacks of ' rising talent.' 
 
 Poetry in especial was his abhorrence. He 
 w^ould almost as soon have seen a serpent enter 
 his office as an ' attempt in blank verse,* or ' a 
 few trifles thrown off in moments of in- 
 spiration,' by ladies who believed nothing so 
 charming, so touching, so truly beautiful, had 
 ever been published. 
 
 He had laid do\sTi a hard-and-fast rule 
 about poetry, however, which, precluding all 
 fear of pecuniary loss, reduced his interviews 
 with poets and poetesses into mere dialogues, 
 more or less disagreeable, according as the 'he' 
 or ' she ' were pertinacious and conceited, or 
 modest, and willing to take ' No ' for an answer.
 
 110 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 Tales and sketches were not so easily 
 managed, for although writers of prose proved 
 generally more amenable to reason than pro- 
 ducers of verse, he could not say he never 
 undertook to publish such things at his own 
 proper cost, and he was therefore frequently 
 forced to retain manuscripts for perusal, and 
 to write notes declining them, and, in fact, 
 to ' consider the matter ' — a process he found, 
 as a rule, very unpleasant. 
 
 Whenever he could get Mr. Pierson to take 
 his place, and dismiss the intruders graciously 
 — send them off, for instance, with some cock- 
 and-bull story, to Murray, or Hurst and 
 Blackett, or Saunders and Ottley, or anybody 
 else of note — he felt infinite satisfaction in 
 being well out of a troublesome business. 
 But occasionally Mr. Pierson played him false, 
 and then he was placed on the horns of a 
 dilemma ; he had either to be determined 
 in his own proper person, and send 'rising 
 talent ' about its business, or to promise that 
 some hundreds of pages of manuscript should 
 be read, and the propriety of accepting the 
 production entertained. 
 
 What he had said was perfectly true : he
 
 A)i Asjnrant for Fame. Ill 
 
 did not consider Mr. Pierson s opinion of a 
 manuscript — i.e., in favour of a manuscript — 
 worth the paper it was written on, and there- 
 fore when that gentleman observed, ' I think 
 there is some stuiS" in this,' Mr. Vassett had 
 to read it all himself, in order to make sure 
 he was not either sending away a second 
 Bulwer, or committing himself to a dead loss. 
 Mr. Pierson knew very well what was good ; but 
 Mr. Pierson did not know what would 'take.' 
 
 Mr. Vassett, on the contrary, had felt the 
 j)ublic pulse so long, he could say with a sort 
 of unerring certainty, ' This will never sell ;' 
 ' Yes, I have no doubt it is very admirable, 
 and so forth, but I should prefer that some 
 other person lost money over it.' 
 
 In selecting his authors, he possessed ex- 
 actly the same gift successful masters possess 
 in choosing their servants : individual merit 
 and personal liking had no more share in 
 influencing his decisions than such things 
 have in determining the engagement of a 
 clerk or the hiring of an errand boy. He 
 could not have explained the process by 
 which he arrived at his conclusions, and cer- 
 tainly neither could a wealthy merchant com-
 
 112 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 municate the intuitions which enable him to 
 select fitting instruments to carry out his 
 wishes. No doubt it had occasionally hap- 
 pened that Mr. Vassett closed his doors upon 
 authors who made their mark elsewhere, but 
 success in these cases was often more the 
 result of chance than anything else ; and, on 
 the other hand, it may be certainly averred 
 Mr. Vassett never made an author free of 
 Craven Street whose advent subsequently 
 entailed pecuniary loss. It was not by one 
 great coup, outweighing a series of annoying- 
 failures, Mr. Vassett had made his money ; so 
 if his authors were none of them stars, they 
 were at all events eminently safe. He knew 
 about what they would sell, about what they 
 would cost to advertise, about what the re- 
 view^ers would say concerning their works. 
 No need to lose a nio;ht's rest w^onderino- 
 how the subscription would go oflf, or whether 
 he should see his money back again. He had 
 no faith in ' firework ' publishing, and, truth 
 to tell, he had very little faith in genius either. 
 He believed, if he believed in anything as re- 
 gards authors, in plodding. Compilations, 
 reminiscences, biographies, travels, historical
 
 An Aspirant for Fame. 113 
 
 romances, and such like, he looked upon with 
 a certain favour ; he could understand how 
 they were done, and why ; he was able to 
 trace the method by which such webs of 
 literary industry were woven ; he could mark 
 the progress of the busy shuttle, and predicate 
 the result which would be produced by any 
 practised hand. But to make something out 
 of nothing, to write a book, not from obser- 
 vation, but from pure imagination, to create 
 characters, and then make them move and 
 speak and act like men and women ; — it was 
 ' very odd,' Mr. Yassett considered, 'very odd' 
 indeed ! 
 
 He felt it indeed so odd, and so very little 
 of this sort of writing worth publishing had 
 come his way, he did not care to trouble him- 
 self much with fiction of any sort. It was 
 out of his line, he said, though recently he 
 had published one or two novels which had 
 not done badly. 
 
 Would his early visitors prove poetical cr 
 ' three volume ' or practical, he marvelled, as 
 he wended his way downstairs. Under any 
 circumstances he decided to get rid of them 
 civilly. He had enough authors, he did not 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 want any more ; and having quite made up his 
 mind on this point he opened the door of his 
 private office, bowed gravely to the two per- 
 sons he found there, and then, walking round 
 the table to his own peculiar chair, seated 
 himself and waited to hear what the gentle- 
 man opposite might have to say. 
 
 The gentleman began by remarking upon 
 the weather. It is not a subject that seems 
 remarkable for novelty. Most things which 
 can be said about it have been said. But it 
 forms a good sort of preliminary course in the 
 way of conversation. 
 
 ' Yes, it was dull,' Mr. Yassett agreed. 
 * But at that precise season of the year we 
 could not expect much sunshine.* 
 
 * Well, I suppose not in London V said the 
 gentleman. 
 
 Mr. Vassett intimated it was not to be ex- 
 pected anywhere. 
 
 The gentleman thought in the open country 
 the sky might be a little brighter. 
 
 Mr. Vassett did not know in what part of 
 the country. 
 
 The gentleman ventured to hint he had 
 seen fine sunshiny winter mornings in various
 
 An Aspirant for Fame. 115 
 
 places, and something in the way he spoke, 
 and the allusions he made to towns in 
 England and towns abroad, induced Mr. 
 Yassett to imagine the roll of manuscript he 
 saw darkly looming in the future of their 
 interview might take a shape which would 
 enable him courteously to get rid of his 
 visitors by the simple process of stating there 
 was no portion of the civilized or uncivilized 
 earth he was open at that precise time to 
 accept any account of. 
 
 He knew perfectly well his man was not an 
 experienced hand — that he was not a ' writer,' 
 that he was too old to begin, that he would 
 never do any good, that all he had seen had 
 been seen before, that all he had to say had 
 been printed before, that probably the manu- 
 script was some old diary, or journal made up 
 from letters written home from Eome, or Con- 
 stantinople, or Palestine, and 
 
 ' We have taken the liberty of calling upon 
 you about a tale,' remarked the gentleman, 
 suddenly snapping the thread of Mr. Yas- 
 sett's reflections. ' We saw one of your ad- 
 vertisements in the Morning Post, and wo 
 
 thought ' 
 
 8—2
 
 116 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' I publish very little/ interposed Mr. 
 
 Vassett, ' and I fear ' 
 
 ' We know how full the literary market is/ 
 went on the gentleman ; ' but everything 
 must have a beginning. My daughter is very 
 young yet ; still, I fancy what she has written 
 possesses some merit, and if you would be so 
 kind as to glance over one short story and 
 give your opinion on it, I should really feel 
 very grateful.' 
 
 ' It is the daughter, then,' thought Mr. 
 Vassett ; and he turned his eyes upon this 
 fresh troubler of his peace with an expression 
 which held no welcome in them. 
 
 Yet as Mr. Vassett looked his expression 
 changed. She was a child — bah ! the notion 
 of that young thing writing ! It was too 
 absurd. But the glint of the golden hair, the 
 soft curves of the girlish face, the half-eager, 
 half-bashful glance she cast appealingly at 
 him, the shy gesture with which, taking the 
 roll of paj)er out of her father's hands, she 
 rose and placed it in his own, the scarcely 
 audible ' I only brought the first two 
 chapters,' reminded him of a past long gone, 
 brought for a moment far-away springs and
 
 Ail Aspirant for Fame, 117 
 
 summers out of their distant graves, and 
 fiUed his office with the perfume of the haw- 
 thorn of May, and the odour of June roses, 
 dead years and years before. 
 
 He took the manuscript, untied the ribbon 
 which confined it, opened the sheets out flat, 
 and then laid them face downward on his 
 blotting-pad. 
 
 ' You have begun very early,' he re- 
 marked. 
 
 ' I have been writing for years/ she an- 
 swered. 
 
 He smiled and turned towards her 
 father, who, replying to the look, said 
 simply : 
 
 * I fancy she has something in her.' 
 
 Mr. Vassett shook his head in mournful 
 deprecation of this opinion ; then regarding the 
 manuscript as if it were some very nauseous 
 draught which must be swallowed, he took 
 up the written matter, and looking at the title, 
 read : 
 
 ' " The Hanes of " — of what — of where V he 
 asked. 
 
 * Of Carrigohane,' supplied the author.
 
 118 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' Oh !' said llr. Yassett, and thus enlight- 
 ened he read on. 
 
 He read to the bottom of the first side of 
 copy, and then he re-read it. 
 
 * Humph !' he remarked. 
 
 He was surprised — no use in disguising 
 that fact ; he had not expected what he 
 found. 
 
 ' The writing will do/ he said, ' but the title 
 won't.' 
 
 She was such a simpleton still, in all save 
 the genius God had given her, she did not 
 know what he meant, but thought he was re- 
 ferring to her handwriting, of which in those 
 days she felt proud. 
 
 ' I could alter the title,' she suggested, ' if 
 —if ' 
 
 ' I see it is an Irish story,' said Mr. Yassett, 
 eagerly availing himself of this loophole of 
 escape. 
 
 ' Yes. I don't know anything about England 
 yet,' murmured the girl, in a manner which 
 suggested in a week or two she hoped to supply 
 the deficiency. 
 
 * And Irish stories are quite gone out.'
 
 An A spii 'ant for Fa m e. 119 
 
 • I could try something else,' slie answered 
 feebly. 
 
 ' Whether the world is right or wrong, I 
 do not pretend to say,' observed Mr. Yassett, 
 addressing his observations to the gentleman, 
 and blandly ignoring the authoress altogether ; 
 ' but it has an idea that young ladies cannot 
 possess the amount of experience necessary to 
 produce a readable book. For her age your 
 daughter's style is good, very good indeed ; 
 it is, therefore, not impossible in the course of 
 a few years ■' 
 
 He paused suddenly, stopped by an exclama- 
 tion which w^as quite involuntary from the 
 girl. 
 
 Years ! and she had thought to commence 
 making money that week, that day, that 
 hour ! 
 
 At sound of her little cry of despair, for it 
 almost amounted to that, Mr. Yassett turned 
 towards where she sat, and said : 
 
 ' I am afraid my words seem hard to you, 
 but indeed it would be madness for you to 
 think of publishing anything at present. You 
 are far too young. What can you know 
 about the w^orld or its troubles V And he
 
 120 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 smiled upon her benignantly, as though 
 she were a mere child, who had just left off 
 dressing her dolls in order to play at author- 
 ship. 
 
 * I am not so young as you think,' she 
 answered, somewhat pettishly, ' and i do know 
 something of the world.' 
 
 Both men laughed — one a little cynically, 
 the other sadly. 
 
 ' Your daughter will not resent the imputa- 
 tion of youth so bitterly a few years hence as 
 she does now,' suggested Mr. Vassett. 
 
 ' And till we came to London her sole look- 
 out over the world was from windows that 
 only commanded a view of the Atlantic,' sup- 
 plemented the girl's father. 
 
 ' Oh, papa ! how can you say so V she re- 
 monstrated. 
 
 ' Well, my dear, it matters very little what 
 I say or think ; the question is what others 
 believe. How are we to get to know,' he 
 went on, addressing Mr. Vassett, ' whether she 
 has any talent or not ; whether it is worth her 
 while to go on writing, or ' 
 
 ' What is the alternative V asked Mr. 
 Vassett.
 
 A71 Aspirant for Fame, 121 
 
 * I must go on writing !' interposed the girl, 
 before her father could answer. 
 
 ' Whether you fail or succeed V 
 
 * Till I succeed or fail.' 
 
 And the publisher and the author looked 
 each other straight in the face. 
 
 * In that case there is no more to be said,' 
 observed Mr. Vassett, after a second's pause. 
 
 He spoke coldly, for there was no quality 
 he disliked more in a woman than perti- 
 nacity. 
 
 She saw he was vexed, and yet to leave 
 without receiving some word of counsel from 
 this oracle seemed to her like letting a rope 
 slip which might bring her to land. 
 
 ' If you only could tell me what I must do 
 — how I ought to set to work — I should be so 
 grateful. I do not mind about waiting,' she 
 added valiantly. 
 
 He opened the manuscript again, which he 
 had rolled up to return at the first favourable 
 opportunity, glanced down once more upon 
 that awful title, and then looked across at the 
 girl he would have liked to send back to the 
 schoolroom or the nursery, or the Atlantic, or 
 wherever she might have come from.
 
 122 A Struggle f 07^ Fame. 
 
 ' My dear young lady,' lie said, in liis best 
 manner, ' how can I tell you what I do not 
 know myself? There is no royal road to 
 fame. Those who have achieved it tell me 
 the path is rough, and hard to find ; that it is 
 lonely, often dark, always toilsome ; while for 
 those who never reach the goal — — ' 
 
 ' They have attempted, at any rate,' she 
 finished, as he paused, and there ensued a dead 
 silence. 
 
 It was Mr. Yassett who broke it. 
 
 * Literature,' he began, speaking in a general 
 and didactic manner, ' is, so far as I am aware, 
 the only profession in which persons imagine 
 they can embark without the smallest training 
 or preparation, or the remotest idea of the 
 labour involved in producing an even moder- 
 ately successful work.' 
 
 ' I am not at all afraid of any trouble,' came 
 from the special ' person' for whom this rebuke 
 was intended. ' If you only teU me what I 
 ought to do I wiU try to set about it at 
 once.' 
 
 But this was precisely what neither Mr. 
 Yassett nor any other human being, author, 
 j)ublisher, or critic, could have told her. It is
 
 An Asinrant for Fame. 123 
 
 a question which has been asked hundreds of 
 times. It is one which will be asked hun- 
 dreds of times in days to come. When begin- 
 ners bes: for advice their real meaning; is : 
 ' How shall I compass success V 
 
 At the first blush it seems a reasonable 
 enough inquiry to put to an individual who 
 has travelled the highways of literature ; but 
 it is one perfectly incapable of reply, and 
 for this reason Mr. Yassett answered : 
 
 ' If I could publish a key to the problem 
 you want to solve it would sell so well, I 
 should never need to bring out another book. 
 The land you want to enter has no itinerary — 
 no finger- posts — no guides. It is a lone, map- 
 less country, and if you take my advice you 
 will keep out of it. The pleasures even of 
 successful literature are few and the pains 
 many.' 
 
 ' But if there were no authors there would 
 be no publishers,' said the girl, smiting Mr. 
 Yassett under the fifth rib. 
 
 * I think, dear/ interposed her father, ' we 
 must not intrude any longer. This gentleman 
 has already given us a great deal of time, 
 and '
 
 124 A Struggle f 07^ Fame. 
 
 ' I wish I could do something really to help 
 3^ou,' observed Mr. Vassett. ' Under no cir- 
 cumstances could this/ and he lightly struck 
 * The Hanes' of that place with an unpronounce- 
 able name as he spoke, * be of the slightest 
 use to me ; but if you like I will have the 
 manuscript read, and get an opinion upon it 
 for you.' 
 
 ' Oh, if you would !' cried its authoress 
 rapturously. 
 
 ' But should the opinion be adverse V he 
 suggested. 
 
 * I will try not to be disappointed.' 
 
 ' Very well, then. I will write to you in a 
 few days. Kindly favour me with your 
 address,' he said to the tall, delicate-looking 
 gentleman, who, taking out a card, presented it 
 to Mr. Vassett, after erasing one address and 
 pencilling in another. 
 
 ' Mr. Westley,' read out the publisher. ' In 
 a week's time, then, say.' 
 
 ' Thank you ; we are exceedingly obliged for 
 the trouble you have taken.' 
 
 ' Not at all ; do not mention it,' and Mr. 
 Vassett, opening the door of his private room, 
 walked with them across the outer office.
 
 An Aspirant for Fame. 125 
 
 If father and daughter had understood 
 they would have regarded this proceeding 
 in the light of a most delicate attention ; 
 but they did not know, and did not therefore 
 feel so much impressed as they might have 
 been. 
 
 Just as they were about once again to thank 
 Mr. Vassett and depart, the door of the outer 
 ofl&ce swung open, and an apparition appeared 
 on the threshold which fairly amazed the 
 young person who thought she could write 
 something: worth readino-. It took the form 
 of a lady, fashionably and expensively dressed. 
 Her silks were of the thickest, her velvets of 
 the richest, her furs of the most expen- 
 sive, her manner assured, her movements 
 graceful. She looked at Mr. Vassett with 
 a comical smile, and giving him a familiar 
 nod, stared hard at Mr. Westley and his 
 daughter. 
 
 Something in the languid indolence of the 
 former, and the timid, innocent look of 
 the latter, arrested her attention, and she 
 scarcely heeded Mr. Vassett's annoyed apo- 
 logy : 
 
 ' Pardon me for one moment, Lady Hilda.
 
 126 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 Perliaj^s you will kindly walk into my room ; 
 I will be witli you directly/ 
 
 Having satisfied her curiosity, slie swept 
 across the outer office into the inner sanctum, 
 where, throwing herself into Mr. Vassett's 
 chair, she utilized the interval in examining 
 the manuscript he had left lying on the 
 table. 
 
 She was quietly perusing ' The Hanes of 
 Carrigohane ' when Mr. Vassett returned. 
 
 ' Who is that girl V she asked, looking up 
 with the most perfectly unembarrassed expres- 
 sion of countenance. 
 
 ' I am afraid I can scarcely answer your 
 ladyship's question without giving offence,' he 
 replied stiffly. 
 
 ' Nonsense about offence !' she retorted. 
 * My ladyship does not take offence very 
 easily. Who is she V 
 
 ' A young girl who has, I fancy, almost as 
 much to learn, as you. Lady Hilda, have to 
 unlearn.' 
 
 For a moment Lady Hilda looked at the 
 speaker in undisguised astonishment. Then, 
 breaking into a peal of hearty laughter, she 
 exclaimed :
 
 An Aspirant for Fame. 
 
 127 
 
 * You dear old thing ! I do believe I liavc 
 at last succeeded in making you angry. But 
 we must not quarrel. We have known each 
 other far too long for that. Let us hiss and 
 he friends.''
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 LADY HILDA HICKS. 
 
 ^^^wHE expression of countenance with, 
 which Mr. Yassett received Lady 
 Hilda's monstrous and impossible 
 suggestion is simply indescribable. Accus- 
 tomed though he was to her ladyship's random 
 remarks, this latest utterance shocked him be- 
 yond measure. When subsequently he told 
 Mr. Pierson what she had said, they both 
 laughed at the fagon de parler as a good joke, 
 but at the time IMr. Yassett failed to see any 
 jest in it. 
 
 Beyond everything he was * proper.' Even 
 from a forward young person in his own rank 
 of life such a proposal would have struck him 
 as indecorous in the extreme, while on the
 
 Lady Hilda Hicks. 129 
 
 part of ]\Ii\ Hicks' titled wife it seemed too 
 terrible for belief. 
 
 If this was to be the end of ladies writing- 
 novels, if they meant to indulge in such dread- 
 ful and embarrassing speeches, the sooner a 
 stop was put to the whole business the better 
 for society. * How much more suitable the 
 spinning wheel and the working of tapestry,' 
 he thought, forgetting, no doubt, that there 
 were as ' fast ' wives and maidens mewed up 
 within convent and castle waUs as ever drove 
 in the Park. 
 
 Lady Hilda looked in his perplexed face and 
 lauo;hed ao;ain. 
 
 ' I was dreadfully angry when I wrote to 
 you,' she said. ' Why will you persist in 
 vexing me ? You know I would never say a 
 disagreeable thing to you if you did not pro- 
 voke me.' 
 
 They were happily drifting away from that 
 dangerous phrase, which Mr. Vassett knew 
 she was quite capable of following up with 
 even worse if the humour seized her, and he 
 felt consequently able to answ^er with severe 
 composure, * he feared her ladyship was some- 
 what easily provoked.' 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 130 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 * No, I am not,' she retorted, 'not in the 
 least. I have the sweetest and most forgiving 
 temper possible if people only take it in the 
 right way ; but of course you cannot expect 
 an author to be pleased when you write and 
 say all the finest passages and most telling 
 dialogues in a book must be cut out.' 
 
 ' In my letter mention was made only of 
 certain sentences which must be struck out or 
 altered before the book can be published by 
 anyone.' 
 
 'Why must they be struck out or 
 altered V 
 
 ' For one reason, because no publisher wishes 
 to have an action for libel brousfht aojainst 
 him.' 
 
 ' I won't trouble you for the others,' she 
 said, * but now just let us talk that question 
 of libel coolly over.' 
 
 ' You must excuse me, Lady Hilda. It 
 would be mere waste of time discussing 
 the matter. I have quite made up my 
 mind ' 
 
 * Set your foot down/ amended the fair 
 authoress. 
 
 ' Set my foot down, if the expression seems
 
 Lady Hilda Hicks. 131 
 
 preferable/ proceeded Mr. Vassett, ' that 
 unless the whole of the libellous portions of 
 the book are expunged, I will have nothing 
 whatever to do with it ; and in fact, to be 
 quite frank, I wish to have nothing to do with 
 it even if it were altered to the extent indi- 
 cated in my letter.' 
 
 ' Dear me !' exclaimed Lady Hilda. 
 
 * I do not wish to say anything rude,' pro- 
 ceeded Mr. Vassett, warming to his work, and 
 nettled by his visitor's tone and manner, 
 ' but in justice to myself I cannot refrain from 
 remarking that your ladyship allows yourself 
 a latitude of expression which causes an 
 amount of annoyance to which I feel it would 
 be incompatible with other business arrange- 
 ments for me to continue to subject myself. 
 Even if I had nothing else to attend to, the 
 mockery and — and the abuse ' 
 
 She had commenced checking oflf his obser- 
 vations on her fingers, but when he stopped 
 really too angry to proceed with whatever he 
 may have intended to say, her whole manner 
 changed in an instant. 
 
 * I am sorry,' she cried, if not repentantly, 
 at any rate with an admirable counterfeit of 
 
 9—2
 
 132 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 repentance. ' I can't make any fuller apology, 
 can I ? You must forgive and forget. Re- 
 member what an impetuous mortal I am. I 
 know I do get into passions ; I have never 
 laid that good old creature Watts' caution 
 sufficiently to heart, I suppose ; but they are 
 over in a moment — a mere flash in the pan. 
 You could never be so cruel as to think of 
 sending me among those dreadful bears the 
 other publishers, I, who am your own, your 
 very own, who made my success with you, 
 and who have also brought you into note.' 
 
 * Lady Hilda,' began Mr. Vassett solemnly 
 — her impetuous ladyship's sentences had a 
 beautiful knack of carrying a sting in their 
 tail — ' you have made that assertion before, 
 and I have not thought it necessary to contra- 
 dict it ' 
 
 * No, I shouldn't, if I were you,' interrupted 
 Lady Hilda carelessly. ' Oh, here's Mr. 
 Pierson,' she went on with joyous eagerness, 
 as that gentleman, not knowing who was 
 there, looked into the room. ' Come in ; we 
 are just wanting you,' she said, for he was 
 about to withdraw. * Mr. Vassett and I have 
 had our little quarrel out, and are now the
 
 Ladij Hilda HicJcs. 133 
 
 dearest of clear friends again ; only he wants 
 some little things altered in my new book, 
 and I am not very willing to alter them. 
 What do you say ? Now, you shall be 
 umpire, and give the decision on my side, of 
 course.' 
 
 Anyone seeing Mr. Pierson as he stood 
 listening to Lady Hilda, and not knowing w^ho 
 he was, might have taken him for a strict 
 ecclesiastic of the Eomish Church. Lean 
 almost to emaciation, pale, clean-shaven, 
 dressed in a closely button ed-up loose black 
 coat, the end of his thin nose just touched 
 with a delicate red which might have been 
 painted in with cold or severe fasting, a look 
 of deep thought in his brownish grey eyes, his 
 long wasted hand laid flat on the rich morocco 
 binding of an old edition, he was as unlike the 
 popular ideal of a ' reader ' as can well be 
 imagined. He had always believed in the 
 earl's daughter, even w^hen Mr. Vassett was 
 most inclined to ' pooh-pooh ' her, and she had 
 never scrupled to use him as a w^eapon against 
 her ' dearest of dear friends.' 
 
 * You think Mr. Vassett is dreadfully un- 
 reasonable, now don't you V she asked with a
 
 134 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 winning smile, intended to captivate both 
 men. 
 
 Lady Hilda was still a very pretty 
 woman, considerably under forty ; perfect in 
 her dress, redolent of perfume, powdered, 
 gloved, booted for conquest. It were idle to 
 deny these things, added to her rank, her 
 worldly position, and her talents had their 
 effect, nevertheless — 
 
 ' I really do not see,' began Mr. Pierson, 
 and in a certain clear, metallic coldness the 
 reader's voice matched his features, ' how Mr. 
 Vassett could, without considerable alteration, 
 possibly publish the new novel.' 
 
 * And even if you were able to see,' inter- 
 posed Mr. Vassett, taking refuge in very 
 decided language, a sure sign of weakness, 
 ' it would make no difference to my view of 
 the question. The novel is one I should 
 much prefer not to publish at all, and I 
 certainly shall not publish it unless the ob- 
 jectionable paragraphs to which I have directed 
 the author's attention are altered most materi- 
 ally.' 
 
 He spoke to Mr. Pierson as if the author 
 were twenty miles distant. Lady Hilda looked
 
 Lady Hilda Hicks. 135 
 
 at tlie reader, smiled, shrugged her shoulders, 
 and made a 7iioiie. 
 
 * You won't desert me, Mr. Pierson, will 
 you V she said, almost tenderly. 
 
 Considering it was that gentleman who had 
 pointed out the objectionable passages to his 
 employer, he found it impossible to do other- 
 wise than assert that he reaUy could not take 
 the responsibility upon him of advising j\Ir. 
 Vassett to bring out the book without con- 
 siderable pruning and softening. 
 
 ' Hacking and ruining, you mean,' amended 
 the authoress. 
 
 ' No ; I think all the changes ^Ir. Vassett 
 wishes made wiU improve the story. It is so 
 clever, that it would be a pity to mar the whole 
 by leaving in paragraphs which certainly 
 detract both from its interest and its merits. 
 You would be the first, Lady Hilda, to blame 
 Mr. Vassett if he allowed a novel to appear 
 Tvith the blemishes which at present obscure 
 this work.' 
 
 ' Should I V said Lady Hilda derisively. 
 ' Words, words, words, Mr. Pierson ; and it is 
 not right of you both to take this tone with 
 me because I am a woman. If I were a man,
 
 136 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 Mr. Vassett wouldn't dare to dictate which 
 passages should be retained and which ex- 
 punged. Supposing he ventured to do any- 
 thing of the sort, a man would say, " It is 
 my business to write, and yours to publish. I 
 don't presume to meddle with your trade, and 
 you shouldn't pretend to meddle with mine." 
 That is what ^ vcidin. would say. But as it is 
 only poor little me, without even a husband 
 who will stand up for the wife he vowed to 
 cherish, I must submit, I suppose. I give 
 you leave to alter the expressions Mr. 
 Vassett 's superior wisdom considers unfit to 
 print. I bow to his imagined knowledge of 
 the usages of good society, and to his inti- 
 mate acquaintance with the manners and 
 customs of the Upper Ten. Only, for 
 Jieaven's sake, Mr. Pierson, do your spiriting 
 gently. Don't make me very ridiculous in 
 the eyes of those who do know something 
 of the sort of life 1 have attempted to 
 describe.' 
 
 Mr. Vassett turned red, and made a gulj), 
 as if he had suddenly swallowed a very nasty 
 pill, and then he began 
 
 ' I should much prefer, Lady Hilda, that
 
 Lady Hilda Hicks. 137 
 
 you took your novel somewhere else. The 
 trouble I have ' 
 
 ' Now, now', now,' she interrupted sweetly, 
 * do not let us go over all that old ground 
 again. Like a dear, kind soul, make up your 
 mind not to try to quarrel with me. It is 
 of no use, 1 assure you. Two people are re- 
 quired to make a quarrel, and I wall not be 
 one of them. You have got me for better or 
 worse. I'll be as good as I can, and you must 
 be good too. Be kind to him, Mr. Pierson. 
 Something has annoyed him this morning. 
 Oh, I know. He is thinking too much about 
 a very bread-and-buttery young lady he says 
 has a great deal to learn. Don't have any- 
 thing to do with teachino' her, ]\Ir. Yassett. 
 Take my advice ; very young ladies are 
 dangerous. I know. I was, little as you 
 may imagine such a thing, bread-and-buttery 
 once myself !' 
 
 Whether it was the way she made this 
 assertion, or the contrast suggested by it, who 
 can say ? The two men could not, though 
 they laughed outright. 
 
 ' That is better,' exclaimed the lady who 
 had left her bread-and-buttery days behind.
 
 138 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' I love to see you laugh. It is a thing you 
 both seem so unused to. Now, while you are 
 in a good temper, I will run away.' 
 
 And suiting her action to her word, Lady 
 Hilda tripped out into the passage by what 
 she called the ' near way,^ and was in her 
 brougham before Mr. Pierson, hurrying after, 
 could open the door for her. 
 
 ' No, I don't want to say a word more to 
 you,' she exclaimed, letting down the window 
 and instantly shutting it up again. 
 
 And then she smiled sweetly and waved her 
 little hand, and departed — a vision of loveli- 
 ness, so the passers-by considered. 
 
 Mr. Pierson went back into the calm silence 
 of Mr. Vassett's private room. 
 
 * I wonder what devilment she is up to 
 now?' he said, addressing Mr. Vassett in a 
 tranquil tone, which formed a curious contrast 
 to his words. 
 
 ' I feel greatly inclined to send her manu- 
 script after her,' observed the publisher 
 valiantly. 
 
 * Don't, unless you want her here again to- 
 morrow.' 
 
 ' What an extraordinary being she is !' re-
 
 Lady Hilda Hicks. 139 
 
 marked Mr. Vassett. And then he told his 
 reader about that dreadful proposition. 
 
 * Some men would have taken her at her 
 word/ remarked Mr. Pierson. ' I wonder if 
 that is the way she brought Hicks to the 
 "scratch"?' 
 
 Mr. Vassett considered in familiar conversa- 
 tion Mr. Pierson had a knack of occasionally 
 making use of expressions almost as vulgar as 
 Lady Hilda's w^ere objectionable, but he found 
 it extremely difficult to insinuate such an idea, 
 and so allowed the phrase concerning Hicks to 
 pass. 
 
 ' You were not equal to the occasion,' 
 W'Cnt on Mr. Pierson, referring to Lady 
 Hilda's suggestion. ' You missed a chance, 
 Vassett.' 
 
 Now^ the danger was over, something in 
 the suggestion seemed to Mr. Vassett 
 infinitely amusing. Perhaps on the whole 
 he was not sorry the interview had gone off 
 well. 
 
 He knew^ other publishers envied him the 
 possession of such a treasure. He was well 
 aware he should feel vexed to see the book 
 announced in any other list save his own.
 
 140 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 He could afford to laugh, having won, and he 
 was particularly gracious to Mr. Pierson, who 
 had, he felt, helped him over a somewhat 
 difficult stile.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 'how's m a R I A V 
 
 )N very bad spirits Mr. Bernard Kelly 
 stood looking at the ornamental 
 water in St. James's Park. 
 It was a dull, mournful afternoon. At 
 about ten minutes to twelve the sun had made 
 a sudden appearance, but not finding the 
 aspect of things in London to his mind, re- 
 tired for the day before the clock struck. 
 Never, even in his native land, had Mr. Kelly 
 been out in more depressing weather. A good 
 steady deluge of rain, a look-out across a wide 
 morass, with a semi-circle of grey lonely hills 
 bounding the horizon, and a sorrowful weep- 
 ing sky brooding over the whole dreary land- 
 scape, would have seemed a relief in contrast
 
 142 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 to the brown, leafless treevS, the wretched grass, 
 the disconsolate water-fowl, and the mimic 
 lake rippling darkly in the gathering gloom of 
 that miserable afternoon in late November. 
 
 Bad as the day was, it did not outdo the 
 aspect of Bernard Kelly's fortunes. As yet 
 he did not look like a hopeless man, but for 
 the first time in his life he was beojinninor to 
 understand what 'despair' meant. His coat 
 was not shabby, but the wearer felt out at 
 elbows as regards ' luck.' Since his arrival in 
 London, nothing had gone well with him. 
 That unfortunate escapade of his in the 
 omnibus had not merely deprived him of 
 patronage in the only quarter where he could 
 apply, but afi'ected the home supplies. 
 
 * Madam,' wrote Mr. Balmoy to his sister — 
 whom he had hitherto always addressed as 
 ' My dear Lucretia ' — ' When I promised to 
 use my influence to advance the fortunes of 
 your son, I thought you were sending to Eng- 
 land a gentleman. I find instead — a Boor 
 and a Buffoon. The sooner he returns to the 
 low associations of his native land the better. 
 If he remains in London, I greatly fear the
 
 Hovfs Maria r 143 
 
 next occasion on which we meet I shall be on 
 the Bench and he in the Dock. Spare me 
 and yourself this crowning humiliation. 
 * Your obedient Ser^^ant, 
 
 ' R. Balmoy.' 
 
 When she received this communication, 
 Mrs. Kelly, though no rapid scribe, instantly 
 despatched two letters to London ; they were 
 carried into Callinacoan by a bare-footed and 
 bare-legged boy-child clad in ragged petti- 
 coats, who was told to ' run for his life,' so 
 as to get them into the box before the mail 
 went out. 
 
 The epistles were extremely brief, but to the 
 point. That to Wimpole Street ran thus : — 
 
 * My Dear Brother, 
 
 ' In the name of all that's wonderful, 
 what has Barney been up to now V (a phrase 
 which seemed to the magisterial mind to con- 
 tain within itself a whole indictment). 
 ' Your loving Sister, 
 
 ' L. Kelly.' 
 
 While the missive which went out with the 
 mail to West Ham proved even shorter.
 
 144 A Struggle for Fame.. 
 
 Mrs. Kelly enclosed Mr. Balmoy's letter 
 inquiring, on a piece of coarse paper which 
 had contained brown sugar, ' What have you 
 been doing on your uncle, Barney V 
 
 Delaying his reply to this maternal 
 question, Mr. Kelly found his uncle had 
 answered it for him at great length. 
 
 Distracted by no sense of humour, Mr. 
 Balmoy gave the facts in a strictly judicial 
 manner. Divested of every particle of the 
 ludicrous, Barney's sin seemed not merely 
 great but senseless. In Mr. Balmoy's account 
 the intended joke fell so utterly flat, was 
 made to appear so childish a performance 
 altogether, that Mrs. Kelly's pathetic — 
 
 'You're done for now, Barney; what 
 possessed you V found an echo in her son's 
 inmost soul. 
 
 The Kellys were a family destitute of the 
 eleofant g-races which distino-uished the 
 Donaghs, and therefore when Barney wrote back 
 that the ' devil had possessed him,' Mrs. Kelly 
 did not accept the phrase as unfitting or disre- 
 spectful. She merely intimated, in reply, 
 that ' it was no good talking that sort of 
 nonsense ; anyone could resist the devil if
 
 'Hoirs Maria f 145 
 
 lie chose. There was Scripture for it, though 
 she did not exactly know where, but no doubt 
 Mat Donagh, who was so clever, could lay his 
 hand on that text. Barney would have to 
 resist the devil and other things if he ever 
 meant to get up in the world like his uncle. 
 He'd have to learn to keep a quiet tongue in 
 his head. He had better look into the Bible 
 she had packed among his summer shirts, and 
 see what was said there about the tono-ue. 
 It was a burning shame for him to try to play 
 his fool's pranks on an old man, and one,' went 
 on Mrs. Kelly, ' more especially, that could 
 never from a child bear to be laughed at. 
 You had best go to him again and say you 
 are sorry ; maybe he w^ould get you some- 
 thing to do in the Customs. I am told 
 there's a heap to be made in the Customs 
 just by holding your tongue; but oh, Bar- 
 ney, that's a thing I am afraid is a bit beyond 
 you!' 
 
 If the exchequer had been full, Mr. Kelly 
 would have treated these maternal utterances 
 with the indifference he had been wont to 
 accord his mother's words of wisdom in the 
 days which now seemed so far behind ; but 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 with funds gradually sinking, with no employ- 
 ment or chance of employment, without friends 
 willing to help, or acquaintances of any sort 
 in London, it cannot be considered wonderful 
 that Mr. Balmoy's nephew found it impossible 
 to look cheerfully at his position. 
 
 He had written to his mother for money, 
 and that morning received her answer, which 
 certainly was not one likely to raise his 
 spirits. 
 
 'My dear Barney, 
 
 ' I enclose a pound, which is all I have 
 and all I can get. You'll have to turn to and 
 do something for yourself, for as far as I can 
 see there'll not be much help to be had from 
 here for some time to come. Your father has 
 been on the drink, steady, since Callinacoan 
 fair-day, and he lost or was robbed of the price 
 of a heifer and the old black horse, on the 
 road home. Larry was thrown trying to put 
 a new hunter Captain Desmond brought back 
 with him from Donegal, over the stone wall at 
 the foot of the Duke's field at Castle Donagh, 
 and got his leg broken in two places. Doctor 
 Kane says it will be a six months' job ; and the
 
 'How's Maria f 147 
 
 Captain's so wild because that contrary brute 
 of his went off by himself across the moor and 
 sprained his shoulder leaping the boulders for 
 his own diversion, he won't allow Larry a 
 farthing of compensation, though everybody 
 knows Larry couldn't be blamed for what was 
 the horse's fault. The agent is talking of 
 raising the rent on us. They say Mr. For- 
 tescue has put him up to it, but now you are 
 gone I don't think much of that myself. Tom 
 Kelly from Galway came here the other day. 
 He is going to try to establish an agency in 
 Belfast for " pure peat whisky," but your 
 cousin John thinks the Excise '11 never let him 
 do it. His opinion is you did wrong about 
 Miss Fortescue. He believes you would have 
 done better to run off with her, because then, 
 for very decency, the family must have made 
 her a good allowance. As he observes, "they 
 couldn't let the old woman starve ;" and you 
 might have got a fine farm or a post in Dublin 
 if you had held out. However, there's no 
 good talking about last year's snow. Hoping 
 you will soon be able to tell me you have got 
 to work, 
 
 'Your loving Mother.' 
 10—2
 
 148 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' They are all turning against me/ thought 
 Bernard as he stood on the bridge, with arms 
 resting on the rail, looking down into the 
 w^ater. ' What to be at I'm sure I don't know. 
 I can't walk into a strange office, and bid a 
 man I never saw before give me something to 
 do, and I see plainly enough Donagh does not 
 mean to lend me a helping hand. He was 
 talking about the Colonies last night, but I am 
 not gone there yet, Mr. Mat. You are sick of 
 me, but not more sick than I am of you. 
 Still, what can a fellow do ? What the deuce 
 am I to do V 
 
 He pulled a few shillings out of his pocket, 
 and looked at them mournfully. Then he 
 replaced the amount, and was about to resume 
 his study of natural history, when a cheery 
 voice amazed him by saying in his very ear : 
 
 ' Ha ! good-afternoon. Well met !' 
 
 Turning to the side whence this address 
 proceeded, Mr. Kelly beheld a total stranger, 
 well buttoned up in a topcoat with fur collar, 
 and wearing a hat perched so much on one 
 side, he immediately began to sjDcculate how 
 soon it would be gambolling among the swans 
 sailing about below.
 
 How's Maria f 149 
 
 ' I have never seen you before, sir/ lie 
 answered. * You are labouring under some 
 mistake.' 
 
 * Oh no, I am not,' was the answer ; ' I re- 
 member you very well/ 
 
 . ' You have the advantage of me, then,' 
 retorted Mr. Kelly. 
 
 ' Now you are natui*al,' cried the other ; 
 ' and nature does not sit half so well upon you 
 as art. Strange, a man's own part never seems 
 to fit him so well as that he assumes. There, 
 don't look so savage, my friend. " Hows 
 Maria r' 
 
 The expression of Mr. Kelly's countenance 
 was murderous. 
 
 ' I can't tell w^hat the devil you mean,' he 
 said. ' I don't know you, sir, and I don't 
 want to know you.' 
 
 ' By heavens !' interrupted the other, ' this 
 is too magnificent, He's the other man. 
 '* Where is Tom noiu T ' and he laughed till he 
 choked himself. 
 
 ' Sir, you are either mad or drunk, or 
 both !' exclaimed Bernard KeUy. ' I never 
 saw you before, and I never want to see you 
 again ;' and he was turning on his heel
 
 150 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 when the stranger, laying a persuasive 
 hand on the sleeve of his coat, murmured 
 blandly : 
 
 ' "7 ahvays said he was thefloiuer of the fiock!'' 
 Don't go off in a rage. Lord, this is 
 splendid ! I didn't mean to offend you. I 
 have hoped and longed we might meet again 
 some day. I never saw anything better done — 
 never. Why, man, you ought to make your 
 fortune. Shall I ever forget — shall I ever 
 — the face of your ancient friend as he stood 
 in the mud shaking his stick after us ? I 
 have told the story over and over and over 
 again. But I couldn't do the thing as you 
 did it. Where in the world did you acquire 
 the trick of that excruciatingly bland and 
 fatuous look the amiable deaf assume 1 On 
 no stage did I ever behold a better pre- 
 sentment ! I would not for five pounds have 
 missed the little interlude.' 
 
 * You were in the omnibus that day, then 1' 
 conjectured Mr. Kelly, somewhat mollified. 
 ' I did not notice you.' 
 
 ' Ah ! my friend, you were too well em- 
 ployed on the stage to observe the audience,' 
 said the other. ' As I before remarked, it was
 
 Hows Maria?' 151 
 
 in its way the best bit of acting I ever 
 beheld.' 
 
 ' If you knew what it cost me, you might 
 think as I do — that the game was hardly 
 worth the candle.' 
 
 * Indeed ! The matter did not end there, 
 then V 
 
 ' No ; faith, it only began. Who do you 
 suppose the old swell was V 
 
 ' Can't form even a wide conjecture.' 
 
 * Balmoy, the Leather Lane magistrate ' 
 
 * Bless and save us ! Well ' 
 
 * And my uncle.' 
 
 * I can't stand this ; you will kill me !' cried 
 Mr. Kelly's admirer, breaking into peal after 
 peal of laughter. ' Oh ! if you could only 
 have seen your own face — if you could only 
 have heard your own voice, as you made that 
 statement — you'd never have forgotten either. 
 And so that was old Balmoy, and Balmoy is 
 your uncle ? He had not you up for brawling, 
 had he ? How did it happen you were un- 
 acquainted with his appearance ?' 
 
 * I had never seen him in my life. He 
 came to London before I was born. I was on 
 my way to his house when, as ill-luck would
 
 152 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 have it, I got into that confounded omnibus. 
 He was to have put me in the way of earning 
 my living, but instead of doing anything of 
 the kind he has turned all my own people at 
 home against me. So you see, sir, whoever 
 you are,' finished Mr. Kelly, ' that when I 
 thought I was taking off the old swell I was 
 really cutting my own throat.' 
 
 ' I don't know that,' said the other ; * my 
 experience goes to prove that the little ap- 
 parent accidents, which turn a man oflf one set 
 of rails and shunt him on to another, are 
 really merciful interpositions — providences, if 
 you prefer that expression. In what way did 
 your uncle suggest you should earn your 
 living? Eemember I am quoting your own 
 words.' 
 
 ' He would have got me into some Govern- 
 ment office, I imagine,' said Mr. Kelly. 
 
 * You are old for that ; but of course 
 influence can override a baptismal certificate. 
 It would have been a crying sin, however, to 
 bury such talents as yours in a napkin, tied 
 up with red tape. Might as well be a clerk 
 in the City.' 
 
 * I wish to Heaven I was anything — any-
 
 'Hows Maria f 153 
 
 where ! When you spoke to me I was just 
 consiclerino; what the deuce to be at/ 
 
 ' Till getting low V suggested the stranger. 
 
 Mr. Kelly stared at him. Similes drawn 
 from trade were not common in Ireland at 
 that time. 
 
 ' Devil in your pocket V amended the other, 
 seeing the young man's lack of com]^re- 
 hension. 
 
 ' Well, I can't say I am particularly flush of 
 cash.' 
 
 ' And what do your friends advise you to 
 do now ?' 
 
 ' Get to w^ork. Very good counsel, no 
 doubt, if they would only tell me how to 
 follow it.' 
 
 * You are not alone in London, are 
 you?' 
 
 ' I am stopping with some people I know^ ; 
 but for all the use they are to me I might as 
 well be alone.' 
 
 ' Business people V 
 
 * No ; Irish,' answered Mr. Kelly, quite un- 
 conscious of the absurdity of his reply. ' He 
 is a literary man.' 
 
 The stranger pricked up his ears. * What
 
 154 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 is his name ? I know every literary man in 
 London, I believe.' 
 
 ' Donagh.' 
 
 ' Donagh ! Never heard of him. A new 
 hand, perhaps V 
 
 'No. He has been connected with the 
 press for years.' 
 
 'Writes under a nom de plume, then. 
 Well, can't he put you in the way of getting 
 some cash ? A clever fellow like you ought 
 to be able to handle the pen.' 
 
 *I have knocked off some little things,' 
 confessed Mr. Kelly. He did not feel one- 
 half so shy with this free-and-easy stranger 
 as he had done with the master of Abbey 
 Cottage. 
 
 ' I knew it — I could have sworn it,' ex- 
 claimed the other ; ' we shall hear of you yet ! 
 Such talent was never born to waste its 
 sweetness on the desert air of a Government 
 office. Where were you going when I intruded 
 my company V 
 
 ' I was not going anywhere.' 
 
 * Which way do you intend to bend your 
 steps now V 
 
 ' 1 have not decided.'
 
 Hoivs Maria f 155 
 
 ' Let me decide for you, then. Come home 
 with me. I want to know more of you. 
 Besides, as two heads are, it is said, better 
 than one — a proverb the truth of which I beg 
 leave to doubt ; for I am sure I know some 
 heads no dozen of which would be equal to 
 one such as yours, for example ; still, let that 
 pass. To revert to what I intended to re- 
 mark : between us, we ought to be able to 
 set you going in something.' 
 
 'You are extremely kind, I am sure,' an- 
 swered Mr. Kelly, with a little coy hesita- 
 tion. 
 
 ' Kind — not a bit of it. If you consent to 
 waive ceremony and partake of such poor 
 hospitality as I can oflfer, all the kindness will 
 be on your side, all the pleasure on mine. 
 Stay ; you don't know who I am. 1 think I 
 have a card. No ; well, this will serve as 
 well ;' and with an air he handed Mr. Kelly 
 an envelope addressed to ' S. Dawton, Esq., 
 The Wigwam, South Lambeth.' ' That is my 
 name, sir — Dawton.' 
 
 ' Indeed/ said Mr. Kelly, who did not seem 
 so much astonished by the information as S. 
 Dawton, Esq., evidently expected.
 
 156 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 ' You have heard it before, do doubt, 
 often V cunningly suggested Mr. Dawton. 
 
 * I can't remember that I have,' answered 
 Mr. Kelly, who thought his new friend meant 
 to imply the name was a common one in Eng- 
 land, like Smith. 
 
 Mr. Dawton looked at him in surprise, then 
 gravely shaking his head, remarked : ' Such is 
 Fame.' 
 
 ' Is the name of Dawton famous, then V in- 
 quired Mr. Kelly, who felt he had, as he 
 mentally told himself, 'put his foot in it.' 
 ' You must excuse my ignorance ; I have been 
 so short a time in London ' 
 
 * It is a name known not in London merely,' 
 observed Mr. Dawton. ' The provinces — 
 Dublin — Edinburgh — America — Australia — 
 wherever the English language is spoken — 
 wherever the Union Jack floats in the breeze ; 
 — but never mind that. If you think you 
 have sufficiently studied the appearance and 
 manners of those arch -impostors below" us, 
 come along. We shall find some dinner ready. 
 You have not dined, I hope V 
 
 If Mr. Kelly had, like his friend Mr. Mat 
 Donagh, been 'knocking about London' for
 
 'How's Maria f 157 
 
 even a short time, he would have felt at no 
 loss to determine the profession of Mr. Dawton, 
 who believed his reputation to be as wide as 
 the world is round. He had noted that clean- 
 shaved face, the wig, which, though well-made, 
 could have deceived no human being possessed 
 of ordinary powers of observation ; the peculiar 
 mode of address, and the more than sinomlar 
 method of standino; : but all these thino;s, 
 whether taken singly or collectively, failed to 
 give him a cue to the man's real calling. 
 
 Subsequently, when ' behind the scenes ' 
 seemed as familiar ground to him as the 
 stable-yard of ' The White Goat' at Callinacoan 
 had ever done, when he was able to exchange 
 as smart repartee with actors and actresses as 
 he had * cut his teeth on' in the bar of the 
 hostelry aforementioned, he wondered at his 
 own stupidity. Just as an experienced eye 
 can detect a moulder by the knees of his 
 trousers, so in the after-time he could have 
 told a gentleman accustomed to tread the 
 boards by twenty little signs unintelligible to 
 the outside multitude ; but when, after a little 
 hesitation, he intimated his willingness to pro- 
 ceed to The Wigwam with Mr. Dawton as
 
 158 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 guide, Bernard Kelly, though he devoutly be- 
 lieved he 'had seen a thing or two,' knew 
 really as much about life as the barefooted 
 ' gossoon' Mrs. Kelly had hurriedly summoned 
 from herding the geese to carry her despatches 
 to Callinacoan post-office. 
 
 ' You won't object to frugal fare, I hope,' 
 said Mr. Dawton, as they w^alked to ' take boat 
 at Westminster.' So strong is the force of 
 imagination that it is possible Mr. Dawton, 
 when he used the phrase in vogue when there 
 were 'jolly young watermen' and cavaliers 
 with plumes and doublets, felt himself for the 
 moment a contemporary of Buckingham. ' I 
 leave all the details of housekeeping to my 
 better-half, who, I can assure you, is emphati- 
 cally the better-half of my fortunes, and there- 
 fore it is a simple fact that I never know what 
 she intends to appear smoking on the board. 
 There will be something of the nature of fish, 
 flesh, or fowl, and perchance a tart or pudding, 
 but what I cannot say. Pot-luck, you know. 
 Will you, if the luck of the pot is not over- 
 good to-day, forgive all shortcomings for the 
 sake of a welcome w^hich is very hearty and 
 true ?'
 
 Hows Maria f 159 
 
 Mr. Kelly professed himself quite ready to 
 be satisfied with anything that might be 
 going. 
 
 * I should be a churl/ he said, ' not to relish 
 bread and cheese in such good company ;' a 
 speech which pleased Mr. Daw ton mightily, 
 and elicited the consolatory information 
 that Mrs. D. might be trusted to have some- 
 thing better than bread and cheese awaiting 
 them. 
 
 ' Not, mind you,' proceeded Mr. Dawton, 
 ' that I hold such fare to be despised. I 
 never enjoyed anything in my life more than 
 1 did once, in the Midlands at midnight, a 
 few slices from a home-made loaf, and a 
 wedge cut out of a cheese sixty pounds weight, 
 the repast washed down with the best home- 
 brewed ale I ever tasted — ale brewed from 
 Worcester hops, my boy!' 
 
 Mr. Kelly, who was almost as tired of cheese 
 as of bacon and poor gentry, who had never 
 tasted home-made bread except bannocks 
 baked on the paternal griddle, and who dis- 
 liked ale rather than otherwise, remarked dij)lo- 
 matically that he thought the relish with which
 
 160 A Struggle f 07' Fame. 
 
 a man ate his food all depended on the appetite 
 he brought to it. 
 
 ' When I have been out shooting/ he ob- 
 served, * I have thought a raw turnip an alder- 
 manic feast.' 
 
 ' I don't doubt it,' agreed Mr. Dawton. 
 ' Only, as the alderman said about the leg of 
 mutton, " it was a pity to waste a fine 
 appetite on a turnip." That's Lambeth 
 Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury's place, 
 and there to the left stands the Lollards' 
 Tower.' 
 
 * I know,' replied Mr. Kelly ; ' I have been 
 up this way before.' And he might have 
 added that he was better acquainted with the 
 history of Lambeth than Mr. Dawton, who 
 lived in the parish, and had read as much 
 about the Lollards as any Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, if indeed the reading of arch- 
 bishops ever takes a turn in that direction. 
 
 But he was wondering at the moment what 
 sort of a place The Wigwam would prove 
 to be. 
 
 ' The first thing you have to do in England/ 
 said Mr. Matthew Donagh to him, with sub- 
 lime impressiveness, * is to get rid of every
 
 Hows Maria f 161 
 
 Irish notion you failed to leave behind you on 
 the other side of the Channel/ 
 
 Mr. Kelly considered this speech great 
 nonsense at the time, but he was gradually 
 coming round to the opinion that there might 
 be something in it. His ' notions ' had already 
 prepared so many disappointments for him 
 that he began to wish he could have com- 
 menced his London experiences with his 
 mind in the state of that celebrated white 
 sheet of paper mentioned by Mr. Locke, and 
 referred to by many persons since the days of 
 that writer. 
 
 ' The Wigwam ' in Ireland would have 
 meant a lovely cottage — large or small, ac- 
 cording to the means of the owner, but stiU 
 lovely — beautifully situated, probably on the 
 bank of some clear stream or tranquil lake, 
 hemmed in with trees among which copper- 
 beech and mountain- ash and delicate birch 
 appeared conspicuous, the rough-cast walls 
 covered with roses and passion-flowers and 
 jessamine, the roof of thatch, and furnished 
 with deep eaves, where thousands of sparrows 
 held carnival ; a rustic porch ; a cottage — 
 simple in its appearance, yet so comprehensive 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 in its capabilities that, according; to the means 
 of the occupier, the meal to which a guest was 
 bidden might mean ham and eggs and pota- 
 toes piping hot, or the best effort of a French 
 cook brought over by some gentleman to Ire- 
 land for ' the shooting.' 
 
 Already Mr. Kelly knew he could not ex- 
 pect meandering trout streams or glassy lakes 
 or fine sea views, or coppice and brake in the 
 purlieus of London ; but he thought his new 
 friend's house would prove some rural crib, 
 left behind by mistake when the country 
 moved farther from town. In his walks to 
 and from the City he had come across many 
 odd places of this sort about Stratford and 
 Bow, and even nearer Mile End, for the East 
 End was not then such a nest of workmen's 
 dwellings as it has since become. Access was 
 somewhat difficult, and the cost of transit to 
 any one of these suburbs by no means small. 
 
 Mr. Dawton nimbly and with short active 
 steps — Mr. Dawton talking volubly aU the 
 way — conducted Mr. Kelly from the Nine 
 Elms pier through a neighbourhood that 
 gentleman was totally unacquainted with, 
 along Nine Elms Lane and across the Wands-
 
 Hoios Maria f 163 
 
 worth Road, up Mile Street, and so into the 
 South Lambeth Road, out of which, after a 
 little time, they turned sharply to the left, 
 and proceeded along a lane bearing evidences 
 of not so very long ago having been quite in 
 the country, that would, had they pursued it 
 to the other end, have led them speedily into 
 the direct highway to Clapham. But they 
 were now at their journey's end. Stopping 
 before a dull-looking dwelling, and pushing 
 open one of the gates, for there were two 
 opening upon a small sweep of gravelled drive 
 overgrown with grass and moss, Mr. Dawton 
 bade his companion welcome to The Wigwam. 
 
 ' A poor place,' he said, ' but retired ; within 
 a walk of the City, yet as secluded as though 
 we were fifty miles from the busy haunts of 
 men. The name was a happy inspiration of 
 my own. Observing the house advertised, I 
 came to see it. The agent gave me an order 
 of admission, which ran thus : 
 
 ^" Admit — Dawton, Esq., and friends, to 
 view Buhl House." 
 
 * I declare I felt paralyzed, and if the rent 
 had not been very low I should never have 
 troubled myself further about the matter. 
 
 11—2
 
 164 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 The house was built by some City man for his 
 own occupation, a cordwainer or something of 
 the kind, who, having made a pot of money, 
 built himself a big mansion out Streatham 
 way, and wanted to find a tenant for his former 
 abode. 
 
 * It wasn't everybody's money, but it was 
 mine ; so I took the place, and without by your 
 leave or anything else rechristened it The 
 Wigwam, sending a printed notice of the 
 change effected to the tradespeople, post-office 
 authorities, and police inspector. Bless you, 
 in a week every soul in the parish knew where 
 The Wigwam was situated. Those who had 
 never before heard of Buhl House heard of 
 it then. We had the bars of the gates painted 
 to represent arrows tipped and feathered, and 
 my son carried out a beautiful design on the 
 posts, embodyiog every sort of amusement 
 in which the Ked Indian indulges — canoeing, 
 hunting, swimming, dancing, fighting, scalp- 
 ing. Till the weather spoiled the efi'ect those 
 symbolical posts were the talk and admiration 
 of the neighbourhood. People used to walk 
 out on Sundays to see them. The Wigwam 
 was as good as an exhibition of pictures to the
 
 Hows Maria f 165 
 
 populace. That is the way to get a place 
 known, eh V 
 
 Inwardly wondering why any man should 
 wish to attract such publicity to his private 
 residence, Mr. Kelly agreed that it was. In 
 one respect he resembled the children of 
 nature still represented, though very, very 
 dimly, on the gateposts. He evinced no sur- 
 prise at anything. If his new friend had 
 taken him to Buckingham Palace, and stating 
 the Queen might be expected to appear pre- 
 sently, asked him to take a seat meanwhile. 
 Miss Westley's travelling companion would 
 have died rather than evince the least sign of 
 astonishment. He was not going to let the 
 Saxon imagine he had seen nothing but bogs. 
 He would, if he could help it, give the English 
 no opportunity of laughing at his ignorance. 
 
 Many matters he might forget or overlook, 
 but he never forgot or overlooked Bernard 
 Kelly. This young man had every element 
 in his nature for compassing success — a cool 
 head, a cold heart, a selfishness which was as 
 instinctive as his love of ease and money, his 
 dislike of those who w^ere badly off, and his 
 jealousy of those who had the world's ball at
 
 1G6 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 their feet. If he could only have looked for- 
 ward a little he need not have felt uneasy 
 about his own literary success up to a certain 
 point. Supposing he failed to succeed beyond 
 that point, it would only be because he was 
 not half so clever as he thought, and as his 
 friends believed. 
 
 To Mr. Kelly the appearance of The Wig- 
 wam was much less suggestive of Eed Indians 
 in the untrammelled freedom of virgin forests 
 than of rent, rates, and taxes, water laid on 
 by the company, gas supplied by meter, and 
 the other appliances and drawbacks of civili- 
 zation ; but it was evidently with the keenest 
 sense of bivouacking out in the wilds that his 
 host cordially bade him enter the hall, the 
 walls of which were painted in a like eccen- 
 tric fashion to the gates and posts, and throw- 
 ing open a door, ushered the unexpected guest 
 into the presence of his squaw, as in moments 
 of exuberant abandon Mr. Dawton was wont 
 to call the comfortable-looking, comely, 
 sensible lady who had * kept things together ' 
 when, if left to Mr. Dawton's own manage- 
 ment, the household must have dropped to 
 pieces altogether.
 
 ' Hoivs Maria f 167 
 
 ' My dear/ said her husband, as Mrs. Daw- 
 ton rose at their entrance, and though ap- 
 parently somewhat surprised at the appear- 
 ance of a stranger, extended her hand in 
 ready greeting. ' Congratulate me. Quite by 
 accident I came upon the gentleman whose 
 acquaintance I have been so desirous of 
 making. He has kindly consented to take 
 share of whatever may be going for dinner. 
 I don't know his name, and if I did you 
 wouldn't be much wiser ; but you will at once 
 recognise him if I mention the pass-word, 
 " Hows Maria T ' 
 
 ' Oh, really,' exclaimed Mrs. Dawton, and 
 her voice was as pleasant as her face, ' I am 
 delighted to see you ; and my sons will be 
 delighted also, I know. We all feel as if we 
 had known you for years.' 
 
 " ' What is Tom doing now f " asked Mr. Daw- 
 ton, laughing. ' I introduced myself in that 
 way — upon my soul I did, Bessy I You never 
 saw a fellow look so savage in your life. He 
 couldn't, just for the minute, make out what 
 the dickens I was at.' 
 
 ' Well, you will allow I have fulfilled one 
 part of the programme, which you did not
 
 168 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 expect that day we met in the omnibus,' 
 said Mr. Kelly. ' I have come round to see 
 you soon /' 
 
 ' Neat, neat, confoundedly neat and ready !' 
 cried Mr. Dawton, whose pleasant flattery was 
 as balm to the wounds Mr. Donagh's too 
 friendly candour had inflicted. * The idea of a 
 man of your abilities contemplating the swans 
 in a desponding mood ! We'll strike out 
 something, never fear. Where are the boys, 
 Bessie ?' 
 
 * Ted and Jim will be here presently ; but 
 Will and Ben are out, and said we were not 
 to wait for them.' 
 
 * Then you had better order up dinner at 
 
 once. If Tom's friend but there, I really 
 
 must, even as a mere matter of convenience, 
 ask you to give me a name.' 
 
 ' Kelly,' said Tom's friend, a little confused 
 at his omission. ' Bernard Kelly.' 
 
 ' Thank you. I was going to remark if you 
 were half as hungry as I am, something to 
 eat would not be unwelcome.'
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 THE DAWTO^'S AT HOME. 
 
 E. KELLY, in the solitude of The 
 Wigwam's best bed-chamber, when 
 he had accepted his host's offer of 
 warm water and a ' brush u^^,' felt 
 himself at last in very comfortable quarters. 
 
 The house was a far better house than Abbey 
 Cottage ; the furniture was far better furniture 
 than any in which Mr. Donagh's female belong- 
 ings took pride ; an indescribable look of plenty 
 pervaded the establishment, a good savour 
 floated up the staircase and hung about the 
 landings ; the servant who answered Mr. Daw- 
 ton's summons was neat, and young, and 
 pretty ; his welcome had been cordial as cordial 
 could be. Out of the cold and dreariness of
 
 170 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 St. James's Park into the heat and comfort of 
 a well-built, well-aired, well-furnished house, 
 with the prospect of an excellent dinner, was a 
 change for the better Mr. Kelly felt able to 
 appreciate as much as any man that ever lived. 
 He had come to England for the flesh-pots 
 which he had been told were common in that 
 country ; but so far his fare proved no better — 
 nay, far worse, indeed — than at home. The 
 style of housekeeping at Abbey Cottage com- 
 bined with w^onderful completeness every fault 
 to be found in Erin and in Albion, while Mr. 
 Donagh's cordiality he found gradually cooling 
 down from boiling to freezing point. As he 
 stood looking at the swans, Mr. Kelly was 
 speculating amongst other things as to the 
 number of degrees Mat's first genial hospitality 
 could still fall. 
 
 When he once again entered the drawing- 
 room, which apartment was at The Wigwam 
 converted into a pleasant and common parlour, 
 where all the furniture was good and nice- 
 looking, but kept for use rather than show, he 
 found two of 'the boys' added to the party. 
 
 One of them had reached the mature age of 
 thirty, and the other was fast travelling to
 
 The Daivtons at Home. 171 
 
 the same milestone. The eldest, Mr. Dawton 
 introduced as ' my son Ted, who is clever with 
 his brush;' the next, Jim, being mentioned 
 carelessly as * a fellow, managers and editors 
 were rather sweet on.' Both of these gentle- 
 men hailed Mr. Kelly as a brother. 
 
 ' How's Maria V had passed into a household 
 word amongst the AVigwamites, and while soup 
 was still in progress, Jim, to whom his father 
 explained their new friend's position in a slang 
 which would not have disgraced Newgate, 
 observed that he was sure something might be 
 made of the incident which had procured them 
 the pleasure of Mr. Kelly's acquaintance. 
 
 ' rU think the matter over,' promised Jim, 
 finishing a glass of sherry as he spoke. 
 
 Whereupon Mr. Daw ton nodded his head 
 confidentially to their guest, and intimated in 
 a stage whisper that ' if Jim took it up he 
 could knock a good thing off in a day.' 
 
 Mr. Kelly had not the faintest notion what 
 Jim proposed to ' knock off ;' but as he inferred 
 beneficial results were to accrue from the pro- 
 cess for himself, he received the information 
 vouchsafed in wise and thankful silence. 
 
 Before the pudding, which in Mr. Dawton's
 
 172 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 invitation hung tremblingly in the balance of 
 possibilities, had made its appearance, Bernard 
 Kelly heard more 'shop' talked than during 
 the whole term of his residence under Mr. 
 Donagh's roof Actors, musicians, artists, 
 authors — these people had them all at their 
 fingers'-ends ; not speaking about literature, 
 and art, and music, and acting from any 
 external point of view, but familiarly, as men 
 do who, making their living by writing, sing- 
 ing, painting, or acting, talk concerning the 
 things, persons, and surroundings amongst 
 which they pass their lives. 
 
 No reticence at The Wigwam about the 
 names of magazines, editors, contributors, 
 plays, dramatists, tenors, sopranos, altos. 
 
 Ted, Mr. Kelly to his intense astonishment 
 gathered, was a scene-painter ; a branch of art 
 he had hitherto somewhat confused with house 
 decoration of an ordinary and humble character. 
 In the family councils, however, Ted was evi- 
 dently a person of weight, differing in this 
 respect from Jim, w^ho, though appealed to 
 when matters of imagination and invention 
 came on the tajMS, was clearly not considered 
 either by himself or anybody else so useful
 
 The Dawtons at Home, 173 
 
 and practical a fellow as Ted. While cheese 
 was in progress the party was reinforced by 
 Will and Ben, for whose benefit the joint was 
 brought back ; and while they ate they un- 
 folded a perfect budget of news, to which their 
 father and brothers listened eagerly, and Mr. 
 Kelly with an amazement he could scarcely 
 conceal. They had been among the editors, and 
 heard and seen everything apj)arently which 
 was to be heard or seen in London. Names 
 he had read of, but never hoped to become 
 familiar with, were bandied about the table 
 like shuttlecocks. The writers of anonymous 
 articles were declared, the reasons for bad or 
 good reviews given, the machinery which kept 
 the literary world going was exposed, the 
 motives influencing proprietors and publishers 
 revealed, the latest gossip repeated, the most 
 recent jokes laughed at, the row between rival 
 houses or jealous authors fully explained. 
 
 ' This is living,' thought Mr. Kelly, as he sat 
 drinking in those refreshing waters, drawn from 
 the very fountain-head of the wells and springs 
 into which he too desired to dip his pitcher. 
 ' These fellows evidently enjoy existence; why 
 does not Donagh, I wonder T And then he
 
 174 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 determined he would not mention Donagh to 
 them at all. 
 
 But Mr. Dawton mentioned that gentleman 
 for him, asking Will, who seemed the chief 
 authority in matters connected with the 
 magazines and newspapers, if he knew anyone 
 so called. 
 
 ' No,' he said, ' but yet I fancy the name has, 
 somehow, a familiar sound. What is he on V 
 
 Thus directly appealed to, Mr. Kelly an- 
 swered, vaguely, he believed he was 'on' 
 several ' things.' Already he had learned some 
 of the tricks of their language. 
 
 'He is very reticent about what he does,* 
 proceeded Mr. Donagh's friend ; ' but I heard 
 his aunt speak concerning a new venture, The 
 Galaxy,'' 
 
 As with one accord, when Mr. Kelly pro- 
 nounced this word every man looked up. 
 
 * Why, that's our Mag.,' exclaimed Jim, ' our 
 own particular : we all write for it.' 
 
 ' And no one of the name of Donagh does, of 
 that I am very sure,' added Will ; ' I know 
 every man on it.' 
 
 ' Except ' suggested the scene-painter 
 
 significantly.
 
 The Dawtoiis at Home, 175 
 
 'Ay, by Jove, perhaps we have now un- 
 earthed a mystery ! Do you think,' he added, 
 addressing Mr. Kelly, ' your friend could write 
 a slap-up prospectus, picturesque, alluring, 
 attractive, original, calculated to catch fathers 
 as well as daughters, to strike the fancy of 
 husbands and wives, of the babe in arms and 
 the octo2[enarian with senile smile totterino- to 
 the grave V 
 
 ' Yes, I think he could,' answered Mr. Kelly ; 
 'more particularly if it read all the better for 
 not having a word of truth in any sentence 
 it contained. I do not imag^ine Donagh 
 would allow truth to prove a drag on his 
 wheel.' 
 
 ' Then we have found our man,' exclaimed 
 Will solemnly ; ' let us drink his health. 
 What fun it will be to tell old Hodger we 
 know who his genius is 1 he twitted me with 
 him the other day. " Ah ! Will, my boy," 
 he said, " when you can turn out anything 
 half so clever we'll raise your screw." He 
 spoke of him as some great swell, and now 
 
 only to think — ahem ' And Mr. William 
 
 Dawton, stopped in the middle of his sentence 
 by a vigorous kick dealt him by his brother
 
 176 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 under the table, poured out another glass of 
 wine, which he hastily drank to cover his con- 
 fusion. 
 
 Dessert beins: laid in the drawino'-room on 
 a table pulled close up before a blazing fire, 
 they all adjourned to that apartment, where 
 the young men of the family at once bethought 
 themselves how they could amuse their guest. 
 Ted brought forth a portfolio of drawings and 
 caricatures ; Jim, who could, so his father 
 averred, 'make the piano speak,' played and 
 sang, and gave his famous imitation of a night 
 passed in the quiet country by a gentleman 
 unable to sleep in town because of the noise. 
 During the whole time he spent in bed, whither 
 he repaired early to avail himself of this op- 
 portunity of making up his arrears of broken 
 rest, there was not one minute of silence. The 
 dogs in the farmyard baying the moon, the 
 clatter of the horses' hoofs as they moved in 
 their stalls, the peculiarly irritating and con- 
 stantly recurring bang of the iron ball coming 
 up against the ring to which their halters were 
 attached, the cooing of the pigeons whenever 
 they turned in their nests, the mad and emulous 
 crowing of cocks, who, wakened up out of their
 
 The Daivtons at Home, 177 
 
 first sleep to let the stranger know what was 
 in store, the moaning of a cow for her calf, 
 with a battle of tomcats as an interlude, and 
 the clatter of the morning milking-pails for a 
 finish, constituted the salient points in an en- 
 tertainment which did not occupy more than 
 fifteen minutes. 
 
 Mr. Kelly, who, as the reader may have 
 already conjectured, was not easily moved to 
 mirth, laughed till he cried. Like most people, 
 he was pleased with what he could perfectly 
 understand ; and with every sound young 
 Dawton mimicked, from the 'Come back, 
 come back,' of the guinea-fowl to the sharpen- 
 ing of the mowers' scj^thes in the first faint 
 light of day, he had been acquainted since his 
 childhood. 
 
 ' That always brings down the house, sir,' 
 said Mr. Dawton speaking professionally and 
 metaphorically. While his son was giving 
 this recital, he had been standing in a 'waiting 
 to come on' attitude, between the old square 
 piano, a veteran in the Dawton service, and 
 the easy-chair in which Mr. Kelly lay back, 
 listening with the keenest enjoyment. 'Jim 
 has given "The Quiet Country" before Koyalty. 
 
 VOL. I, 12
 
 178 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 You may look astonislied,' wliicli indeed the 
 listener did, for as yet he had scarcely grasped 
 the fact that these men were one and all pro- 
 fessionals, either in fact or in intention. * What 
 do you think of him ? I do not pretend my- 
 self to be an impartial judge, but competent 
 critics predict he has a great future before 
 him. I am told that a certain Prince who 
 shall be nameless, but whose opinion in such 
 matters carries great weight with it — a word 
 to the wise you know, verbum sap., eh? 
 — remarked, " I consider him better than 
 John." ' 
 
 Mr. Bernard Kelly was so utterly unac- 
 quainted with the manners and habits of 
 Koyalty, that if Mr. Dawton had affirmed a 
 certain Prince declared Jim cleverer than Jack, 
 he would have been in no position to contra- 
 dict the statement. 
 
 He had not the faintest notion what his 
 host was talking about ; as to who the 'John' 
 thus airily referred to might be, he felt it im- 
 possible to form an idea. 
 
 * When in doubt,' says the old authority on 
 whist, ' play trumps,' and Mr. Bernard Kelly 
 was beginning to understand that amongst
 
 The Daivtons at Home. 179 
 
 strangers it is an equally good rule for a man 
 when in doubt to hold his tongue. 
 
 He kept silence then, and was immediately 
 rewarded for his abstinence. 
 
 Mr. Dawton, who, never feeling in doubt, 
 never refrained his tongue if he could help it, 
 finding Mr. Kelly made no comment after that 
 astonishing utterance concerning * John/ and 
 determined to elicit some expression of opinion 
 on the subject, proceeded to remark : 
 
 'Not but that I always myself considered 
 Parry a good deal overrated.' 
 
 At length Mr. Kelly understood what his 
 host had been driving at. When first he came 
 to London, in those desirable days ere the foul 
 fiend tempted him to make a butt of his own 
 uncle, turn the wealthy and respectable Mr. 
 Balmoy into ridicule, and bring the worthy 
 Leather Lane magistrate into contempt, Mr. 
 Donag;h was in the habit of talking to his com- 
 patriot about the sights of London, and over a 
 friendly tumbler saying, ' I must take you one 
 night to see this or hear that,' as if, felt Ber- 
 nard Kelly, he were a good little boy just put 
 into all-round jackets, home for the holidays, 
 and Mat his guardian, guide, philosopher, 
 
 12—2
 
 180 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 friend. He would not have cared much about 
 the manner of the promise so given had Mr. 
 Donagh only fulfilled it in the letter ; but that 
 gentleman had never taken him an}'^'here, 
 except once to St. Paul's on a Sunday after- 
 noon, when they heard some good chanting 
 and a very poor sermon. 
 
 Amongst Mat's many excellent intentions, 
 with which Mr. Kelly reckoned a large portion 
 of the lower regions was already substantially 
 paved, that of treating his friend to one of 
 John Parry's musical entertainments chanced 
 to be included. Mat had spoken eloquently 
 on the subject. He gushed and wept and 
 laughed, as he talked of all that ' wonderful 
 genius' could do. The more he drank the 
 more he praised ; the stronger he mixed his 
 punch, the louder were his encomiums concern- 
 ing what Parry, * sitting quietly as I am now,' 
 would compass ^dth a piano, which Mr. Donagh 
 usually referred to as ' an instrument,' and 
 himself. 
 
 Nothing had ever grown out of these con- 
 versations ; the suggested ' orders,' the num- 
 bered seats, the reserved sofas confidently 
 promised and grandly indicated, had followed
 
 The Dawtons at Home. 181 
 
 the same process as that of other things, 
 smaller and greater, Mat was too ready to 
 speak concerning, with lofty assurance ; but 
 his remarks now served a purpose little an- 
 ticipated by the speaker. In addition to the 
 other elements of success before honourably 
 mentioned as likely to serve Mr. Kelly well in 
 his metropolitan experience, that gentleman 
 was possessed of a most retentive and unscru- 
 pulous memory. Not a word Mat ever uttered 
 had fallen on deaf ears. The grain he scat- 
 tered with so liberal a hand was carefully gar- 
 nered by his friend, who now, in answer to 
 Mr. Dawton's disparaging remark concerning 
 Parry, said, with the air of a man having 
 authority : 
 
 * And yet how good he is !' 
 
 ' Certainly. No one can deny that,' agreed 
 Mr. Dawton, a little taken aback by the de- 
 cision of Mr. Kelly's tone. ' But he lacks 
 variety. When you have seen him once you 
 have seen him always.' 
 
 * Well, there's that, to be sure,' observed 
 Mr. Kelly, who made up his mind to go and 
 see Parry once, at all events, as soon as he 
 possibly could.
 
 182 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' We are oroino- to do " Jinks v. Binks," 
 father,' interposed Will at this juncture. The 
 three brothers had been speaking apart while 
 the Parry controversy was on the carpet. 
 * That is, if you think Mr. Kelly would care to 
 be troubled with any more of our nonsense.' 
 
 * I do not know when 1 have been so much 
 amused,' answered Mr. Kelly for himself; and 
 there was a great deal more truth in his com- 
 plimentary utterance than any one of the 
 Dawtons could have supposed possible. Their 
 guest's previous life had flowed rather over a 
 d^ad level of dulness. 
 
 ' We shall be back in a minute/ said Ted, as 
 the three left the room, while Mr. Dawton re- 
 marked, either as a general and dispassionate 
 statement, or with a laudable view to keep 
 up the dignity of the family, which he might 
 have felt was likely to sufi*er through his 
 sons' accomplishments being displayed too 
 lavishly : 
 
 ' This sort of thing keeps them in practice, 
 you know. It answers to a morning gallop on 
 the turf.' 
 
 The great case of ' Jinks v. Binks ' had been 
 conceived and written by WiU, simply to
 
 The Daivtons at Home. 183 
 
 exhibit the humours and peculiarities of two 
 well-known barristers of the period. Ted sat 
 as judge, presiding with an owl-like gra\dty 
 and a countenance of unwinking non-compre- 
 hension of what was going on, which seemed 
 to Mr. Kelly, who had in the course of his 
 aimless rambles about London seen the legal 
 luminary in question, more perfect even than 
 the raging, declaiming, sneering, bantering, 
 interrupting, contradicting of the two legal 
 gentlemen, who, the more fiercely they quar- 
 relled, the more determinedly referred each to 
 the other as ' my learned friend.' 
 
 It may be that he was getting a little tired, 
 for mental excitement had not been a form of 
 fatigue often presented to any human being in 
 Callinacoan — or the brothers may have flagged 
 a little for lack of the *' footlights and the clap- 
 ping ' — one thing is certain, ' Jinks v, Binks ' 
 did not prove quite such a success as the farm- 
 yard serenade. 
 
 ' You are a bit done up, boys,' observed Mr. 
 Dawton, gazing with parental solicitude at the 
 three young faces under three barristers' wigs. 
 ' We'll have a glass of grog all round. What 
 do you say, Mr. Kelly ? Are you willing to
 
 184 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 second my motion ? Mother, may we have in 
 the kettle V 
 
 Mothers consent was taken as much for 
 granted as the royal signature. Still, like 
 obtaining the royal signature, Mr. Dawton 
 considered the form essential to be gone 
 through. 
 
 During the varied performances Mrs. 
 Dawton had sat beside the hearth, smiling 
 pleasantly and crocheting diligently. Now, 
 directly appealed to in that matter of the kettle 
 — which involved many items beside boiling 
 water — she rang the bell, and quickly as a 
 .stage banquet appeared a tray on which was a 
 stand containing three bottles, accompanied by 
 tumblers, spoons, lemons, sugar, and what Mr. 
 Mat Donagh, in the redundancy of his ordinary 
 language, would have styled * The impedimenta 
 and all appliances to boot of a splendid con- 
 viviality.' 
 
 ' Now, Mr. Kelly,' exclaimed the host, with 
 somewhat watery eyes surveying the bottles, 
 over the distribution of the contents of which 
 he had presided perhaps too often in the course 
 of his life ; ' what's your particular ? — whisky, 
 I'll be bound.'
 
 The Daivtons at Home. 185 
 
 Perhaps it was because of this very confi- 
 dence that Mr. Kelly selected brandy. Mr. 
 Dawton, saying he was ordered gin by his 
 doctor, who presumably could have been little 
 acquainted with the condition of his patient's 
 interior, seized upon the decanter filled with 
 that insidious liquor ; the three elder 
 brothers mixed whisky for themselves, but 
 Ben, who was, as his father represented, going 
 in for teetotalism, took nothing but a glass of 
 wine. 
 
 * Mother ' being asked by the head of the 
 family if she would have her potation then 
 or ' later on,' laughed, and selected the latter 
 alternative. 
 
 If her conscience had not been very clear of 
 ofi'ence she might scarcely have liked the jests 
 and covert joking Mr. Dawton indulged him- 
 self in concerning her abstinence ; but as 
 matters were, she went on placidly with her 
 work, only looking up a little anxiously when 
 her husband replenished his tumbler. His 
 glass had a nasty knack of running dry long 
 before its proper time, and poor Mr. Dawton 
 could not bear to see it empty. Perhaps it 
 was for this reason, and to provide against
 
 186 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 possible contingencies, he put in almost a 
 double quantity of gin. Unfortunately, how- 
 ever, for the sake of his good intentions, he 
 forgot to 'fill up' afterwards with a correspond- 
 ing addition of water. 
 
 All this Mr. Kelly, who was an adept in 
 the ways and signs and tokens of drinking, 
 noted ; from his youth upwards he had lived 
 amongst those in whose homes the green 
 bottle or the square decanter was regarded as 
 an indispensable article of furniture, and con- 
 sequently his studies in the various modes 
 different men took their liquor might be con- 
 sidered exhaustive. 
 
 Spite of Miss Cavan's animadversions, he 
 had no inclination towards becoming a drunk- 
 ard himself. He could perhaps ' carry,' as 
 his friends at Callinacoan worded the matter, 
 more whisky than was altogether good for 
 him ; but he knew when to stop, which Mat 
 Donagh did not, and he could have ' pulled 
 up ' at any minute, a feat c]uite beyond the 
 master of Abbey Cottage, whose moral breaks, 
 naturally of the feeblest and most theoretical 
 description, were now completely out of work- 
 ing order.
 
 The Dawtons at Home. 187 
 
 In common with many another importation 
 from the Green Isle, Mr. Kelly had arrived in 
 London with a preconceived idea that the 
 English, being unblest with cheap whisky, did 
 not drink, and it was therefore with a good 
 deal of interest he watched Mr. Dawton, won- 
 dering what quantity 'the old boy,' as he 
 mentally termed him, ' could stand,' and 
 speculating on the particular form into which 
 the evil genius of gin would metamorphose him. 
 
 During a momentary silence, made eloquent 
 by the fumes of the various liquors which 
 had completely filled the room, aided by the 
 smoke of four cigars — Mr. Dawton alone de- 
 clining to take anything out of Ted's offered 
 case — there came twanging, first at some re- 
 mote distance, and then nearer and nearer 
 still, the sounds of a banjo, and next instant 
 the door was opened cautiously, and a black 
 face, surmounted by a comical hat of striped 
 red and white calico, peeped into the room. 
 
 * Come in, come in ; you are welcome,' -cried 
 Mr. Dawton a little unsteadily. ' Give us a 
 stave ! Minstrelsy, a friendly tumbler — why, 
 the Queen herself could desire no better enter- 
 tainment !'
 
 188 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 Mr. Kelly burst out laughing, lie could not 
 help it, and the young Dawtons followed 
 suit. 
 
 * Doesn't he make up ^Yell T said Ted, re- 
 ferring to his brother, who certainly did look 
 a veritable nigger minstrel, and who now 
 struck up one of the melodies not so common 
 in England then as they have since become, 
 which he sung with a verve and a wild enthu- 
 siasm that threw Jim's farmyard imitations 
 into the shade. 
 
 Here in its way was genius, and Mr. Kelly 
 instinctively recognised the difference between 
 this youngster and his brothers. 
 
 ' Capital !' he exclaimed ; ' splendid !' And 
 involuntarily he clapped his hands, and then 
 they all clapped and shouted 'Encore!' and tearr 
 of pleasure filled the fond mother's kindly 
 eyes ; and Mr. Dawton, on the strength of 
 Ben's performance, mixed himself yet another 
 tumbler, and quoted huskily, with a sly leer 
 at their guest, ^ I always said he was the flower 
 of the flock.' 
 
 Thus encouraged, Ben once again ' touched 
 his guitar,' and commenced another song, the 
 chief feature in which was a sudden ' Yah,'
 
 The Dawtons at Home. 189 
 
 which came in the middle of every verse, and 
 was delivered by the young fellow with start- 
 ling effect. 
 
 He had not, however, got quite to the end 
 of the second stanza, when once again the 
 door opened, this time to admit the trim 
 parlour-maid, who, coolly advancing to the 
 table, the personification of order and com- 
 posure amidst riot and confusion, said : 
 
 * Mr. McCrea, sir, has called, and -w^ishes to 
 speak to you.' 
 
 With a theatrical gesture Mr. Dawton 
 dashed the palm of his open hand against his 
 forehead and looked wildly at his wife, who 
 had risen from her seat, and was regarding 
 him with an expression of reproachful regret. 
 
 ' I called as I went into town, Bessie, I did, 
 upon my word,' declared poor Mr. Dawton, 
 answering the unspoken accusation he knew 
 was in Bessie's heart. ' He was not in, and I 
 did not care to pay that slip of a girl ; and 
 when I got up to Glasshouse Street I forgot 
 all about him, and having the money in my 
 pocket I settled with ' 
 
 ' Never mind that now, father,' interposed 
 Ted, with a certain rough tenderness ; ' tell
 
 190 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 Mr. McCrea to come again to-morrow, or say I 
 will look in as I am passing/ 
 
 ' It is of no use, sir,' answered the servant ; 
 ' I told him master was engaged, but he said 
 he would wait till he was disengaged.' 
 
 ' The ruffian !' exclaimed Mr. Dawton, start- 
 ing up ; ' let me deal with him.' 
 
 * No, pray, father,' entreated Ted, pushing 
 him back into his chair. ' I have a fiver ; give 
 the fellow this, Mary, and say that his account 
 shall be settled within twenty-four hours.' 
 
 * And say also, Mary, if ever I catch him in- 
 side these gates again, his vile carcase shall 
 pay the penalty,' added the head of the house- 
 hold. 
 
 There was no countermand of this message ; 
 all present understood apparently Mary might 
 safely be trusted not to deliver it. 
 
 The girl went out of the room, closing the 
 door behind her ; there was a moment's lull, 
 then, just as Mr. Dawton, recovering his 
 equanimity, bethought him of hospitably pass- 
 ing the brandy towards his guest, the handle 
 of the lock was blunderingly turned, and a 
 terrible apparition appeared upon the threshold 
 and came heavily across the carpet.
 
 The Bawtons at Home. 191 
 
 It was Mr. McCrea, the family baker, who, 
 having the same evening been craftily told by 
 the journeyman of a speculative and hated 
 rival that ' them Dawtons were going to make 
 a bolt of it/ had come round armed with his 
 bill, and thirsting for vengeance. He brought 
 up to the table with him a smell of rum, 
 which seemed to overpower the odours of all 
 the other liquors, rum — ' cold without ' — 
 which he had liberally partaken of at home, 
 and rum in its integrity which he had called 
 for at a public-house in passing, to strengthen 
 his resolution and increase his indignation 
 against ' swindlers,' who, though they really 
 had paid him considerable amounts of money, 
 never reached the British tradesman's notion 
 of good customers, viz., weekly settlements, 
 and no question raised as to the quantity or 
 quality of the articles supplied. 
 
 ' What good's this to me ?' asked Mr. 
 McCrea, a red-faced, bloated-looking fellow, 
 who certainly merited the name Mr. Dawton 
 had bestowed upon him. He held the five- 
 pound note given him by Mary lying open in 
 his left hand, and with his right stubby fore- 
 finger he stood beating a tattoo upon it — a
 
 192 A St ruggle fo r Fame. 
 
 tattoo tremulous by reason both of rum and 
 
 rage. 
 
 *What'll I do with this?' and he glared 
 around the group while w^aiting for an answer. 
 
 It was Will who replied for the family : 
 
 ^ As to what you will do with it, Mr. 
 McCrea/ he said, ' we cannot really be so im- 
 pertinent as to suggest ; but as to your first 
 question, I have always imagined a five-pound 
 note must be of good to anyone.' 
 
 Mr. McCrea was so totally imused to 'chaff 
 of any kind that for a moment Will's words 
 and Will's manner staggered him ; but he was 
 not a person to be easily repulsed, and there- 
 fore ignoring the 'impertinent puppy,' as he 
 for ever after styled Mr. DaT\i;on's third born, 
 by the simple process of turning one broad 
 shoulder towards him, the baker, whom the 
 momentary check had rendered still more 
 irate, proceeded : 
 
 ' I'd like to know which on you, coming to 
 my shop, which shop is kep' by an honest 
 man as pays his way honest, and a man as is 
 respected, though he may not be able to drink 
 his brandy, and his whisky, and his gin, and 
 his sherry wine at other folkses' expense —
 
 The Dawtons at Home. 193 
 
 which on you, I say, would be satisfied when 
 you wanted a half-quartern if I put you ofi" 
 with a third of a half- quartern ? How 'm I 
 to pay my miller with this V — and the tattoo 
 on poor Ted's hard-earned five-pound note 
 recommenced with greater energy than ever. 
 ' He's comingr to-morrow, and if I tell him 
 it's all I could Sfet from them as has eat his 
 flour made into loaves, he'd say, " More fool 
 you to give trust." My bill's a matter of 
 sixteen pounds seven shillings and fourpence 
 three-farthings, and sixteen pounds seven 
 shillings and fourpence three-farthings I mean 
 to have if I stop here all night/ 
 
 Indignation, and a consciousness, perhaps, 
 that the evening's potations might have some- 
 what interfered with his powers of oratory, had 
 hitherto kept Mr. Dawton silent ; but when 
 The McCrea — who was not a Scotchman 
 born, thous^h at times, when he relaxed from 
 the cares of business, he boasted of a genea- 
 logy North o' Tweed which conducted the 
 hearers into shadowy mists * abune ' Ben 
 Nevis — paused, Mr. Kelly's host burst out with 
 * Insolent varlet !' and would have proceeded 
 to even wilder flights of eloquence had 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 not Ted cut across the thread of his dis- 
 course : 
 
 *Much as we appreciate the pleasure of 
 your company, Mr. McCrea,' he began with 
 cutting politeness, ' we should be loth to put 
 you to the inconvenience of remaining away 
 from your home till morning ; so if you will 
 kindly step back into the hall, from which I 
 am not aware that anyone invited you, we 
 will look up sixteen pounds seven shillings 
 and fourpence three-farthings, which you say 
 we owe you.' 
 
 *It's a cursed imposition!' remarked Mr. 
 Dawton, with a loftiness of tone and manner 
 which would have seemed more impressive 
 if his wig had not got a good deal to one side. 
 What Mr. McCrea might have answered to this 
 sweeping condemnation can only be imagined, 
 for at this juncture the imperturbable Mary laid 
 
 her hand on his arm, and simply remarking : 
 ' There's a chair in the hall, sir, if you like to 
 
 sit,' led him like a tipsy lamb out of the room. 
 When the door was shut behind him, the 
 
 whole family looked at each other for a moment 
 
 in silence, which Jim was the first to break. 
 
 Bursting into a peal of laughter, he cried :
 
 The Dawtons at Home. 195 
 
 ' It is too ridiculous. This is quite a new 
 experience. Father, did you ever come across 
 an infuriated baker before V 
 
 ' No, dear, and I hope your father never will 
 again,' said Mrs. Dawton softly, with a little 
 unconscious emphasis upon the word ' father,' 
 which may have implied she herself scarcely 
 expected such an exemption. ' Don't laugh, 
 Jim ; at least, not till the man is out of the 
 house. What are we to do with him, Ted ?' 
 
 ' First let us see how the finances stand,' 
 was Ted's stout and cheery answer. 
 
 ' Give the brute a cheque, and get rid of 
 him,' suggested Will. 
 
 * I don't think in his present mood he would 
 take a cheque,' said Ted; and, indeed, there was 
 nothing; surer than that Mr. McCrea could not 
 then have been pacified with what he was 
 sometimes wont to desisrnate as a ' bit of worth- 
 less paper.' ' Besides, my account was drawn 
 nearly dry last week. No, let us see what 
 we can make up. How much have you. 
 Will V 
 
 They all turned out the contents of their 
 pockets and purses — halfpennies, pennies, 
 sixpences, shillings, half-crowns ; a poor show. 
 
 13—2
 
 196 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 Ted began gloomily to sort tlie money into 
 little heaps. 
 
 ' I am afraid the silver I have about me 
 won't be much help/ said Mr. Kelly, discreetly 
 omitting all mention of the one-pound Bank 
 of Ireland note snugly lying inside the folds 
 of his mother's letter ; ' but still ' 
 
 ' We won't rob you, Mr. Kelly — thank you 
 all the same,' answered Ted, looking up from 
 his task. ' Where's Ben ? Ben is never within 
 a sovereign ' 
 
 As he spoke, Ben, who had left the apart- 
 ment, now re-entered it, and from a wash- 
 leather bag poured out his contribution to the 
 general fund. ' Three pounds eight and six- 
 pence !' exclaimed his brother. ' Bravo, Ben !' 
 
 * If you please, Mr. Edward,' said Mary, 
 who had followed the youngest Dawton into 
 the room, 'cook has three-and-twenty shillings.' 
 
 * It is not every cook who could send up a 
 dish like that,' observed Jim, as Mary laid the 
 amount mentioned on the table.' 
 
 * It is not every cook who would,' amended 
 Mr. Bernard Kelly, which remark elicited from 
 Mr. Dawton a husky ' Good, good — deuced 
 good !'
 
 The Daivtons at Home. 197 
 
 ' But still, with all,' said Ted, surveying his 
 collection of coins, ' we only make up twelve 
 j)ounds five, and in his present condition it 
 w^ould take Mr. McCrea till morning to count 
 over the small silver and halfpence. No ; I 
 had better go out and borrow. Dulce will lend 
 me five pounds, I am sure.' 
 
 ' I should not ask him, if 1 were you,' ad- 
 vised Ben, whose black face and nigger cos- 
 tume made the aspect of the Dawton family 
 in serious conclave utterly ridiculous. ' There's 
 Arty's money-box.' 
 
 ' To be sure there is ; I never thought of that.' 
 
 Just for a moment Mrs. Dawton looked un- 
 easy ; then, apparently satisfied there was no 
 help for the matter, she said : 
 
 ' You must keep an exact account of what 
 you borrow, Ted.' 
 
 ' Oh, I'll see to that,' answered the jDrop of 
 the household, taking the box, which was 
 curiously carved, and had evidently been per- 
 verted from its original uses to servino- th^ 
 mean purpose of a mere receptacle for money. 
 * Have you got the key, mother V 
 
 For once mother was at fault ; she had not 
 got what was required.
 
 198 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 * Trust Arty for not letting it out of her own 
 keeping/ remarked Ben. 
 
 * I don't want to break the thing open/ said 
 Ted, turning the delicate toy round, 'for I 
 might damage it. Who has some small keys V 
 
 No one seemed to have any possession of 
 the sort, till at last on Mr. Kelly's bunch 
 there was discovered a small and, to look at, 
 apparently perfectly useless little key, which 
 belonged to an old blotting-case his mother 
 had packed amongst his linen. 
 
 * That's done the business !' exclaimed Will, 
 as his brother shot back the worthless lock 
 and emptied the money the box contained 
 into his left hand. ' By Jove, here's a mine 
 of w^ealth ; I wish I had thought of its exist- 
 ence yesterday.' 
 
 * Here's Arty herself,' said Mrs. Dawton, as 
 a young girl in mantle and bonnet now ap- 
 peared on the scene. ' We have been obliged 
 to open your box, Arty love, to get rid of 
 Mr. McCrea.' 
 
 ' Very well/ answered Arty, reconciling her- 
 self to the inevitable ; ' but you must pay it 
 all back again, remember,' she added, address- 
 ing Ted.
 
 The Daivtons at Home. 199 
 
 ' Oh, I say I' from Ben. 
 
 ' I like the idea !' from Will. 
 
 * I am sure it is being put to the purpose 
 intended by the donors,' from Jim. ' It was 
 meant to clothe the naked heathen, and we are 
 only using it to pay the man who fed the hungry 
 Christian. Your friend Mr. Jenkins must not 
 depend upon receiving one farthing of this 
 money about cjuarter-day. He will have to 
 fall back on somebody else's box to satisfy 
 his landlord. Speak, Ted ! Have you got 
 enough gold at last to mollify the evil spirit 
 of the McCrea ? If so, let me pay the fellow, 
 and kick him to the gate.' 
 
 ' Just stay where you are,' said his brother, 
 a little sternly. ' The man has a right to his 
 money ; and though he was rude, that is the 
 more reason why we should behave better.' 
 
 ' Oh dear !' exclaimed Ben, ' how high and 
 moral we are all of a sudden, after robbing- 
 Arty's heathen ! What a difference a few 
 pounds makes ! You would not have felt so 
 truly virtuous, Ted, if you had been forced to 
 go to the bar of the Blue Tiger, and, cap in 
 hand, ask old Dulce to lend you five pounds.' 
 
 ' Hold your tongue,' said Ted sharply.
 
 200 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 * That's all the thanks a fellow gets/ 
 grumbled Ben. 
 
 The change which came over Mr. McCrea 
 when he was asked to give a receipt for sixteen 
 pounds seven shillings and fourpence three- 
 farthings, duly counted over, was little short 
 of marvellous. He would have apologized 
 elaborately, but that Ted cut short his maun- 
 derings with an imperative mandate to sign 
 his name and conclude the interview. 
 
 * I am afraid I have not a farthing about 
 me,' he said, after feeling in every pocket for 
 this amount of chang-e. 
 
 ' We'll trust you that,' said the irrepressible 
 Jim, who had opened the drawing-room door 
 about a couple of inches, and was peering 
 through the gap thus made ; * in fact, we'll 
 give you the farthing.' 
 
 Mr. McCrea, turnino; in the direction whence 
 this generous proposition emanated, beheld 
 Jim's mischievous face surveying him. 
 
 * Ah !' he remarked to Ted, who had reddened 
 with annoyance, ' it's well to be young and 
 have no weight of care to carry on the 
 shoulders. When it comes to havinor to get 
 both ends to meet, and both always a bit too
 
 The Dau'tons at Home. 201 
 
 short, a man finds he has something else to do 
 than making fun and diversion.' 
 
 'Very true, Mr. McCrea. You find the 
 money right,. I think V 
 
 ' Quite right, thank you, sir,' said Mr. 
 McCrea, turning his hat round and round in 
 his two fat hands, and looking steadily into it, 
 apparently searching for some suitable obser- 
 vation at parting. 
 
 Mr. Edward Dawton found one for him. 
 
 * I will wish you good-night, then,' he said. 
 Taking the hint thus broadly given, the 
 
 baker, executing a courtly wave of his shabby 
 hat, remarked : 
 
 * Servant, sir ; much obliged, I am sure.' 
 
 ' Open the door for Mr. McCrea, Mary,' said 
 Ted, with cruel and elaborate civility. 
 
 Mr. McCrea edged himself out of the door 
 Mary held wide, as though he had but about 
 three inches of space through which to squeeze 
 his burly figure. 
 
 * Good-night, my dear,' he said to the trim 
 young handmaiden. 
 
 ' Good-night, sir,' she answered demurely ; 
 and then the door was closed again, and Mr. 
 McCrea found himself sixteen pounds odd the
 
 202 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 richer, and in the way of becoming a good 
 deal wiser. 
 
 ' You understand, Mary,' remarked Mr. Ted 
 significantly — meaning no loaf from the McCrea 
 bakehouse was ever again to find its way inside 
 The Wigwam. 
 
 * Oh yes, sir.' 
 
 AVhen Ted rejoined the social circle he found 
 order once more calmly reigning in the draw- 
 ing-room. Arty, who had been introduced to 
 Mr. Kelly, was carefully examining her box to 
 see if it had been in any way damaged. Jim 
 was seated at the piano, and he struck a note 
 now and then, humming softly to himself. 
 Mr. Dawton had ' mixed ' again, and was 
 urgently entreating Mr. Kelly to follow his 
 example. 
 
 Shortly he grew a little maudlin, and began 
 to bemoan his fate, and w^himper over the 
 ' base ingratitude which left a son of Vincent 
 Dawton's to be the sport and insult of a 
 scoundrel who sold hot rolls.' 
 
 The best of the evening was clearly over. 
 Mr. McCrea, like a desolating whirlwind, had 
 swept over The Wigwam, and nothing anyone 
 could do or think of was likely to restore
 
 The Daivtons at Home. 203 
 
 matters to the footing on which he had found 
 them. 
 
 Even the fire seemed to burn less cheerily 
 and ^Ir. Kelly began to wonder how he was to 
 get back to Stratford. 
 
 ' "Which will be my best way from here to 
 the City V he asked ; and then he was told to 
 take train at Yauxhall for Waterloo, from 
 whence he could get anywhere. 
 
 ' Look up any manuscripts you have by 
 you/ said Will, ' and we'll see what can be 
 done with them ;' while Mr. Dawton offered, 
 as well as he was able, a ' shake-down,' ' sofa,' 
 * rug on the hearth,' 'just another thimbleful 
 to keep out the night air,' and then fell to 
 weeping and bemoaning himself once more. 
 
 * Never mind my father,' said Ted, as he 
 stood at the o-ate of The AViswam, showino- 
 their new friend the direct way to Yauxhall, 
 ' he is always like that when he has an extra 
 glass.' 
 
 "With great sincerity Mr. Bernard Kelly 
 answered that ' he did not think anything of 
 it,' and, after a cordial ' Good-night,' strode 
 off, unconscious of all the changes that day's 
 experience was to effect in his life.
 
 204 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 As belated travellers step inside fairy rings, 
 or cross enchanted thresholds, so in his aimless 
 wanderings Bernard Kelly had, without being 
 in the slightest degree cognizant of the fact, 
 strolled into the realms of Bohemia. 
 
 Time had passed quickly within those 
 charmed precincts, and it was so late when he 
 reached the City, the last Stratford 'bus had 
 gone. 
 
 When in the small hours he arrived at 
 Abbey Cottage, the door, after a long delay, 
 was opened by Miss Bridgetta in an indescri- 
 bable state of deshabille. Her stockingless 
 feet were encased in a pair of Mat's old 
 slippers ; she had evidently only huddled on 
 a thick petticoat over her night-garments ; 
 an ancient shawl was wrapped round her 
 shoulders ; and her grey hair peeped out from 
 under the flapping borders of her cap. 
 
 * In the name of wonder,' she asked, ' what 
 has kept you till this time of the morning ? 
 We gave you up long and long ago. Step 
 easy. Ah, do,' she added. ' If Mat gets a 
 broken night he's never worth a farthing the 
 next morning.' 
 
 What Mr. Kelly muttered under his breath
 
 The Dawtons at Home. 205 
 
 about Mat and his night's rest, as he paused 
 at the foot of the stairs and pulled off his 
 boots, was not pleasant ; but Miss Bridgetta 
 did not hear his remark. She was engaged 
 at the moment in a futile attempt to snuff the 
 guttering dip she carried with a hair-pin, 
 which for this purpose she took out of the little 
 wisp of grey hair twisted up under her remark- 
 able night -ca J). 
 
 If Mat had been there he would have asked 
 
 her ' why the the proper implement for 
 
 such uses was never by any chance in its cor- 
 rect place V But Mat did not happen to be 
 there, and Mr. Kelly felt utterly indifferent as 
 to how Miss Bridgetta snuffed her candle, or 
 whether she ever snuffed it at all. 
 
 At the moment he was wishing with his 
 whole heart he could leave Abbey Cottage, 
 and afford to pay for lodgings. He was 
 thinking what a wide, desolate place London 
 is for a man with only a one-pound note and a 
 few shillings in his pocket. He was consider- 
 ino' the difference of the welcome which would 
 have been accorded to Mr. Donagh had he 
 claimed the hospitalities of Moss Moor Farm, 
 from that Mr. Donagh extended to him ; and
 
 206 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 as he ' stepped easy ' up the narrow staircase, 
 and trod gingerly past Mat's sleeping apart- 
 ment, he felt very bitter when he thought of 
 the scant courtesy extended to him at Abbey 
 Cottage, and the bare meals now furnished by 
 those w^ho had, as he well remembered, received 
 hamper after hamper of the best his mother 
 * could pack tight in them.' 
 
 When he left The Wigwam it was with the 
 first feeling of real hope that had come to 
 cheer the blackness of his nigrht since the un- 
 
 o 
 
 fortunate episode w^hich offended all his re- 
 latives. Spite of the McCrea interlude, the 
 evening proved to him as refreshing and ex- 
 hilarating as a glass of champagne, or a whiff 
 of pure mountain air, and as he paced the 
 fastnesses of South Lambeth and took train 
 for Waterloo at Yauxhall, he half believed Mr. 
 Dawton's assertion that it was well he had 
 quarrelled with his uncle ; that fate held 
 something fiir better than a post in a Govern- 
 ment office in store for a clever fellow like 
 himself. 
 
 As he neared the City, however, his mood 
 became less jocund. He remembered, as he 
 passed the closed and silent offices of great
 
 The Dawtons at Home. 207 
 
 firms, how he had wondered if amid all the 
 life and bustle and business of Cockaigne at 
 mid-day, there was no vacant place he could 
 fill — no master who would give him a chance 
 of honestlv earnino; his bread. 
 
 Even in the semi-darkness of a town, 
 illumined only by its glimmering street-lamps, 
 he seemed to see again the figures he had 
 looked at in broad day, and longed earnestly 
 to address — great merchants, well-known 
 financiers, men, some of them, who, having 
 come to the great metropolis with no posses- 
 sions save youth and industry, might presum- 
 ably feel a kind of sympathy for one well-nigh 
 as poor as was their own case formerly. Then 
 his mood changed and grew fiercer, and the 
 smile with w^hich be bethought him of what 
 Mr. Balmoy might have to say if a delinquent 
 were brought before him charged with pinning 
 Kothschild to the wall in Swithin's Lane, and 
 shouting ' Employment, or your life,' was more 
 cynical than mirthful. 
 
 Along every step of the way that conducted 
 him eastward to Abbey Cottage he dragged a 
 lenorthenino; chain of care. The farther he 
 left South Lambeth behind, the greater became
 
 208 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 his sadness of spirit. It was as though there 
 he had left the sun shining, while at White - 
 chapel he was plunging into the accustomed 
 fog. If a man finds a house, or the people 
 with whom he is domesticated, producing an 
 enervating and depressing effect upon his 
 nature, let him get out of the one and cut his 
 lot adrift from the others as quickly as 
 may be. 
 
 There are conditions of life which paralyze 
 the best powers of a person's mind, against 
 which it is as vain to struggle, as impossible 
 to make head, as for the body to keep itself 
 active amid ague swamps. There are dwell- 
 in gs and families who constitute what is 
 ironically termed ' a home circle,' capable of 
 transformino' the streng;th of Samson into the 
 weakness of the blind and feeble man the 
 Philistines laughed to scorn, the generous 
 courage of David into the mean treachery of 
 him who caused Uriah to be set in the forefront 
 of the battle. 
 
 Intuitively Bernard Kelly felt the Donagh 
 onenay/e, and the Donagh style of life, were 
 dragging all activity and spirit out of his 
 brain and body.
 
 The Dawtons at Home. 209 
 
 ' If I could only see my way to earning ten 
 shillings a week, I'd be out of this to-morrow/ 
 he thouorbt, as he tossed throug;h the hours of 
 the sleepless night. * London is an awful 
 place for a stranger who knows nobody worth 
 knowing. De Quincey might well speak of 
 the streets as stony-hearted. Blow high, blow 
 low, however, I'll try to put matters here on a 
 different footing. My friend Mat shan't have 
 it all his own way. Confound his smug face 
 and his white shirt, and his stiff choker, and 
 his long words, and his sanctimonious secrecy ! 
 Wait a bit, my friend — wait a bit, Mr 
 Matthew Donagli ! perhaps some day you will 
 wish you had not shown Barney Kelly quite so 
 plainly you would prefer his room to his 
 company. ' 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 
 
 '^j/}7xh/ 
 
 
 'M 
 
 i^^y 
 
 ;^^B 
 
 
 
 
 ^H 
 
 Wli^S)jJ^^mll^^^^^^^i^'' '. ' ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 ™ 
 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GLENARVA. 
 
 JT would not have proved the slightest 
 comfort to Mr. Kelly, while en- 
 gaged in those exercises of self-pity 
 and Donagh-commination just recorded, to 
 know that the opinion of another person 
 as regarded the helpless feeling of being- 
 stranded in a vast city was identical with 
 his own. 
 
 The joys and the sorrows, the hopes, the 
 cares, the disappointments, the successes of 
 other people, were matters which affected that 
 gentleman but little, save so far as they in- 
 fluenced, or were likely to influence, his per- 
 sonal career. 
 
 From the moment he alighted at Euston, he
 
 Glenarva. 211 
 
 liad never given a thought to the companions 
 who journeyed from Ireland with him. It 
 would not have vexed him to know they were 
 all begging their bread — it would not have 
 pleased him to know they were doing weU — 
 unless he was likely to gain out of their pros- 
 perity. It would not have strengthened his 
 own heart to feel others were marching along 
 the same road, bravely setting their faces to 
 meet difficulties and conquer obstacles, hiding 
 sad fears under the cover of ready smiles, and 
 turning cheerful countenances which concealed 
 grave anxieties to a world which, though not 
 a hard, or an unfeeling, or an ungenerous 
 world, is ever — and rightly, perhaps — impatient 
 of outward manifestations of woe. In their 
 different ways and degrees the four persons 
 who travelled with Mr. Kelly were nervously 
 considering what the result of that day's 
 journeying would prove. Least, perhaps, of 
 all, Mr. Westley ; most, no doubt, his daughter, 
 both because her temperament was impulsive, 
 and the weight of responsibility she had in- 
 curred seemed to her youth overwhelming. 
 
 As to her father, he had come to London 
 filled with a hope which, though destined never 
 
 14—2
 
 212 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 to be realized, buoyed him over the first and 
 worst portion of the metropolitan campaign. 
 
 Looking back over his life — a survey which 
 it may well be doubted whether he ever under- 
 took — he might have seen enough to warn him 
 of the fallacy of entertaining great expecta- 
 tions on any subject ; but Mr. Westley was a 
 man who had never learned much from expe- 
 rience in the past, and who it seemed very 
 certain would never learn much from it in the 
 future. 
 
 Yet upon the whole, till in one of her crazy 
 moods Fortune smiled upon him, if he had not 
 done well, he had at least not done ill. His 
 father said he was too lazy to work — his 
 mother that he was too delicate to study. 
 There might be truth in both statements — 
 anyhow, while still quite a young man, he 
 abandoned the medical profession, which it had 
 been his own election to pursue, and went 
 abroad with a certain nobleman whose ac- 
 quaintance he had made at college, and who 
 really entertained what might be termed an 
 attachment for the gentle, dreamy Irish- 
 man. 
 
 * Desmond will never do anything in the
 
 Glenarva, 213 
 
 world,' remarked his father — * he has no back- 
 bone ; lucky he is not the eldest son.' 
 
 If he had been, Glenarva must have come 
 to him on the death of the speaker ; but he 
 was the youngest of three, and the property 
 then seemed as far from him as the crown of 
 England. 
 
 In due time it devolved upon Captain 
 Westley, E.N., to whom his father left a fine 
 fortune with which to keep up the old place. 
 If he had willed the fortune to go with the 
 place it would have been all right enough ; 
 but, as matters stood. Captain Westley settled 
 every penny he was possessed of upon his 
 wife, a certain Lady Emily Wingstone, and 
 dying without children, was succeeded by 
 Major Westley, who, having contracted an 
 unfortunate liking towards a person he could 
 not marry, for the sufficient reason she was 
 already provided with a husband, lived with 
 her and a numerous family at Glenarva in a 
 strict retirement, which none of his neighbours 
 strove to induce him to leave. 
 
 For over ten years visitors did not pass 
 through the gates guarded by the stone 
 animals, who sat resolutely on their haunches
 
 214 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 and lolled out their carved ton ones at all who 
 went that way. It was known Major Westley 
 only waited the death of the obdurate husband 
 to make the lady whose presence scandalized 
 the countryside Mrs. Westley ; and his brother 
 was expecting every day to hear of both 
 events, when quite diflferent tidings reached 
 him. The Major it was who died, leaving no 
 child capable of inheriting Glenarva ; and the 
 place, therefore, descended to Desmond — the 
 man with no backbone, and no money inde- 
 pendent of the estate, except a hundred and 
 fifty pounds a year, in which, in accordance 
 with his father's ridiculous testamentary dis- 
 position, he had only a life-interest ; at his 
 death it descended to whomsoever might at 
 the time be the owner of Glenarva. 
 
 It is unnecessary to say the first thing this 
 fortunate younger son did was to take a wife. 
 Needless to add she had no fortune, and that 
 she came of people who were not well ofi". It 
 was an old attachment — she and Desmond had 
 been engaged for years, and but for the chance 
 of the Major's horse throwing him while leap- 
 ing a stream he had often jumped across as a 
 boy, the engagement might have gone on for
 
 Glenarva. 215 
 
 ever, since certainly Mr. Westley was most 
 unlikely to make enough to] support a second 
 self. 
 
 As matters stood he was close on forty, and 
 the lady over thirty, when they vowed to take 
 each other for better or worse. Two years 
 later a daughter was born, whom, in the 
 delight of his heart, the proud father decided 
 to call Glenarva. 
 
 * She never can be Westley of Glenarva,* he 
 said to his wife, ' so she shall be Glenarva 
 Westley.' More adaptable than many an ab- 
 surd name, when the evil days fell upon her 
 father this baptismal appellation was capable 
 of judicious abbreviation. ' Glen ' did not 
 sound ridiculous, even when the young lady so 
 styled was shorn of wealth and rank, and had 
 sunk into a comparatively humble station. 
 
 * And it was for my sake he lost every- 
 thing,' the girl considered mournfully. ' It 
 was in trying to make a fortune for me he 
 spent his own.' 
 
 She could not have explained the matter in 
 fewer words. Knowing he would be unable 
 to leave his daughter Glenarva or any part of 
 it, and disdaining the simple expedient of lay-
 
 21 G A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ing a certain sum aside for her dot, Mr. 
 Westley, with that infatuation which may 
 indeed be regarded as a sort of madness, took 
 shares in a venture which was to make him a 
 millionnaire, and Glen an heiress. 
 
 In vain people who knew something of 
 business implored him not to be rash, to count 
 the possible cost before he embarked in so 
 hazardous an undertakino;. The man never 
 yet lived who did not believe himself wiser 
 than his counsellors. Mr. Westley would 
 listen to no warning or remonstrance, and it 
 was only when he saw grass growing in the 
 courtyard of what had been opened with a 
 great flourish of trumpets as the Monster 
 Bank for the North of Ireland, and received 
 an intimation of the first call, that he began 
 to doubt his own prudence, and rushed off to 
 consult the family lawyer. 
 
 The tale of the years that followed may be 
 guessed. First one luxury and then another 
 was dispensed with ; the establishment was 
 curtailed, grooms were sent about their 
 business, horses and carriages were sold, 
 company given up, gardeners discharged. 
 Glen's English governess dismissed, every ex-
 
 Glenarva. 217 
 
 pense cut down, a wild attempt made to re- 
 main on in the old house, though the very 
 lawn was let out for grazing. But no re- 
 trenchment could meet the drain of those 
 perpetually recurring calls. At last it became 
 necessary to find a tenant for the house and 
 pleasure-grounds, and it was then the whole 
 county beheld the unexampled sight of a 
 living Westley having to abandon Glenarva 
 to strangers and go forth, his daughter by his 
 side, into the wilderness of the world — into 
 the land called Poverty. 
 
 If there was comfort to be found in any- 
 thing at that time, Mr. Westley probably 
 extracted ii from the fact of his wife having 
 died and been buried before this crowning 
 humiliation came upon him. Her funeral 
 train wound up the long dark avenue where 
 the trees interlaced their branches overhead, 
 and the evergreens grew so tall and thick. 
 Over the crest of the hill her coffin had been 
 borne> with all fitting woe and pomp to the 
 family vault in the ruined church, amid the 
 desolate moors that stretched in all directions 
 far as the eye could discern. Not for her the 
 poor cottage and the rough service and the
 
 218 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 cruel pinching economy ; she at least died at 
 Glenarva, in a noble room, the windows of 
 which looked down upon a green sea of 
 waving boughs and leaves that danced and 
 glittered in the sunshine, and on the day of 
 her funeral the roads all around were alive 
 with carriages, and persons who followed the 
 hearse, anxious to show the last tribute of 
 respect to a very good lady, whose married 
 life had been but one long anxiety. 
 
 Glen was still a child when her mother died, 
 and nearly two years elapsed after that event 
 before the final crash which necessitated re- 
 moval from the old home. Though old for 
 her age, she failed to understand all that leav- 
 ing Glenarva would afterwards mean to her. 
 In early life egotism is so strong, it seems to 
 the young they must remain persons of im- 
 portance, no matter where they chance to be. 
 Moreover, women rarely feel the deep attach- 
 ment for place men entertain ; they do not 
 know the world, and they are far too prone to 
 believe a change of any kind must be a change 
 for the better. 
 
 Considering the life which lay before her, 
 it was well for Mr. Westley's daughter that
 
 Glenarva. 219 
 
 he had to leave Glenarva before the terrible 
 monotony, the enforced isolation, the utter 
 absence of evervthino^ bright, cheerful, and 
 hopeful, stamped itself upon her nature. They 
 went to a small house many miles distant 
 which belonged to Mr. Westley, and which, 
 chancing to be vacant at the time, seemed to 
 offer a harbour of refuge to the ill-fated 
 gentleman. It stood bare, without even a 
 tree to shelter it, half-way up a hill fronting 
 the sea. No grander situation could well be 
 imagined, and to Glen the transition from her 
 old home — shut in and smothered by greenery 
 — to the wide expanse of land and water, was 
 like passing from darkness to light — from 
 gloom to sunshine. 
 
 She, at all events, was happier by far in 
 that whitewashed cottage, where the roses 
 climbed over the windows and a thatched roof 
 defied the violence of the gales which so often 
 tore round the building, than she had ever 
 been in the grand house, with its long avenue 
 and stately portico and imposing front. For 
 the first time in her existence she found com- 
 panions of her own age — six turbulent lads — 
 with whom she played at ball, ran races, rode
 
 220 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 shaggy ponies unshod, ungroomed, half-wild, 
 and wholly untrained, like themselves. They 
 galloped them along the sands and over the 
 hills ; they had a boat, in which a man would 
 have thought himself mad to peril his exis- 
 tence, but that always brought the young 
 scapegraces safe back to shore, though they 
 had to bale out the water almost incessantly ; 
 there was no game those lads played in which 
 they failed to instruct Miss Westley, no place 
 they went to that they did not desire her 
 company. Before six months were over she 
 looked and w^as a different creature. If Mr. 
 Westley had only known a tenth part of the 
 perils she ran, of the hairbreadth escapes she 
 could have told him about, of the chances of 
 drowning she gave herself, of the headlong 
 rides across country, of the steep cliffs climbed, 
 of the caverns explored, of the rapid streams 
 traversed by means of slippery stepping-stones, 
 of the treacherous rocks visited at low w^ater 
 in search of dulse — he could never have en- 
 dured the anxiety ; but, absorbed in the con- 
 templation of his misfortunes, utterly broken 
 and wretched, he saw nothing of what was 
 really going on, and felt glad his daughter
 
 Glenarva. 221 
 
 could find some amusement which brought a 
 colour to her cheeks and a light to her eyes, 
 and made her happy and cheerful at home 
 — merry she could not be in his presence. 
 When out with the boys she laughed as 
 loud and as long as they ; but all idea 
 of laughter died within her when she 
 looked at her father's sad face and drooping 
 figure. 
 
 To him the mean cottao-e, the desolate land- 
 scape, the raging sea, the howling tempests, 
 were constant reminders of a state and a 
 place to which he could return no more for 
 ever. For his daughter the breezy walk, the 
 narrow path on the very verge of some tre- 
 mendous precipice, the exhilarating canter, the 
 dangerous sail with far too much canvas 
 crowded, and one gunwale generally under 
 water. For him only an armchair by the turf 
 fire, or a saunter in the sun, with the memory 
 of trouble behind and the expectation of trouble 
 in store. 
 
 It is not too much to say he hated his new 
 home — that when in the morning he looked 
 out over that expanse of desolate sea or still 
 more desolate land, his heart sank within him
 
 222 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 at the idea of having to pass another long idle 
 day amid such surroundings. 
 
 But when Glen was about fifteen there came 
 on her suddenly a mighty change. It was 
 wrought almost in a day, and it was caused 
 by a perfect comprehension of her father's 
 position. Some one said he was breaking his 
 heart ; another hinted things were not yet 
 at the worst with him. Then the girl 
 asked in a few minutes more questions about 
 their reverse of fortune than she had put 
 in her life before. Nor were they at the 
 worst, she found. At some not remote period 
 they might not even have money enough to 
 buy the little they required ; further, it was 
 quite certain that sooner or later she would 
 have to earn her bread. 
 
 For hours after she went to bed on the 
 night when her eyes had been opened, 
 Olenarva Westley lay in the moonlight wide- 
 awake. What could she do ? If she had 
 been a man there were fifty things to which 
 she might have turned her attention ; but 
 being only a woman, which way would it be 
 best, or indeed possible, for her to face the 
 world ?
 
 Glenarva. 223 
 
 At length she rose, and, crossing to the 
 window, looked out. Beneath her lay the 
 ocean, calm as a sleeping child ; in the offing- 
 one white -sailed vessel appeared sleeping 
 too. 
 
 The moon shone calmly down upon the 
 water and traced a bright pathway, as it 
 seemed to her fancy, across the tide. All 
 thought is but the offspring of some previous 
 thought ; all invention only the outcome of a 
 former plan. As the flower is contained in the 
 seed, an apparently sudden project has been 
 growing in silence to maturity ; as the infant 
 lying in his cradle will one day be represented 
 by a stalwart man, so every purpose and exe- 
 cution of our lives has had its hour of uncon 
 scious babyhood. When we see the result we 
 are apt to forget there must of necessity have 
 been a long time of growth. For a year the 
 whole forces of nature are at work to perfect 
 a single leaf, and which amongst us can 
 tell the length of time even one solitarv 
 idea has been germinating before it takes 
 
 definite form and substance before our 
 es ? 
 For many a long day Glenarva Westley 
 
 eyes ?
 
 224 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 thought the idea which sprang into birth as 
 she looked out on the quiet sea and that broad 
 track caused by the glittering moonbeams was 
 one conceived under the spur of the moment ; 
 but in after years she comprehended how differ- 
 ently the matter actually stood. During the 
 whole of her young life there had never been 
 a time when to every look and tone of nature 
 she failed to respond with the deep sympathy 
 of an imaginative and poetical temperament. 
 The waving of the branches, the moaning of 
 the wind, the long dark avenue at Glenarva, 
 the rich hues of the summer flowers, the sound 
 of flowing water, the sweet scents that came 
 borne on the breath of gentle June — each one 
 of these things and a thousand more filled her 
 with an excpiisite delight, just as the sight of 
 a desolate graveyard touched some deep note 
 of sadness, and a long stretch of wintry shore 
 with grey waves breaking sullenly on the beach 
 awoke thouo;hts she could not have communi- 
 eated to anyone. 
 
 In fancy she had peopled each lonely scene 
 her eyes rested on. She dreamed of heroes 
 and heroines, of great deeds of courage, endu- 
 rance, devotion. Whilst at Glenarva she did
 
 Glenarva. 225 
 
 not live in the monotonous world by which 
 she was surrounded. Down the long corridors 
 of the past walked the men and women of 
 other days to greet the lonely girl, and accom- 
 pany her with their phantom presence. Amid 
 portraits limned by poets and artists long 
 mouldered into dust she wandered in imagi- 
 nation. Fair women and gallant gentlemen 
 smiled sadly down upon her as she passed. 
 Music, painting, romance — all had been train- 
 ing her for this end ; that she herself should 
 begin to struggle and labour, to see whether 
 she was really fit for any work, and if so, for 
 what. 
 
 ^ I will T\Tite,' she said, standing in a flood 
 of moonlight ; and, opening her little desk 
 there and then, she began. 
 
 Years and years afterwards she chanced to 
 come across two or three sheets of letter- 
 paper, on which were sentences traced in a 
 girl's unformed hand — only a few sheets, 
 yellow with time, and yet as she looked at 
 the few sentences traced in ink faded with 
 age, an epitome of her life seemed evolved out 
 of them. 
 
 What had she not hoped and believed then, 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 what had she not experienced and suffered 
 since ? Keversing the experience of Moses, 
 it was on the Promised Land of Morning she 
 gazed back, and the Wilderness of Evening 
 she saw stretching at her feet. 
 
 Nowadays, the smallest child has some idea 
 of 'how books are made;' but the schoolmaster 
 had not taken so many walks abroad at the 
 time when Glenarva Westley conceived the 
 idea that she w^ould add one to the already 
 lengthy list of authors, and she knew as little 
 about the ordinary details of the literary pro- 
 fession as any young lady even at that time 
 well could. It was fiction, of course, on which 
 she concentrated the powers of her mind; not 
 a tale or a story, or a modest narrative on an 
 unpretending scale, but fiction in three-volume 
 form and constructed after an ambitious pat- 
 tern. As day succeeded to day, she piled 
 sheet on the top of sheet, and when recalled 
 from the ideal world to the workaday reality 
 surrounding her, did what she had to do, said 
 what she had to say, with a smile on her lips 
 w^hich perplexed many persons w^ho saw no- 
 thing to cause such continuous evidences of 
 cheerfulness, but that really owed its origin to
 
 Glenai'va. 227 
 
 a settled conviction she was getting on ad- 
 mirably, and would ere long be able to restore 
 the shattered fortunes of the then Westley of 
 Glenarva. 
 
 The fact may seem mournful, but it is true : 
 the girl knew no more really about the diffi- 
 culty of earning money in those blessed bliss- 
 ful summer days when she took to writing as 
 a profession, tlian she did about authorship. 
 To her inexperience anything and everything 
 seemed possible now she had found out her 
 talent, and meant to put it to usury. Amongst 
 the few plans she proposed to execute when 
 she had made her fortune and reinstated her 
 father in the house of his ancestors may be 
 mentioned rebuilding the Vicarage at Bally- 
 shane ; purchasing an organ for the church, 
 paying dear old Miss Grunley a salary for 
 playing it ; allowing ten pounds a year to each 
 poor family in the village — a sum she believed 
 would raise their condition from abject poverty 
 to luxurious affluence ; laying out a carriage- 
 drive to the cottage, and planting — climate and 
 Atlantic blasts notwithstanding — shrubberies 
 around it ; installing the old servant who at- 
 tended to their few wants as housekeeper, and 
 
 15—2
 
 228 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 leaving her in charge to keep all in readiness 
 for the return of ' the family,' when wearied of 
 the pomp and formality at Glenarva. Further, 
 in her mind's eye she saw the very boat she 
 meant to give to the hoys ; the gold watch 
 Ned should receive on his birthday ; the 
 presents she would purchase for the Vicar and 
 his wife when she went to Dublin to lay out 
 her money to the best advantage ; while she 
 never beheld the fishermen's nets hanging out 
 to dry, but she mentally ordered the material 
 to keep their shuttles busy through every idle 
 hour of the hard, honest life they led. 
 
 No achievement seemed to her impossible. 
 Had anyone suggested she might by way of a 
 finish clear ofi* the National Debt, she would 
 secretly have considered that more wonderful 
 results had been achieved. But what she 
 thought at that period nor man nor woman 
 knew. Not even to the boys — her friends, her 
 comrades — to no human being did she confide 
 her secret. If the world of letters had been 
 a hitherto undiscovered continent, and she the 
 Columbus to whose longing eyes its trees hung 
 with rarest fruits, its paths strewn with precious 
 stones, were alone revealed, she could not have
 
 Glenarva. 229 
 
 maintained a straiter and stricter reserve as to 
 the treasures she had found in the fairy-land 
 her feet were traversing. 
 
 The Vicar's sons could not think what had 
 come to Glen. In her eyes was the reflection 
 of a sun the very existence of which was un- 
 known to them — from mines they did not wot 
 of the girl was digging of the fabled gold that, 
 though at first it seemed so precious, turns to 
 ashes when required for use. 
 
 As a child she had been fond of planting her 
 own little garden with full-blown flowers which 
 drooped and withered within the hour ; and 
 through all that early time of literary effort 
 and non-success she was but repeating the old 
 experiment — setting out rootless hopes and 
 foncies, the glories of which dazzled her imagi- 
 nation and gilded with unnatural brightness 
 the waves of the deep dark ocean she had set 
 out to traverse, unwitting that from the un- 
 known shore for which she was blindly steering 
 there is no return. 
 
 She began her life-task in utter ignorance of 
 how to set about it. She did not know how 
 books were printed or published. She had 
 never met an author ; more, she was not ac-
 
 230 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 quainted with any person wlio ever had met 
 one. The dim ideas she entertained on the 
 subject were gathered from seeing at various 
 times some sermons yellow with age which the 
 Yicar laid aside after service, in a cupboard 
 in his study. Battered and illegible enough 
 were those ancient finger-posts ; still, they 
 seemed better to Glen's mind than a road with- 
 out any finger-posts at all. She wished she 
 could have talked to him on the subject which 
 lay so near her heart, but she felt as shy of 
 speaking about her writing as she might about 
 a lover if she had got one. 
 
 During the months which followed that 
 moonlight night, when in the travail of her 
 soul she brought forth the resolve which changed 
 the whole of a life which otherwise might have 
 been passed as governess, or companion, or wife 
 to some poor curate or struggling country 
 practitioner, she wrote enough to have filled, 
 had it ever been printed, several volumes. She 
 wore herself out, she fell ill, she got betteragain. 
 She gave up scribbling for a little while ; but the 
 madness was on her, and she had soon to return 
 to her little desk and the welcome solitude of 
 her low wide bed-chamber overlooking the sea.
 
 Glenarva. 231 
 
 For ever after there were scents, and sights, 
 and sounds, which affected Glenarva Westley 
 Tvith a strange, sad, faint sense of sickness 
 which caused her heart to die away within her ; 
 which brought, with the wash of the glittering 
 waves, with the wild rain pelting against the 
 windows, with wind-tossed white-crested billows 
 madly racing to find their death on a storm- 
 beaten shore, with the heavy perfume of 
 jasmine and the sweet breath of pallid roses 
 subtly stealing through the open casement, a 
 memory of whac she had lost in the struggle, 
 and a total, though it may be only temporary, 
 forgetfulness of all she had gained. 
 
 Ah me ! How little she prized the wild 
 flowers of her sweet free youth, while they 
 were still springing and blooming beside her 
 path ! and yet how fair they seemed when re- 
 membered amid gardens brilliant with the gay 
 colours in which Summer decked herself, or 
 fields where golden grain was ripening under 
 cloudless skies, or woods already — spite of the 
 glory of their autumnal tints — foretelling the 
 swift approach of the drear dark winter which 
 follows the brightest season man s life on earth 
 can know !
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 MR. DUFFORD. 
 
 LTHOUGH no one in Miss West- 
 ley's small 'world could be con- 
 sidered gifted with any extraor- 
 dinary powers of perception, still, those 
 about the girl must have been stone-blind had 
 they failed to notice the change which had 
 come over her. 
 
 Save at the Vicarage, public opinion was 
 almost unanimous in considering the transfor- 
 mation an improvement. Long previously every 
 woman in Bally shane had, standing over their 
 turf fires while they turned their bannocks on 
 the scorching griddles, or, seated on great 
 stones in front of their doors in the fine 
 summer weather, knitted stockings and patched 
 their husbands' heavy coats, arrived at the con-
 
 Mr. Dufford. 233 
 
 elusion that the only thing for Miss Glen to do 
 was to get married. ' And then the master — 
 God bless him ! — could live with her/ 
 
 A belief was entertained in the village that 
 eventually the Captain's widow — now remarried 
 and known as Lady Emily Wildersly — would 
 adopt ^liss Glenarva. It was known her lady- 
 ship had twice sent for the girl to stop with 
 her — once at Portrush and once in Dublin — 
 from both of which visits Teenie, servant at the 
 cottage, declared the young mistress returned 
 home 'just loaden with presents/ 
 
 When the Vicar's wife saw those presents 
 she said nothing, but she thought a great deal. 
 To her mind at all events it was clear Lady 
 Emily had no intention of acting the part of 
 fairy godmother to the Ballyshane Cinderella. 
 
 But other people were not so wise, and it 
 was considered a o-reat o'ain when [Miss Glen, 
 of her own accord, began to turn up her back 
 hair, and 'take kindly to her book.' 
 
 * The quality thinks a great deal of reading,' 
 remarked Miss Bella Xeill, the village dress- 
 maker, ' and Teenie says ^liss Glen is always 
 studying.' 
 
 ' She's losing her colour a bit,' one of the
 
 234 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 fishermen was rash enough to observe, thought- 
 fully. 
 
 * Why, that's all the better,' cried Miss Neill, 
 whose own complexion was somewhat muddy ; 
 * the gentlefolks don't like much red in their 
 cheeks. Lady Emily herself is more like a 
 marble statue than flesh and blood. She is 
 just a picture to look at.' 
 
 ' And it's time Miss Glen was taking thought 
 to herself,' capped another crony ; ' she must 
 be getting on for sixteen now^ ' 
 
 ' Turned sixteen,' said Miss Neill, rapidly 
 ' basting ' a seam as she spoke. 
 
 ' Turned sixteen I' repeated the other. 
 ' Well ! oh, then she is getting on — it's a mercy 
 she has taken up with her book at last.' 
 
 If the speaker, w^ho, being unable either to 
 read or write herself, could scarcely be con- 
 sidered a competent authority on the vexed 
 subject of education, had only imagined the 
 sort and description of book with w^hich Miss 
 Westley occupied her abundant leisure, she, in 
 common with every other human being round 
 and about Ballyshane, would have thought the 
 young lady ' ofi' her head.' 
 
 Those were not the days when, in remote
 
 Mr. Diifforcl 235 
 
 districts at all events, embryo authors were 
 patted on the back and taught to consider 
 themselves marvels of genius ; and perfectly 
 aware that even her most modest aspirations 
 would meet with no favour, the young author 
 kept her secret, and in the solitude of her own 
 mind dreamed her fancies, perfected her stories, 
 indulged her hopes, and bore her disappoint- 
 ments. 
 
 For already she had adventured many doves 
 out over the world's waste of waters, and 
 though they almost all returned to her with 
 terrible promptitude, not one bore an olive-leaf 
 of promise back with it. The agreement which 
 prevailed amongst editors and publishers as 
 to the worthlessness of what she sent them was 
 perhaps on the whole not remarkable, though 
 it seemed so to Glenarva Westley. 
 
 When her manuscripts were acknowledged, 
 it was ever in a note that contained a rejection. 
 The notes were differently worded, but the 
 sense was the same. Afterwards she marvelled 
 at the faith which, spite of these constant re- 
 jections, caused her to persevere ; but the fact 
 was that, having built up her great dream- 
 castle, she dared not of her own will sweep
 
 236 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 down turret and battlement, flying buttress 
 and stately keep, and return to the narrow 
 limits of a home which had once contented 
 her. 
 
 She carried her manuscripts to the nearest 
 town, where she posted them to London, and 
 Dublin, and Edinburgh, and to every other 
 likely address she saw advertised in the four- 
 days'-old Times newspaper the Vicar's brother 
 sent him, and w^hicli he immediately lent to 
 Mr. Westley. Trudging along the Queen's 
 highway with her parcels made up into one 
 good-sized package, enveloped in brown paper 
 to defy the curiosity of any eyes she happened 
 to encounter, Miss Westley might have been 
 regarded as ty^^ifying 'Hope.' Eeturning to 
 Ballyshane wdth cjuite as large a package, she 
 might have sat for ' Despair ;' but this feeling- 
 did not continue. 
 
 Disappointment obscured the cloud-palace 
 for a time, but the cloud-palace was there not- 
 withstanding ; ere long the sun of imagination 
 dispelled the mist wherewith some cruel cor- 
 respondent had encircled it, and then once 
 more pinnacles shone and vanes glittered ; 
 across the lowered drawbridge she walked
 
 Mr. Dufford, 237 
 
 into a spacious courtyard, whence, as fancy 
 suggested, she wandered into room after 
 room furnished with more than Oriental mao-- 
 nificence, and without the sliorhtest reoard to 
 cost. 
 
 Notwithstanding, it all told on her. The 
 fisherman was right ; she had ' lost her colour 
 a bit,' and with her colour had gone something 
 of her old high spirits. Still upon occasions 
 she went on mad expeditions with the boys. 
 Still half-wild ponies were ridden across the 
 moors. Still in the crazy old boat Glen 
 perilled her own life, and those as yet un- 
 written works for which the world did not 
 seem impatient; still dizzy heights did not appal 
 or breakneck paths deter her. But she had 
 changed — the boys were never weary of telling 
 her so. 
 
 ' What's on your mind, Glen V they would 
 inquire. ' Has Lady Emily asked you to go 
 and stay with her^again ? Pluck up courage, 
 and say you won't stir a step. What has she 
 ever done for you that you should do any- 
 thing for her V 
 
 * There is nothing on my mind,' the girl 
 answered one summer's day, a year after she
 
 238 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 had taken to writing, ' and we haven't heard 
 from Lady Emily for ages. Even papa thinks 
 she means really to cut us at last/ 
 
 ' And you are fretting about that, I suppose V 
 said Ned, the eldest, scornfully. 
 
 * I am not fretting at all,' protested 
 Glen. 
 
 * I know what's the matter with you,' broke 
 in one of the younger fry. 
 
 ' What is V demanded his five brothers and 
 Glen, in chorus. 
 
 ' She is in love with old Dufford.' 
 
 ' Oh, what a story, Hal !' expostulated the 
 young lady thus libelled. 
 
 ' It's not ; look at her — look how red she is ! 
 she could not be any redder if she had just 
 said to him, '* Ausk pawpaw ;" ' and Hal struck 
 a lackadaisical attitude as he imitated not so 
 badly Mr. Duiford's ultra-elegant mode of pro- 
 nunciation. 
 
 ' I have a great mind to box your ears, 
 Master Hal,' observed Glen, still covered with 
 confusion. 
 
 ' I do not care whether you do or not, if 
 you will only send me a good wedge of the 
 wedding-cake. His mawmaw will be able to
 
 Mr, Dufford, 239 
 
 get it at trade-price, no doubt. I liope it 
 may have plenty of almond stuff on the 
 top.' 
 
 After this, Glen's love for Mr. DufFord, or 
 Mr. Dufford's love for Glen, or the mutual 
 affection the pair entertained for each other, 
 grew to be a standing joke with the young 
 savages, as Mr. DufFord, in correspondence 
 with his mother, called the Vicar's sons. A 
 relative had offered the Ballyshane clergyman 
 a wonderful chance of seeing ' foreign parts ' 
 without expense ; and whilst he was availing 
 himself of an opportunity which, as his wife 
 said, might never occur again, Mr. Dufford, 
 who at the time happened to be looking out 
 for a curacy where there was little to do, 
 plenty of good society and a fair salary, 
 kindly consented to * lie on his oars ' at Bally- 
 shane. 
 
 * He was the son,' so said the boys, ' of a 
 rich hut honest tradesman of Cork.' He had 
 been to school in England, and taken his 
 degree at Trin. Col., Dublin. He thought 
 himself extremely handsome. He believed his 
 manners would have graced the Court of St. 
 James. He had plenty of money, and was * old
 
 240 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 enough/ as Ned once expressed the matter, ' to 
 be a great fool.' And to Ned's irreverent eyes 
 no doubt he seemed so. His calm life had 
 hitherto been passed amongst people as proper 
 and commonplace as himself. His talk was of 
 fashion and the grand persons he knew. To 
 those jibing young sinners at the Vicarage 
 his conversation proved an inexhaustible fund 
 of amusement. His ideas were reproduced for 
 Glen's gratification amid peals of laughter. 
 
 He could ride, but only the conventional 
 and regulation horse ; he could swim, he 
 averred, but declined to bathe off the rocks, 
 to which six grinning lads joyously conducted 
 him ; he would not put his foot in the boat ; 
 he would not be coaxed to climb the cliffs, 
 stating that a ' man who had passed his life in 
 study would turn dizzy where a goat or a mere 
 mountaineer might tread secure.' He was ex- 
 tremely particular about his food, and he 
 turned up his nose at the clerical jaunting-car 
 which had done duty at Ballyshane as long as 
 the Vicar himself 
 
 For the rest, he sang when he could get 
 anyone to accompany him ; and he felt no 
 hesitation in confessing he believed the way in
 
 Mr. Dufford. 241 
 
 which he took off his hat to ladies was the very 
 acme of chivalry and breeding. 
 
 "When first made acquainted with Miss 
 Westley he treated her in a lordly and distant 
 manner which delighted both Glen and the 
 boys. But when he grew more at home at 
 Ballyshane, and learned who Mr. Westley 
 really was, and understood a certain Lady 
 Emily was included amongst the Glenarva 
 gods, he unbent, and actually volunteered to 
 take the Times up to the cottage with his own 
 white hands, which looked as if they had 
 never done anything useful in their lives ; and 
 their looks did not greatly belie them. 
 
 M'd be ashamed to own such hands,' Ned 
 said hotly. 
 
 Glen laughed, and cast a quizzical glance at 
 Ned's, which certainly did not err on the side 
 of being too white, too soft, or too small. 
 
 * I like a hand which has some work in it,' 
 went on Ned, in clumsy explanation; 'but 
 there, all women are alike : they're fond of 
 dandies ;' and Ned turned away, his honest 
 eyes full of tears, and his boyish heart full of 
 vexation. 
 
 At times he really thought Glenarva felt a 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 partiality for the new-comer, to whom, sad to 
 say, he habitually referred as ' a whelp,' which 
 was not a respectful way of speaking concern- 
 ing a man on the wrong side of thirty, * accus- 
 tomed to society,' and standing very high 
 indeed in his own opinion. 
 
 Fact was, that when Mr. Dufford so far con- 
 descended as to ' take up the Westleys,* he 
 chanced one day in the course of conversation, 
 or rather of the monologue which usually 
 obtained during his visits at the cottage, to 
 mention, amongst other things true and false, 
 that he had met an authoress who had achieved 
 a considerable reputation. At the word. Glen, 
 roused from the apathy into which Mr. Duf- 
 ford's descriptions of town life and ' the best 
 society ' generally plunged her, plied him with 
 questions not merely concerning the lady in 
 question in particular, but authors and literature 
 in general ; and then it transpired that to his 
 other attractions the clergyman added the 
 ability to ' throw off a few^ little things,' which 
 had actually appeared in print, and which he 
 promised to send for from Dublin, if Miss 
 Westley would care to see them. 
 
 Bearing in mind that Miss Westley was an
 
 Mr. Dufford. 243 
 
 author herself — and an amateur author besides 
 — it will not seem surprising that the impres- 
 sion left on her mind when she did see Mr. 
 Duj6ford's effusions was how very much better 
 she could write herself ; but as this feeling in 
 nowise checked the interest she took in his 
 efforts, the curate naturally thought her inte- 
 rest in his stories meant an interest in himself, 
 and while he talked learnedly about printers 
 and publishers and authors, concerning all of 
 whom he knew literally nothing, he watched 
 Glen's rapt expression of countenance, and 
 decided that if Miss Westley were well dressed, 
 and debarred from association with those 
 dreadful boys, and placed where she would 
 have the advantage of mixing in polite society, 
 and refined by contact with his own superior 
 mind, she would not, on the whole, be so much 
 amiss. 
 
 He had seen worse girls, much worse girls, 
 who, though they had been to boarding- 
 schools, and instructed by the best masters, 
 and appeared at parties and balls, were not 
 one half so appreciative as Lady Emily's niece. 
 
 It was in this conjunction he spoke of Miss 
 Westley when he wrote his ' mawmaw ' a 
 
 16—2
 
 244 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 description of the girl he had found * running 
 wild by the seashore at Ballyshane.' He 
 knew the pleasant weakness of DufFord senior, 
 and that any title could withdraw him in a 
 moment from the contemplation of his butter 
 firkins. 
 
 Meantime Glen, utterly ignorant of the 
 honour Mr. Dufford had some idea of conferring 
 on her, appeared to the Vicar's sons somewhat 
 inconsistent ; for though she seemed to esteem 
 the clergyman's various talents as little as 
 they did, still there was no denying the fact 
 that she listened eagerly to his conversation. 
 
 ' I believe you are in love with the fellow,' 
 said Ned sharply. ' How you can read that 
 stuff of his puzzles me.' 
 
 ' Well, if it's any comfort to you, I don't 
 think much of it,' answered Glen, secretly 
 wondering what Ned's opinion would be of 
 her ' stuff.' 
 
 And so the summer glided on — days of 
 brightness, days of blue skies, days of cloud 
 and rain ; days, as seemed afterwards to the 
 girl, full of the jDurest happiuess ; days, had 
 she known it, which should have been very 
 precious to Glenarva, for they were the last
 
 Mr. Dufford. 245 
 
 she was to spend in that golden time of the 
 year and her own life at Ballyshane. 
 
 ' Glen ' — it was Ned who spoke ; Ned, lying 
 at the foot of a great rock, with his head rest- 
 ing on the girl's lap, and his face a little pallid 
 and twisted with pain — 'tell me something 
 honestly now. You do not care for Dufford, 
 do you V 
 
 ' No,' she answered — her own face was a 
 good deal whiter and more drawn than Ned's 
 — 'I do not like him at all.' 
 
 ' And you won't marry him, will you V 
 
 * He does not want me to marry him,' she 
 said lightly. 
 
 ' That's all you know about it. Glen, I'm 
 afraid I am a great nuisance to you ; put my 
 head down on the stone ; I shall do very well, 
 and you are only cramping yourself.' 
 
 ^ 1 am not cramped at all, but you must be 
 in agony. I wish Hal would come. Oh, Ned ! 
 what will your mamma say V 
 
 ' Why, that it serves me right, to be sure. 
 What else would you have her say ? How- 
 ever, it is better for me to be taken home ill 
 with a broken leg than Hal with a broken
 
 246 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 neck. I wonder if I shall be lame for 
 life/ 
 
 ' Do you really think your leg is broken, 
 Ned?' 
 
 ' Sure of it. Well, it will give old Grunley 
 something to do.' 
 
 Ned's statement was quite true ; the cata- 
 strophe so long prophesied had come to pass 
 at last. In rushing over the Lonely Eeef — 
 as a jutting and dangerous promontory was 
 locally termed — to cuff Hal, who more per- 
 sistently than usual was seeking the nearest 
 way to destruction, Ned had slipped on some 
 seaweed and came dowTi with such a crash, 
 Glen felt assured he would never move again. 
 
 She flew rather than ran to the spot, to find 
 him vainly trying to rise, and striving to smile 
 up in her face, though his own was covered 
 with blood. 
 
 ' A near touch this time, Glen,' he said. 
 * Oh ! don't do that, Hal,' as the boy strove 
 to lift him ; * my leg is broken, I think. Kun 
 as fast as you can and get help ; tell them to 
 bring a gate or something. Eun now, and if 
 you see my mother, be sure to say I am not 
 much hurt.'
 
 3Ir. Dufforcl 247 
 
 ' Oh, Ned, Ned 1' cried Glen ; and then she 
 sat down on the sand, and . lifted his head 
 gently into her lap, and with her handkerchief 
 stanched the blood which trickled from a cut 
 in his head. 
 
 ' It mig;ht have been w^orse,' observed the 
 lad ; * it might have been you ;' and then he 
 lay still, bearing his pain silently, and speaking 
 a little at intervals, and at last relieving his 
 mind by putting that home-question concern- 
 ing DufFord the detested. 
 
 As a matter of course, Glen went every day 
 to the Vicarage to see how Ned was getting 
 on, and, perhaps equally as a matter of course, 
 Mr. Dufford seized every opportunity of walk- 
 ing back with her to the cottage. 
 
 For a short time Glen made no objection to 
 this arrangement ; but at last, when her com- 
 panion commenced to pay her small compli- 
 ments, and make little tender speeches, she 
 thought it w^ell to slip quietly out by the back 
 way, and so avoid the tete-a4etes she began to 
 find embarrassing. 
 
 ' He will soon be going now,' she thought 
 one evening, as she opened the yard gate and 
 tripped across the field beyond ; ' only two
 
 248 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 Sundays more, and I can go which way I 
 choose. Good gracious ! there he is. He 
 must have watched me as I left ;' and Glen, 
 with her cheeks aflame, stood at one side of 
 the dry ditch she was about to cross, looking 
 blankly at Mr. Dufl'ord, who, standing on the 
 other, and extending one of those faultlessly 
 white hands which stirred poor Ned's wrath, 
 said, with the smile of a seraph : 
 
 ' Alloiu me to assist you.' 
 
 * Oh, thank you,' answered Glen, ^ but I can 
 get over quite well myself.' 
 
 Which indeed, as a rule, she could do ; dry 
 ditches or ditches full of water, or ' gaps ' 
 filled up with rough stones, or openings 
 roughly made through thorn hedges, or 
 brambles, never having presented any insuper- 
 able difficulty in the way of Miss Westley's 
 pedestrian progress across country ; but on 
 the present occasion she was destined not to 
 fare so well. 
 
 Usually Glen w^ore dresses, as regards length, 
 better adapted for getting in and out of boats, 
 climbing headlands, and skipping over rocks, 
 than for what Mr. DufFord w^ould have called 
 drawing-room costume ; but ere she left home
 
 Mr. Dufford. 249 
 
 on that sunshiny afternoon she had donned a 
 muslin robe taken from among the olio of 
 oddities wherewith Lady Emily was good 
 enough to endow her, which, at the critical 
 moment, when in the act of springing up the 
 opposite bank, tripped her up so ignominiously 
 that if Mr. Dufford had not caught the wilful 
 young lady, she would have measured her full 
 length in the sandy, crumbly soil that slipped 
 away from under her as she stumbled. 
 
 * It is a very awkward place to get over,' 
 remarked Mr. Duflford, in bland apology for 
 her misadventure. ' You had better have let 
 me help you at first ; but you are so indepen- 
 dent, Miss Glen.' 
 
 Glen made no reply ; she was too angry 
 and too much ashamed even to attempt a 
 defence. She only looked down ruefully at 
 the skirt of the large -patterned, washed-out, 
 and hideously ugly muslin dress, which, in 
 addition to its former attractions, now boasted 
 a rent as lono; and wide — so it seemed to the 
 girl — as the ditch that lay behind. 
 
 ' Take my arm — pray do,' entreated Mr. 
 Dufford, in his most winning tone and best 
 
 English accent.
 
 250 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' Oh ! I could not possibly, thank you,' 
 said Glen, unceremoniously repossessing her- 
 self of the hand he had taken in his own. * I 
 must hold up my dress, you know,' she added 
 hastily, and with a good deal of confusion. 
 
 Mr. Dufford looked at the garment in ques- 
 tion, as if he did not see the necessity. 
 
 * There is no dust in the fields,' he observed, 
 as a general sort of proposition, applicable, 
 however, to the present case. 
 
 ' You would not believe, though, how grass 
 ruins muslin,' said Glen, desirous, doubtless, of 
 imparting useful information. 
 
 ' Does it really ? I shall remember that ;' 
 and Mr. Duflford smiled as he spoke, for he 
 had known ladies quite willing, more than 
 willing, to run the chance of so ruining even 
 costly dresses, for the sake of perambulating 
 with a delicate pearl-grey glove laid daintily, 
 yet tenderly, on the black sleeve of his own 
 clerical coat. 
 
 Quizzically he looked down at the rag — 
 thus he mentally styled poor Glen's borrowed 
 plumes — the girl was holding with both hands 
 out of harm's way ; then his glance w^andered 
 to the young face, framed in a shabby bonnet
 
 Mr. Diifforcl 251 
 
 which had suffered many things both by sea 
 and land, and then he said in a soft caressing 
 voice : 
 
 ' Do you know, Miss Glen, if the idea 
 were not too preposterous, I should almost be 
 tempted to imagine you had been avoiding 
 me lately.' 
 
 ' Should you V answered Glen faintly. 
 
 ' Yes, indeed,' he went on, delighted with 
 her manifest uneasiness, which he attributed 
 to anything rather than its true cause — a fear 
 of meeting one of the boys. 
 
 * Several evenings lately I had planned to 
 myself the great pleasure of walking home 
 with you — always, until now, to be disap- 
 pointed.' 
 
 As this was a statement which did not seem 
 to require an answer, Glen kept silence, in- 
 voluntarily, however, quickening her pace. 
 
 * Don't walk so fast, Miss Glen,' entreated 
 her companion. ' Surely there is no such great 
 need for haste ; pray take my arm.' 
 
 'I couldn't possibly,' repeated Glenarva, 
 appalled by the honour he desired to thrust 
 upon her ; ' you see I must hold up my dress ;' 
 and she clutched her gown as if the rag of
 
 252 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 muslin was the only thing left between her 
 and perdition. 
 
 Mr. DufFord glanced at the girl benignantly. 
 If her clothes were torn, if her bonnet were 
 battered, if her boots were thick, and her 
 hands encased in old thread gloves, such de- 
 fects could be easily remedied when he trans- 
 lated her to that superior state of life in which 
 he himself moved and had his being. 
 
 And she was really very nice, he decided, 
 watching the blushes coming and going on her 
 sunburnt face. Her voice sounded sweet in 
 his ears : the wild, free life had made her up- 
 right as a dart ; her carriage was easy ; her 
 movements, on the whole, save when she 
 tripped over Lady Emily's cast-off finery, 
 were not awkward. There was something to 
 be made of her. She had read ; she had 
 thought. Yes ; he could mould, and train, 
 and fashion her. It would be a gracious task, 
 a work of love, to cut Glen into the conven- 
 tional pattern, and make her a town young 
 lady, who might never have seen a pony, 
 steered a boat, or swung in the old swing with 
 the half-rotten rope ; or shaken down plums, 
 or eaten apples by the bushel !
 
 Mr. Dufford. 253 
 
 * The sea looks very lovely this evening,' a^ 
 last observed Mr. DufForcl in his best manner, 
 waving with an air of lofty condescension his 
 white hand, on which a ring glittered, towards 
 the scene spread below. 
 
 'Yes,' agreed Glen, stealing, as she an- 
 swered, a sidelong glance at Mr. DufFord's 
 well-brushed hat, superfine coat, trousers to 
 match, spotless boots, snowy shirt, and ena- 
 melled studs. 
 
 Not one of these items, harmless as doubtless 
 they were singly and collectively, had escaped 
 the criticism and censure of the boys, and it 
 certainly occurred to Miss Westley, as she 
 took in the clergyman's whole appearance, 
 that however admirably adapted he might be 
 to grace a town promenade, say to improve 
 the general aspect of Sackville Street, he was 
 not, artistically speaking, the right thing in 
 the right place as a central figure in the land- 
 scape he was good enough to admire. 
 
 Old Jim Bishop, for example, unwashed and 
 unshaven, in his long red cap, with his coat 
 ofi", his trousers tucked up, and his feet and 
 legs bare, going over the wet sands, carrying a 
 net over his arm, would have come out much
 
 254 A Struggle Jor Fame. 
 
 better in a picture than Mr. DufFord, with his 
 hlack wavy hair and trim whiskers and general 
 air of conventional prosperity and orthodox 
 respectability. 
 
 Glen, however, could imagine a man accus- 
 tomed both to courts and camps, who might 
 not have seemed so utterly out of keeping — 
 nay, she had actually beheld such a one, who, 
 calling at Bally shane on a spring morning, as 
 he came from the Giant's Causeway, was es- 
 corted by the Vicar to various points of 
 interest in the neighbourhood. 
 
 He had afterwards lunched in the wains- 
 cotted parlour she loved so much, and she 
 and the boys, unseen themselves, peeped 
 through the privet hedge at the tall command- 
 ing figure which strode down the drive ; and 
 talked for many a long day after about the 
 general's military bearing and warlike mous- 
 tache, and the scar that disfigured his face, 
 and the battles he had seen, and the fields he 
 had fought on, and the victories he had w^on, 
 and the courage he had never lacked. 
 
 No thought of joking or jeering amongst 
 those young sinners as they recounted the 
 veteran's deeds of daring. With bright eyes
 
 Mr. Dvfford. 255 
 
 and flushed cheeks they repeated their stories 
 o'er and o'er again, and, gathered together on 
 the rocks in a picturesque group, or squatted 
 around a bonfire fed with potato-haulms, told 
 how the man who had been at college with 
 their father, and sat under their roof and 
 broke bread at their table, rose from lieu- 
 tenant to captain and captain to major, and 
 fought his way upwards in lands beyond the 
 sea, which seemed to them in those days un- 
 real and beautiful as places in an Eastern 
 legend. 
 
 All this, suggested by that one swift look 
 at her companion, had passed through Glen 
 Westley's mind before Mr. Dufi"ord spoke 
 acrain. 
 
 . ' And I shall soon be leaving all this beauty 
 and peace behind,' he said sentimentally, as 
 though he did not in his heart detest the 
 country and all its ways, and love better the 
 rattle of one Dublin jaunting-car than the 
 many-toned music of the Atlantic waves. 
 
 ' Shall you V observed Glen. 
 
 She knew to an hour when he was going, 
 but did not feel herself equal to any other 
 original remark on the subject.
 
 256 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 * On next Friday week,' he explained. 
 * Alas r and he sighed in a manner which 
 might have brought tears to the eyes of any 
 properly educated young woman, 'I shall 
 carry many sweet and happy memories away 
 with me from Ballyshane.' 
 
 ' Dear me !' thought Glen, with a tinge of 
 regret ; * where can he have found them V 
 
 * And I want dreadfully to carry something 
 else away with me also,' he proceeded. 
 
 His tone was peculiar, and Glen looked up 
 at him in surprise. 
 
 ' "What is it V she asked. 
 
 * Cannot you guess V he said softly. 
 
 ' No ;' and Glen's thoughts took a rapid and 
 comprehensive summary of the few articles of 
 rarity or value possessed by the Vicar and her 
 father. 
 
 ' It's not the Chinese box, is it ? — or perhaps 
 you mean the petrified dog's head papa 
 showed you the other day V 
 
 ' It is something belonging to your papa, 
 but not the dog's head,' answered Mr. Duflford. 
 
 ' What can it be V puzzled Glen ; ' we have 
 so little ' 
 
 And then a look in Mr. Dufi'ord's face
 
 3Ir. Dufford. 257 
 
 stopped her wonder short, and all the blood in 
 her body, as it seemed to the girl, came rush- 
 ino; and tinoiino- into her cheeks. 
 
 ^Yes,' said the clergyman benignantly, and 
 as he spoke he took one of her hands, muslin 
 dress and all, between his own, and held it 
 tight ; ' it is that I want to carry away with 
 me ; a kind thought from your papa's daughter.' 
 
 * I am sure we should not think unkindly of 
 you, Mr. Dufford.' 
 
 Was it really she who had uttered these 
 words, or another ? The voice sounded to 
 Glen afar off. The sea was glittering and 
 dancing up and down before her eyes, the 
 headlands were spinning round ; she could not 
 see the grass under her feet or her companion ; 
 she felt a hot scorching sense of shame and 
 misery. Was she vexing herself about nothing, 
 or had Mr. Dufford in a second taken leave of 
 his senses '? What had she ever done that a 
 man should talk nonsense to her, and hold lier 
 hand so close she could not release it ? 
 
 ' Ah I but I want more than that — far more,' 
 said he, almost in a whisper, bending down 
 till his whiskers actually brushed her cheek. 
 
 A moment more and he would have kissed 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 A Struggle f 07^ Fame. 
 
 her ; but in that moment Glen snatched her 
 hand away, and put a good space between 
 them, and so averted the catastrophe impend- 
 ing. 
 
 ' I really must get home, Mr. DufFord,' she 
 panted out, as calmly as agitation and amaze- 
 ment would let her speak ; ' papa will be want- 
 ing his tea.' 
 
 ' I am very sorry,' answered Mr. DuiFord, 
 ' but I cannot let you go till I have said what 
 I want to say.' 
 
 She stood there, with the sea rippling in on 
 the shore below^ with the shabby bonnet 
 standing out in full relief against the soft 
 evening sky, with Lady Emily's old washed- 
 out muslin, still in its last moments retaining 
 some pretensions to fashion, trailing on the 
 short grass behind her, and yet with a dignity 
 in her girlhood and a reproachful expression 
 in her face which compelled Mr. DufFord to 
 keep to the distance she had set between them, 
 while she exclaimed : 
 
 * I do not know what it is you want to say, 
 but, whatever it is, I wish you would leave it 
 unsaid.' 
 
 * Matters have gone too far for me to do
 
 Mr. Dufford. 259 
 
 that, Miss Westley,' he replied. ' In justice 
 both to you and myself, having said so much, 
 I must say more. No, please don't go away ; 
 I am not coming near you. The dearest wish 
 
 — of my heart — Glen ' He broke off 
 
 suddenly, descending from his stilts, as he saw 
 by her eyes she was meditating flight. ' I love 
 you — I want to marry you — will you marry 
 me V 
 
 She looked at him with absolute incredulity. 
 It could not be real. She must be dreaming. 
 
 ' Marry you !' she repeated in her bewilder- 
 ment — ' marry you !' 
 
 The honour was too great, the boon he pro- 
 posed to confer too vast for her to instantly 
 grasp the glory and beauty of the lot offered. 
 She could not realize the seriousness of his 
 proposal, could not take in the length and 
 depth and breadth and height of such conde- 
 scension on the part of a man over w^hom 
 ' ladies had quarrelled ' ere then. 
 
 Well, he could not be vexed with feelings 
 so proper and so natural. He would be very 
 gentle with her ; he would give her time to 
 recover her scattered senses, to comprehend 
 he meant every word he said. He did love 
 
 17—2
 
 260 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 her : though she had been a tomboy she was 
 not unfeminine ; though she conformed to no 
 canon of beauty she was not bad-looking ; she 
 was spirited and cheerful and good company, 
 and came of an old stock, and had both con- 
 nections and friends possessed of influence 
 they would no doubt use for his advantage. 
 Money he knew he should have, position was 
 what he wanted, and 
 
 ' Mr. Dufi"ord,' said Glen, who was by this 
 time pale enough and calm enough to satisfy 
 any social requirements, ' don't you think you 
 had better forget what you said just now, and 
 go back to the Vicarage V 
 
 How charming it was ! She would not take 
 an ungenerous advantage of words perhaps 
 hastily spoken. In her modesty she felt he 
 could do far, far better than marry an ignorant 
 young girl, destitute of fortune, whose father, 
 having played at ducks and drakes with a fine 
 estate and handsome fortune, was forced to 
 hide his diminished head in a cottage little 
 more pretentious than those inhabited by the 
 Bally shane fishermen. He had never liked 
 Glen so much before ; he had never previously 
 imagined she fully appreciated the wide dif-
 
 Mr, Dufford. 261 
 
 ference in their positions. After all, she was 
 young and inexperienced, and though she 
 could ride wild horses she was not accustomed 
 to love-making, and his abrupt proposal had 
 frig;htened and astonished her. 
 
 ' My dear child ' — beautifully Mr. Duflford 
 considered he managed to blend in his manner 
 the dual character of pastor and lover — ' I do 
 not want to forofet. I wish to go forward. I 
 desire, when I return to the Vicarage, to carry 
 thither with me the memory of sweet looks of 
 encouragement, of kind words of hope,' and he 
 moved close to where she stood, and would 
 again have taken her hand ; but Glen, without 
 really changing her position, though in shrink- 
 ing from him she seemed to draw back a little, 
 said, in a tone and with a manner which sur- 
 prised the curate as much as he had surprised 
 her : 
 
 ' Do not do that, please, Mr. Dufford ; aud 
 I am very sorry to vex you, but I shall never 
 marry anybody.' 
 
 Mr. Dufford tried to laug;h, but the effort 
 did not prove very successful. 
 
 ' All young ladies say they will never marry,' 
 he remarked.
 
 262 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' I mean, however, what I say,' answered 
 Glen. 
 
 'That is nonsense,' expostulated Mr. DufFord. 
 * You must marry, you know ; and I am sure I 
 could make you happy. You need not give 
 me an answer now — not even before I leave 
 Ballyshane. I am quite content to wait, to go 
 away without another word, if you only say 
 you do not quite hate me.' 
 
 ' I hate no one, I hope,' answered Glen, *but 
 I cannot marry you.' 
 
 ' Why not V 
 
 * I have told you before — I shall never marry 
 anyone.' 
 
 ' But what are you going to do V he asked, 
 almost involuntarily. * If anything should 
 
 happen to your papa ' Then, feeling he 
 
 was treading on dangerous ground, he hesitated 
 and stopped. 
 
 ' You mean, I suppose, I should have no 
 money V supplied Glen. 
 
 ' Well, I confess that thought did cross my 
 mind,' answered Mr. Dufford ; ' and it would 
 comfort me — oh, so inexpressibly ! — if you would 
 let me place you beyond the reach of pecuniary 
 anxiety.'
 
 Mr, Dufford. 263 
 
 Glen shook her head. ' I shall never marry 
 at all,' she said, ' and I should certainly not 
 marry for money.' 
 
 * Or for love V supplied ^Ir. Dufford. 
 
 ' I am not likely to fall in love' — which the 
 curate felt to be a plain way of stating she had 
 not fallen in love with him. 
 
 Matters were looking anything but pleasant. 
 The turn affairs had so unexpectedly taken was 
 one for which Mr. Dufford was in no respect 
 jDrepared. It began to dawn upon him this 
 girl, this chit of a girl, who had seen nothing 
 of life or society, or men or women, or the 
 world, and possessed no money or position, 
 actually meant to refuse him. 
 
 Her words were nothing, but her manner 
 was serious. He knew Glen's manner, and he 
 could not doubt but that she really intended 
 to decline the hand he offered. 
 
 ' Let us walk on,' he said, awaking to the 
 consciousness that, being set upon a hill, their 
 figures must be visible from the beach were 
 anyone there to see. ' I spoke too suddenly,' 
 he proceeded, with a look in his face which 
 touched Glen, in spite of her own vexation. ' I 
 took you by surprise.'
 
 264 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 * Yes, I was surprised,' she answered. 
 
 * But when you have had time to think 
 quietly over what I have said ' 
 
 'Time canuot make any difference to me, 
 Mr. Dufford. I shall never marry.' 
 
 ' The English of which is, I suppose, you 
 will not marry me V 
 
 ' Or anyone else,' added Glen ; quite sure 
 in her own mind she was speaking the truth, 
 and laudably anxious to make her positive 
 refusal of Mr. Dufford's proposal less ungra- 
 cious by generalizing it. 
 
 * May I without offence inquire your reason 
 for saying this — that is, always supposing you 
 have a reason V 
 
 Glen looked at him askance, but she was not 
 offended — quite the contrary; the slight tone 
 of sarcasm in his question gave her assurance 
 that though this lover's temper might be ruffled, 
 his heart was not broken. No girl can associ- 
 ate constantly and intimately with a man for 
 months, and fail at the end of them to under- 
 stand some of his peculiarities ; and even had 
 this young lady been willing to remain blind 
 to Mr. Dufford's weak points, the A^icar's boys 
 were not likely to leave her in ignorance of the
 
 ilir. Dufforcl 265 
 
 fact that he was, as Ned concisely worded his 
 statement, ' Lrimming over with conceit and 
 folly.' 
 
 Instinctively she felt it was something not 
 much worth fretting herself about she had 
 w^ounded ; and accordingly, with more com- 
 posure than he anticipated, she answered Mr. 
 DufFord's question by explaining that for one 
 reason she never intended to leave her father. 
 
 ' And could you suppose,' said Mr. Dufford, 
 with a tender reproach in his fine eyes which 
 he brought to bear full upon Glen's sunburnt 
 face, ' that / should ever ask you to do such a 
 thing ? No; I trust he would always make our 
 home his. In my estimation it would be a 
 high privilege to minister to his declining 
 years, to surround him wdth comforts, to pro- 
 vide him with congenial and suitable society, 
 to regard him as my father as well as yours, 
 to study his tastes and feelings to the utmost 
 of my ability.' 
 
 Mr. Dufford intended this for a very telling 
 speech ; but it failed to touch Glen, w^ho only 
 murmured something about his being very 
 kind, but she did not think her papa would 
 like to live with anyone. 'And I know,' added
 
 266 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 the girl hastily, seeing her admirer about to 
 speak, ' that I should not. Papa and I are 
 going to stay alone together always/ she 
 finished decidedly. 
 
 * Oh !' said Mr. Dufford, and there was a 
 w^orld of meaning in this monosyllable as he 
 uttered it, but Glen failed to read w^hat he was 
 thinking of; indeed, she did not try. Her 
 only desire w^as to hurry on, and terminate the 
 interview as sj)eedily as possible. 
 
 Mr. DufFord did not, however, intend to let 
 the matter drop thus. When Glen thought 
 he w^as vanquished, he w^as really collecting 
 his forces for a fresh attack. 
 
 They w^ere now descending to the shore road 
 Miss Westley had so imprudently abandoned 
 when she skulked out of the Vicarage by a 
 back way, only to be ignominiously trapped 
 by the enemy she sought to avoid, and Mr. 
 Dufford felt no time should be lost in trying 
 to make another effective movement. 
 
 ' Surely,' he began in his suavest accents, ' we 
 need not walk as though we were training for 
 a match. You will not be tried by my com- 
 panionship much longer, if it is so disagreeable 
 to you. Sj^are me a few minutes, therefore, of
 
 Mr. Dufford. 267 
 
 your time, which I do not imagine is very 
 valuable.' 
 
 She made no reply except that involved in 
 slackening a pace which had, indeed, downhill 
 been almost breakneck. 
 
 * I need not ask if you are fond of your 
 father, Miss Glen,' began the curate. 
 
 ' 1 would not marry for his sake, Mr. Dufford, 
 if that is what you mean,' said Glen, who 
 really now felt herself at bay. 
 
 ' AYell, you certainly are one of the oddest 
 girls I ever met,' exclaimed Mr. Dufford. 
 (Glen's decided opinions on many subjects 
 which seemed quite out of the natural range of 
 thought for so young a person had ere now 
 amazed and amused him, but he was not pre- 
 pared for such a prompt expression of her 
 sentiments.) ' Why you should imagine my 
 harmless words held any hidden meaning of 
 the sort you impute to them I am quite at a 
 loss to imagine. You speak as if you had 
 spent your life in considering the question 
 of self-sacrifice in daughters — a question I 
 imagine, perhaps erroneously, can not possibly 
 hitherto have come within the scope of your 
 observation.'
 
 268 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 Had Glen spoken out, she could have told 
 Mr. DufFord this matter of marrying for the 
 sake of somebody else was one that in her 
 capacity as author she had considered fully and 
 exhaustively. 
 
 She had weighed it in the balance and found 
 it wanting. Love, also, she had put into her 
 mental crucible, and though she felt satisfied 
 this absorbing madness could never disarrange 
 the even tenour of her thoughts, she had ar- 
 rived at the conclusion nothing but love — and 
 that of the most vehement and enduring de- 
 scription — could justify marriage. 
 
 She believed there was a limit even to what 
 daughters ought to do for their parents, and 
 had long been satisfied that limit was passed 
 when, for the sake of providing food and 
 shelter, or even screening a father from dis- 
 grace, a girl was asked to wed a man she 
 detested. 
 
 This formerly merely abstract idea being, 
 at a moment's notice, presented to her in the 
 concrete, she had not the least difiiculty in 
 making up her mind, and in showing she had 
 made up her mind, that for the pleasure or 
 advantage of no human being would she become
 
 Mr. Dufford. 269 
 
 the wife of the gentleman who, for some to 
 her unaccountable reason, had taken a fancy 
 to her. 
 
 But Glen was not o-oino; to tell Mr. Dufford 
 the way she had arrived at this conclusion, and 
 merely answered that, having read about such 
 things, she felt it would be very wrong to 
 marr}' merely to provide a home for some one 
 who wanted it. 
 
 In those days the wording of Glen's sentences 
 sounded to herself quite unworthy of a writer ; 
 but this much at least could be said in their 
 favour, they did not as a rule err on the side 
 of ambiguit}'. 
 
 *I quite agree with you,' answered Mr. 
 Dufford, ' but I suppose you will concede there 
 is no reason whv, because a suitor brings o-ood 
 gifts in his hand, he is therefore to be sent 
 empty away. Come, dear,' he added, suddenly 
 ojettino; off his hig;h horse and alterinor his 
 tone, ' let us be reasonable. I do not ask you 
 for an answer now ; so on your side do not re- 
 fuse my offer without at least thinking about 
 me a little. I want to be your friend and 
 helper as well as your lover, Glen. I would 
 be a son to your father. Xo one can look
 
 270 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 upon him and fail to lament he should be so 
 utterly out of his sphere as he is at present. 
 It seems to me his affairs must have been 
 dreadfully mismanaged for such a total collapse 
 to have ensued. Now, my father, though he 
 did not rise from the ranks or commence life 
 with the few pence English people are so fond 
 of talking about, is a thoroughly business and 
 practical man. Give me the right to interfere 
 in your affairs. Say no more even than this, 
 " I will give you an answer to what you have 
 asked me at Christmas," and I can truthfully 
 say, that if money, or time, or energy can re- 
 store Glenarva to Mr. Westley, he shall be 
 back in the old place when next summer's 
 roses are in bloom.' 
 
 The girl was crying ; he had touched her at 
 last — touched the vein in her heart which bled 
 on the slightest provocation. 
 
 ' You will not be cruel,' went on Mr. Dufford, 
 who lacked wisdom and feeling; to let well 
 alone; ' you will give me the right to look after 
 your father's interests — darling !' 
 
 At this term of endearment Glen stopped 
 suddenly, and, with the fire of a sudden indig- 
 nation drying up her tears, turned upon her
 
 Mr. Dufford. 271 
 
 lover, and interrupted the flow of further 
 eloquence. 
 
 ' Mr. Dufford/ she said, ' I could never care 
 for you in that — that way ; and so please do 
 not think of trying to help papa. He — he 
 wouldn't like it. He may go back to Glen- 
 arva yet. I hope he will. I sometimes think 
 he may ; but if he does, it won't be by my 
 marrying — anybody. Besides,' she added, 
 thinking to clench the nail she had driven 
 home, * there is nothing in the whole world 
 could induce me to marry a clergyman. 1 
 should be miserable as a clergyman's wife — 
 utterly wretched. ' 
 
 * You would rather, I suppose, be running 
 wild about the country with a clergyman's 
 six unruly, ill-mannered sons,' observed Mr. 
 Dufford, whom she had at last stung in his 
 tenderest part. 
 
 ' Yes, I w^ould far rather,' retorted Glen, 
 getting up speed again, and walking along the 
 splendid high-road — which, by reason of the 
 limestone underlying it, shone before them 
 like a white, glittering thread of light — at a 
 pace which did much more credit to her pedes- 
 trian powers than to that feminine weakness
 
 272 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 and Yielding; softness of character which Mr. 
 DufFord considered the crowning graces of a 
 woman's nature. There had been such irrita- 
 tion in her tone that the clergyman thus dis- 
 paraged felt it would be useless to imperil his 
 prospects by further remark, and accordingly 
 they walked rapidly on, side by side, till they 
 reached the rude gate, made of unbarked fir, 
 which gave admission to Mr. Westley's present 
 home. Mr. DufFord had not again spoken, 
 and it is almost unnecessary to add that Glen 
 had maintained a discreet silence. 
 
 Now, however, standino; ag;ainst the closed 
 gate, which was only fastened by the primitive 
 expedient of passing a noose of rope over one 
 of the fir rails and the post, she said, extend- 
 ing her hand in token at once of amity and 
 farewell : ' I am sorry you have come so much 
 out of your way.' 
 
 * Not at all,' he answered, ' not at all ;' but 
 he did not take her ofi'ered hand or make any 
 movement as if to part. 
 
 Glen looked surprised, and stood embar- 
 rassed : she thouo'ht she had told him to go as 
 plainly as she well could, and as he did not 
 take the hint, she was at a loss how to act.
 
 Mr. Dufford. 273 
 
 There ensued an awkward silence. Glen 
 would not ask him in, yet she felt unequal to 
 passing through the gate and leaving him out- 
 side. 
 
 Alexander-like, Mr. DufFord cut the knot of 
 this difficulty. Lifting the loop, he said, as 
 he thus enabled her to enter the roug;h cart- 
 road leading up to the cottage : ' I will trouble 
 you with my company for a few minutes 
 longer, Miss Westley ; I should like to pay 
 my respects to your father.' 
 
 It was the last thing Glen at that moment 
 wished him to do, but she could not well 
 make any objection to so moderate a desire. 
 Accordingly they picked their way over the 
 coarse black and white gravel as they followed 
 the course of the path which ascended to the 
 cottage. 
 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 
 
 T did not take Miss Westley long to 
 pull off her bonnet and dress, fill a 
 huge basin full of cold water, and 
 — in defiance of repeated warnings from Miss 
 Neill that * she would ruin her complexion,' 
 * bring out a rash,' ' destroy her skin,' and so 
 forth — bury her face in its depths. 
 
 Then she brushed and smoothed her rufiled 
 hair, slipped on a cotton gown Teenie had not 
 ten minutes previously laid over the back of a 
 chair — clean, stifi", freshly ironed — fastened a 
 snowy collar with the one article of jewellery 
 she possessed, a small gold brooch ; and 
 thus 'prepared to meet anyone,' ran down- 
 stairs, into the parlour, where the tea equipage
 
 Father and Daughter. 275 
 
 was already set out, and everything ready for 
 Glen to take her place as mistress of the cere- 
 monies. 
 
 As a matter of course, Mr. Westley had 
 immediately invited the curate to share their 
 meal, and when the daughter of the house 
 entered the room, she found the pair convers- 
 ing as easily and pleasantly as though no 
 question of marriage had been raised concern- 
 ing herself by anyone. 
 
 ' If he says nothing about it to papa, I am 
 very sure / shan't,' considered Miss Westley, 
 taking her seat and looking prim enough to 
 suggest to Mr. Dufford's mind the idea that 
 after all his lady-love was somewhat of a 
 humbug. 
 
 The correct thing, he felt, would have been 
 for her to remain in the solitude of her 
 chamber, and send down a message to the 
 effect she had a bad headache and begged to 
 be excused. 
 
 To take an offer of marriage, and such an 
 offer, as coolly as she might the suggestion of 
 a second helping of pudding, was, Mr. Dufford 
 felt, only to be accounted for on the ground 
 that Glen was not merely a little savage, 
 
 18—2
 
 276 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ignorant of les convenances, but that the girl 
 really could not grasp the extent of the 
 honour and advantages he proposed to confer 
 upon her. 
 
 She was young, of course, and many allow- 
 ances must be made ! Further, he felt he had 
 committed a mistake in addressing her first. 
 He should previously have spoken to her papa, 
 but then it had never occurred to him Glen 
 would be other than delighted with his offer. 
 He had felt confident for him to ask was to 
 have. Truly a man never can tell what is in 
 store when a woman is concerned. Instead of 
 kisses, for instance, Mr. Dufford got, figura- 
 tively speaking, a slap in the face. Glen's 
 words, it is true, were not many ; but contain- 
 ing as they did a rejection, by no means 
 hesitating or half-hearted, they stung like the 
 lash of a whip. Well, all he could do now 
 was to strive to repair his error, get the father 
 on his side, and then, backed by the paternal 
 approval and authority, take an opportunity of 
 again attacking the daughter's heart. 
 
 Glen very speedily gave the chance he 
 wanted for an uninterrupted tete-a-tete with 
 Mr. Westley. The moment tea was over, and
 
 Father and Daughter, 277 
 
 Teenie — clad in a stuff gown, with, a small 
 plaid shawl pinned decently across her 
 shoulders, a fair white apron, and a snowy 
 cap with picturesque borders carefully goffered 
 encircling her sad but contented old face — had 
 removed the tray. Miss Westley, without a 
 word of apology, left her admirer to do his 
 best or his worst in the way of reconciling Mr 
 Westley to him as a suitor. 
 
 The girl knew perfectly well what he wanted, 
 and felt if she did not voluntarily quit the 
 room, Mr. Dufford in dulcet accents would beg 
 her to do so. 
 
 ' I am not at all afraid of what papa will 
 say,' thought Glen ; but she was a little 
 nervous for all that, and she grew more nervous 
 as time went by, and the even murmur of 
 earnest and continuous conversation ascended 
 from below. 
 
 ^ I wonder w^hat they can be finding to talk 
 about all this while,' she considered. ' Now, 
 whatever he says to papa will make no differ- 
 ence to me. I don't like him, and I never 
 shall ; and I don't trust him, and — oh dear, I 
 wish he would go !' 
 
 She had opened her desk and tried to ^rate,
 
 278 A Struggle f 07' Fame. 
 
 but for once that solace failed lier. She re- 
 read a note which in the morning seemed 
 intensely laudatory and gratifying, but even 
 words of praise penned by a gentleman who 
 spelled ' excellent ' with one ' 1 ' failed to com- 
 fort her. She paced her room restlessly ; she 
 stood with her arms resting on the window - 
 sash thrown wide, and looked, while the roses 
 softly touched her face, over the sea and the 
 land — both of which, as they lay spread out 
 before her eyes, were soon to become memories 
 to Glenarva Westley. 
 
 * If I am to do anything, I must do it soon,' 
 she thought, with the impatience of youth, 
 which thinks every minute spent in waiting is 
 a year lost. ' I wonder — I wonder — I wonder 
 what is the way to get into print ; if I could 
 once have anything published, I am sure I 
 could make money — heaps of it ;' and then 
 the dear delightful dreams of all she would do 
 w^hen very, very rich came again to enchant 
 her imagination. Glenarva ! wealth ! con- 
 sideration I There was not a cloud in the 
 azure of the heaven she looked on with the 
 eyes of her mind — though over the real world 
 lying at that minute around, twilight was
 
 Father and Daughter, 279 
 
 creeping down, and sea and land, bay and 
 headland, were fading softly and gradually 
 from her sight. 
 
 At last the sound of movement in the room 
 below ! The door opened — she heard her 
 father's voice in the hall — he was speaking to 
 Mr. Dufford in the porch covered with 
 creepers ; she drew back from the window, 
 still however watching and listening eagerly. 
 Mr. DufFord w^as saying something, then a 
 step crunched over the gravel, and the curate 
 went out into the gathering darkness — alone. 
 
 Her father did not accompany this visitor 
 to the outer gate, as was his pleasant wont. 
 Even by so slight a token she knew the inter- 
 view had ended as she could wish, but still 
 she did not go down immediately. She drew 
 a chair to the window, and sat down for a 
 little while. Had Mr. Dufford really spoken ? 
 Yes, of that she felt sure ; would her father 
 name the matter to her ? Glen could not tell. 
 They had ever been parent and child rather 
 than friend and friend — even concerning his 
 troubles he had been reticent towards her ; it 
 was from others Glen knew the full extent of 
 their misfortunes, and understood she w^ould
 
 280 A Struggle f 07^ Fame. 
 
 some day, if she lived, have to support her- 
 self. 
 
 The moon had risen ere the girl gathered 
 courage sufficient to enter the quiet parlour 
 where her father had, since Mr. DuiFord's de- 
 parture, remained sunk in reverie. 
 
 * All in the dark, papa !' Glen exclaimed, as 
 she entered. 
 
 'No, dear; there is the moonlight,' he 
 answered, pointing to the cold silvery beams, 
 that seemed to thrust the roses aside to fall 
 clear and unearthly upon the floor. ' Come 
 here, my child,' he went on, as she lingered in 
 the shadows, ' and let me look at you. I am 
 told/ he went on, as he took her face and held 
 it framed in both his hands, 'that my little 
 girl is almost a woman, old enough to be 
 asked in marriage.' 
 
 ' Papa, papa !' and the girl clung to him 
 passionately. 
 
 * It is now,' he said, tenderly touching the 
 head laid on his bosom, ' that you miss your 
 mother, my darling.' 
 
 ' No, no !' 
 
 ' You want some one to talk to fully — to 
 speak all your thoughts to.'
 
 Father and Daughter. 281 
 
 ' You — you, papa,' she cried, ' if you will 
 only let me.' 
 
 ' Let you ? oh, my dearest Glen 1' 
 
 There ensued a minute's silence while they 
 stood clasped in each other's arms. Then Mr. 
 Westley, gently disengaging himself from his 
 daughter's embrace, said interrogatively : 
 
 ' Xow, Glen ' 
 
 ' Yes, papa dear.' 
 
 " What have you to tell me V 
 
 ' What do you want to hear V 
 
 ' 1 scarcely know, my child. I am told you 
 are possessed of will sufficient to say " Xo " to 
 a man who, I believe, means very fairly by 
 you. Is that so. Glen V 
 
 ' Yes, papa — you are not vexed with me, are 
 you V 
 
 ' My love, it is your own future you have to 
 give or withhold. You are sure you could not 
 marry Mr. Dufford, dear — sure and certain V 
 
 ' Most sure and most certain,' answered the 
 girl. ' What did he say to you, papa V 
 
 ' He said a great deal,' answered Mr. Westley 
 thoughtfully, ' which had little or nothing to 
 do with the real matter in hand. Because the 
 real matter is, Glen, whether you like him or
 
 282 A Struggle f 07' Fame. 
 
 could like him. If you do not and could not, 
 there is no more to be said.' 
 
 ' Do you wish me to marry him, papa T 
 
 * I will answer your question, dear, when 
 you tell me if you wish to do so.' 
 
 ' No — papa — no — I don't like him. I never 
 
 shall like him !' 
 
 ' Then there is no more to be said.' 
 
 ' Oh, papa, if you really wanted me to 
 
 marry him, there might be ever so much to be 
 
 said !' 
 
 * But I don't. Glen. Good heavens, no ! 
 Only ■ 
 
 * Only what V she questioned. 
 
 ' I was wondering,' he said sadly, ' what my 
 darling's future would be.' 
 
 Then in a moment the girl's carefully 
 guarded secret escaped her. 
 
 ' I think I can make a future for myself,' 
 she cried, with a trembling exultation in her 
 voice, and then she told him all. 
 
 In the after-days neither could have indi- 
 cated the form or mode in which the knowledge 
 was given and received ; but Glen's explanation, 
 though hurried and excited, was clear, and Mr. 
 Westley's intelligence acute.
 
 Father and Daughter. 283 
 
 * Write !' he repeated. ' Is it possible ?' 
 
 To Glen it was so possible as to be quite 
 certain. Had not she proof positive upstairs 
 in piles of rejected manuscripts ? Had not 
 she letters from editors and publishers by the 
 score, politely regretting their inability to 
 avail themselves of the tales she offered ? 
 
 Had she not also that precious note saying 
 her 'story was very excelent ; and adding the 
 honest but, under the circumstances, perfectly 
 unnecessary caution, 'but if you decide to 
 jDublish at your own expense, you must not do 
 so on my judgment alone ^? 
 
 This ad\dce, which in Glen's judgment was 
 superfluous, tried the girl's faith a little, though 
 Ned would have explained her correspondent 
 was in his orthography merely following a 
 good Biblical example. 
 
 The boys were in those days far ahead of 
 Miss Westley in all Scriptural knowledge. 
 
 In Chronicles, and indeed in all other por- 
 tions, they could, so Ned declared, 'beat her 
 in a canter ;' and therefore Glen really did not 
 know the gentleman who professed such ad- 
 miration for her talents was merely in the one 
 case following old fashions, and in the other
 
 284 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 forestalling the modern innovation of dispens- 
 ing with doubles. 
 
 Still the praise, however spelt, was grateful; 
 and the authoress felt delighted to place 
 this testimony of what others thought of the 
 productions she deemed exquisite in her 
 father's hands. 
 
 ' You see, papa,' she said, ' not one of them 
 says I have no ability.' 
 
 ' But, my dear, not one of them says he will 
 take your manuscript.' 
 
 ' That is true,' she sighed, ' but ' — uncon- 
 sciously paraphrasing Disraeli's famous utter- 
 ance — ' they will be glad some day to take any- 
 thing I offer.' 
 
 •' There is nothing like hope,' remarked Mr. 
 Westley, in the tone of one who had never 
 hoped in all his life. 
 
 ' There is nothing like perseverance, papa,' 
 amended Glen, ' and I have made up my mind 
 to succeed. Oh ! if I could but once see a 
 publisher, I think I might get him to print 
 something ; and a start is all I want — I feel it 
 is aU.' 
 
 Her father smiled. ' As a rule, dear, a start 
 is what most people require. You are but ex-
 
 Father and Daughter. 285 
 
 pressing the old idea of " /^ jyremier ]pas " in 
 another form.' 
 
 Mr. Westley said this pleasantly, yet with a 
 certain doubtfulness of manner which Glen 
 fancied, and truly, was caused by his strong 
 impression there were several other small 
 items needful for his daughter's success besides 
 a start. 
 
 * Should you like me to read you some of 
 the things I have written V she asked eagerly, 
 anxious at once to commence the task of con- 
 version. 
 
 'Not to-night, my love/ answered Mr. 
 Westley, meanly deferring the evil day, and 
 perfectly unconscious he was in so doing only 
 following the lead of all friends and relations 
 happily able to follow the bent of their own 
 inclinations. ' I must leave a letter out before 
 I go to bed for Teenie to send to the Vicarao-e 
 in the morning.' 
 
 ' To Mr. Duflford V 
 
 ' Yes, Glen.' 
 
 ' To tell him ' 
 
 ' That, as he wished, I have talked the 
 matter over with you, and find you are not 
 disposed to alter your decision.'
 
 286 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 'Did he mention anything to you, papa, 
 about his father being able to get you back 
 Glenarva V 
 
 ' Yes ; amongst other subjects he touched 
 on that.' 
 
 ' And what did he mean V 
 
 ' I don't know, my dear ; and I am in- 
 clined to think he did not know himself,' 
 
 ' He said your affairs must have been mis- 
 managed.' 
 
 ' It is a natural idea. Lookers-on always 
 fancy they see more of the game than the 
 players.' 
 
 ' Then you do not think anything that could 
 have been done was left undone V 
 
 * For my benefit — no. The ruin effected 
 has been tolerably complete ; but if my lawyer 
 had chanced to be dishonest, we should have 
 found ourselves a good deal worse off even 
 than we are. Mr. Dufford, senior, may be a 
 very wise man — ^judging by the money he has 
 made, I am sure he must be — but Solomon 
 himself could not undo the evil wrought by 
 my own folly, and under no circumstances 
 should I feel inclined to " lay the state of 
 affairs," to quote our friend the curate, before
 
 Father and Daughter. 287 
 
 his father. It is one thins; to be bes-g-ared, and 
 another to flaunt one's rags and tatters in the 
 public street.' 
 
 * Mr. Dufl'ord must have put papa out 
 dreadfully,' Glen decided as she went up to 
 her room that night, leaving Mr. Westley in a 
 solitude which the unwonted exertion involved 
 in writing one important letter seemed to re- 
 quire, and in this surmise she chanced to be 
 quite correct. 
 
 Mr. Westley had been greatly ' put out.' 
 After all, it is not pleasant for a shy, sensitive 
 nature to hear hard truths hurled at it even 
 by a good-looking curate. Mr. Dufford deter- 
 mined not to jeopardize his chances by over- 
 delicacy, and failing to impress upon his 
 lady-love's father the full extent of the 
 Westley impecuniosity, dealt some very tell- 
 ing blows as he proceeded with his argu- 
 ments. 
 
 Not a shilling owned by the elder Dufiford, 
 not an acre of land or house he possessed, was 
 forgotten. Mr. Westley was literally pelted 
 with sovereigns ; he felt during the interview, 
 indeed, smothered in bank-notes. He was not 
 even left the slight satisfaction of believing
 
 288 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 himself better born than this clerical aspirant 
 for his daughter's hand. When Mr. DufFord 
 began to ' get up in the world/ he felt it in- 
 cumbent to look out for a decent family-tree, 
 which he easily got by paying for it ; and as 
 this tree had grown and ramified with the 
 growth of his riches, it was now of such goodly 
 size it could bid the Westleys and half a dozen 
 other of such unillustrious families come and 
 roost on its branches. 
 
 Mr. Westley had not enjoyed the acquaint- 
 ance of Mr. Dufford, junior, for so long a time 
 without hearing frequent reference made to 
 his descent ; but matters ha vino* now arrived 
 at a point when the curate felt it necessary to 
 marshal all the family forces and pass them in 
 review before the eyes of Glen's father, he 
 raised every apocryphal ancestor out of his or 
 her grave, and paraded the whole host for the 
 benefit of a most patient listener. 
 
 In reply, Mr. Westley said nothing — indeed, 
 what could he say ? His guest's glib tongue 
 confused rather than enlightened him ; and at 
 the end of over an hour's diligent attention, 
 the only three facts he felt thoroughly able to 
 grasp w^ere that his unobtrusive poverty had
 
 Father and Daughter. 289 
 
 been intruded on and insulted — that opposite 
 to him sat a man whose heart was set on 
 marrying his daughter, and that Glen had with 
 rare good sense refused to have anything to 
 do with him. 
 
 But yet, what was to become of the girl if, or 
 ratherwhen anything — asMr.DufFord expressed 
 the contingency. ' happened to her father ' ? 
 
 F©r the first time he saw her — as the curate 
 was o'ood enouo;h to draw a vio-orous sketch 
 of the future orphan — penniless, forlorn, 
 ignorant of the world, unfitted both by educa- 
 tion and temperament to battle with it — his 
 poor, dear Glen ! his child, he had lost his all 
 in hoping to make an heiress. 
 
 He was cut to the very heart. Though he 
 did not know it, Mr. Dufi:brd had drawn a 
 knife across veins that throbbed with deep ab- 
 sorbing love for his daughter. 
 
 The sun which illumined for Glen the 
 gloom of Mr. Dufford's proposals had not 
 yet arisen on her father's horizon ; and even 
 now when he stood in the full blaze of this 
 new knowledge, it failed to show him a way 
 out of the incertitude of his position. 
 
 He was not stricken dumb with delioht at 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 the prospect of his daughter entering herself 
 in the race for fame. Things which of late had 
 vaguely puzzled him about her were now clear ; 
 but he felt doubtful whether the fancy she had 
 taken might not, instead of mending matters, 
 make them worse. 
 
 However, let what would come, he could 
 not regret that she had refused Mr. DufFord. 
 The double character in which that gentleman 
 offered himself, as son and son-in-law, fairly 
 appalled Mr. Westley. ' Yes, it is better Glen 
 can't fancy him,' he decided; and finally, taking 
 pen in hand, he wrote a few courteous lines to 
 the rejected suitor, who, when he read them, 
 felt as he had never done before in the whole 
 course of his life. 
 
 To remain at Ballyshane after what had 
 occurred was impossible. He did not in the 
 least degree understand the Westleys, and 
 thought his offer and Glen's refusal would soon 
 be common proj)erty. Only one other Sunday 
 intervened before the time appointed for Mr. 
 Beattie's return, but when the post brought 
 him several letters he feigned to have received 
 a missive urgently requesting his immediate 
 presence in Dublin.
 
 Father and Daughter, 291 
 
 Diplomatically he put the question to Mrs 
 Beattie. 
 
 * Did she think it would be possible for him 
 to leave at once ? Could a substitute be pro- 
 cured ? Was it likely one of the clergymen 
 in the neighbourhood would take the duty on 
 the following Sunday ? Any expense which 
 might be incurred he should, of course, be 
 most happy to meet, but the business which 
 recalled him was of vital importance. Would 
 dear Mrs. Beattie set her woman's wits to 
 work and see if she could help him out of 
 the dilemma ?' 
 
 Dear Mrs. Beattie, who was at that moment 
 darning stockings — a necessary work Mr. Duf 
 ford, as a rule, regarded with much disfavou 
 — threaded a coarse needle wdth blue worsted, 
 and commenced operations upon a large hole 
 before she answered. 
 
 The prospect of getting rid of the curate 
 filled her with such delight, she could not for a 
 moment trust herself to speak. Then she 
 said, with praiseworthy composure, that she 
 had no doubt, under the circumstances, the 
 Kector of Artinglass would either eome over 
 himself or send one of his curates. 
 
 19—2
 
 292 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ' And so you really believe I may leave with 
 an easy mind V remarked Mr. DufFord. 
 
 ' I am sure you may/ she answered. ' Even 
 if we had to close the church for one Sunday, I 
 don't suppose it would do the people much 
 harm to go to Meeting.'* 
 
 Mr. DufFord looked at the lady with severe 
 incredulity. 
 
 ' I never thought,' he said, in a tone of 
 lofty rebuke, ' to hear such a sentiment from 
 the lips of a Christian woman !' 
 
 * Dissenting places of worship are in Ireland called 
 ineeting-houses — not chapels.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 STOXY-HEARTED LOXDOX. 
 
 ^c^AYE to the initiated — nay, it will be 
 better to amend the phrase, and 
 say even to the initiated — a manu- 
 script is a very fearful and terrible thing to 
 contemplate. Within its folds lurk unknown 
 horrors, and the thought either of reading the 
 scroll, or hearing it read, fills the stoutest heart 
 with dread. 
 
 It is better, however, to read for one's self 
 than let the author read. Probably there 
 is no infliction, save the rack, equal to that, 
 and yet it was an ordeal through which poor 
 Mr. Westley had, after the night when Mr. 
 Dufford drank tea at the cottage for the last 
 time, very frequently to pass.
 
 294 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 His daughter felt no more pity for him than 
 she might have clone for a lay figure. She 
 tried her productions upon him, but was not 
 particularly delighted to find he built his 
 hopes of success less upon her great merits than 
 upon the exceeding feebleness of some other 
 writers whom he named. Glen's heart did not 
 swell with pride at this sort of encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 ' I have read much worse, my dear ; or, ' If 
 Mr. and Miss Blank can get their stories pub- 
 lished, I really do not see why yours should 
 not be accepted.' 
 
 It was very faint praise, but still Glen's 
 courage did not fail her. In her own opinion, 
 the tales she read to her father were perfect ; 
 they had not a spot or blemish ; they were 
 amusing, pathetic, dramatic, but she could not 
 blind herself to the fact that for some reason 
 they did not touch the listener as they did 
 the reader ; that there was something lacking. 
 What was if? the girl wondered. She had 
 put her own whole heart into the work, but she 
 <'Ould see plainly the heart of another was not 
 moved by it. She understood this perfectly, 
 because she remembered the first time any
 
 Stony -Hearted London, 295 
 
 music she made ever found its way to a human 
 soul. 
 
 It was a little air she heard when staying 
 with Lady Emily Wildernesse, an air the 
 whole beauty and effect of which lay with the 
 player. But the lady under whose fingers the 
 piano seemed to sob out the plaintive melody 
 was a mistress of her craft ; and Glen, catch- 
 ing the trick from her, so reproduced the effect 
 one evening at the Vicarage that Mrs. Beattie, 
 her eyes full of tears, kissed the girl tenderly, 
 and Mr. Beattie turned away to the window, 
 and looked wistfully over the sea, and the 
 boys spoke no word, good or bad, and days 
 passed away before Ned remarked : 
 
 ' I say. Glen, how stunningly you played 
 that new thing you learnt in Dublin.' 
 
 It was a cruel disappointment to the author 
 to find her words of beauty and of wisdom fall 
 flat, as, indeed, they did. And what made the 
 matter worse was that she knew very well the 
 fault must lie in her writing ; it did not origi- 
 nate in any want of appreciation on the part 
 of her father. No ; though undoubtedly it is» 
 as a rule, true that a prophet is not without 
 honour save in his own country and amongst
 
 296 A Striiggle for Fame. 
 
 his own people, in this instance Mr. Westlev 
 would only too thankfully have recognised and 
 acknowledged the existence of inspiration in 
 his daughter. He was willing to believe, but 
 faith wanted some stone on which to build. 
 Of course he did not possess the feeling of 
 power which was driving her along a road the 
 end of which was hidden from mortal eyes. 
 All he understood at the time was that Glen 
 seemed able to spin little stories he fancied 
 ought some day to find a purchaser. 
 
 Suddenly, however, the genius the girl had 
 in her quickened into life. So far there was 
 nothing in her writings which shadowed forth, 
 even dimly, any promise of a great future. 
 But all at once there came a mighty change ; 
 and one evening, after her return from a long 
 lonely walk over the headlands, the while a 
 wild sad sea tossed its billows towards a gloomy 
 sky, Glen somehow managed to produce a few 
 pages which made Mr. Westley remark, after 
 a few minutes' amazed silence : 
 
 ' I really do believe, dear, you have it in you 
 to do something ; but I am afraid you will find 
 the way long and very steep.' 
 
 While he believed her safe in the plains of
 
 Stony- Hearted London. 297 
 
 mediocrity, he Lad not foretold the weary 
 path and the steep hillside ; but now — now — 
 the whole, prospect of her future life seemed to 
 get lost in the mists of possibility. She had 
 touched his heart, and he felt it might be she 
 should touch the heart of others. 
 
 ' Oh, papa ! — dear papa !' — she cried, feeling 
 the impression she had made at last, and as 
 she spoke she could not see sky, or angry bil- 
 lows, or stretching moorland, for happy tears. 
 
 From one point of view, how marvellous 
 seems that general prejudice in favour of the 
 commonplace; and yet when we come to think 
 the matter over calmly, it is utterly impossible 
 to say there is not a great amount of reason in 
 the idea that safety is only to be compassed 
 by confining ourselves to the customary. 
 
 Where one person stands in need of the 
 services of the extraordinary, a thousand are 
 willing to pay for the help of the ordinary. 
 Fur example, paint a child's head just as its 
 mother is accustomed to see it, and ten million 
 mothers will buy the worst lithograph of the 
 drawing which can be produced for sixpence ; 
 hut — and oh ! my friends, the virtue of a ' but ' 
 in such a case — from the very travail of your
 
 298 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 .soul produce a picture that cannot fail to live 
 through the ages, and each person you know 
 will stand appalled, doubtful whether to praise 
 or blame, but certain in either case to say you 
 have chosen the road which leads to sure and 
 fell destruction. 
 
 So long as he felt his daughter was treading 
 the safe path of mediocrity, Mr. Westley had 
 only regarded her writings as something which 
 might bring her a living ; but now — but now 
 — with all his heart and soul the poor father — 
 who could see so short a way ahead — hoped 
 and trusted Glen might never need fully to 
 use such talents as she possessed. 
 
 For God Almighty had given her botli 
 strength and genius — the brain to conceive, 
 the courage to develop. Circumstances had not 
 forced the one, or cowed the other — yet. 
 
 So far the girl was mistress of her own 
 position, and she utilized this fact characteris- 
 tically, and in a mode auguring well for her 
 future success. Save a few of her very earliest 
 productions — which she laid aside tenderly, as 
 a mother might the outgrown dress of her first 
 baby — after that last achievement she gathered 
 together all her old manuscripts, and one day,
 
 Stony- Hearted London. 299 
 
 when Teenie was engrossed in ironing, and 
 feeling [Mr. Westley's shirts and Miss Glen's 
 dresses the only things much worth being 
 anxious about on earth, carried the papers 
 down to a remote part of the garden, where she 
 w^atched them consume till no scrap remained 
 of that mound of rejected addresses. 
 
 Then, with a lightened heart, she betook 
 herself to a different sort of writing — bolder, 
 more ambitious, and indeed, considering her 
 youth and inexperience, extraordinary. 
 
 ' Where does she ojet her ideas V thoug;ht Mr. 
 Westley, wdiom the change almost frightened. 
 Where ? If you put the question to Glenarva 
 now, she would ask you in return : 
 
 ' Whence does the dove o;et the o-Hntino: 
 colours that shimmer and glitter and keep con- 
 tinually changing in the light V And for me, 
 I can tell you no more. 
 
 Still, though her work held the promise of 
 better things than the manuscripts she had 
 destroyed, acceptance of her efforts seemed far 
 off as ever, and she began at length almost to 
 sicken of rejection. The returned manuscripts 
 appeared to lie like a load on her heart. 
 
 * It is because I have to tell papa,' she
 
 300 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 tlioudit, and there was a oood deal of trutli in 
 this idea. The girl did not find pain lightened 
 when shared ; on the contrary, it seemed 
 doubled. 
 
 AVhat a weary road that grew to be at 
 
 engtli between Ballyshane and Artinglass ! 
 
 and yet not so long ago she could remember 
 
 treadino' it with feet that felt winoed bv 
 
 Hope. 
 
 Months ran on in this state, when one day 
 Mr. Westley's lawyer, returning from London- 
 derry to Belfast, broke his journey at Bally- 
 money, and drove across country to see the 
 ruined gentleman. He wanted to confer with 
 him about a little matter which he thought 
 ought to return some money. 
 
 The tenant at Glenarva wished a few trees 
 cut down, and it occurred to Mr, Merritt that 
 a considerable amount of judicious thinning 
 might be effected in the autumn. 
 
 To Mr. Westlev the fellino- of timber seemed 
 little short of desecration, but in the Glenarva 
 woods chestnuts were now smotherino; oaks ; 
 willows, elms, and pines hopelessly jostling 
 each other. 
 
 If the best trees were to live, it was high
 
 Stonij' Hearted London. 301 
 
 time some one set the axe to work ; and as at 
 that period there chanced to be a further de- 
 mand on Mr. AVestley'« purse, the opportunity 
 appeared favourable for suggesting a means of 
 replenishing it. 
 
 Mr. Merritt stayed over the night, and of 
 course saw a good deal of Glen, who had, 
 somewhat to his surprise — for people are a])t 
 to forget the passage of years — shot up siuce 
 last they met from a child into ' quite a young 
 lady,' as the lawyer remarked. 
 
 He thought her, on the whole, rather good- 
 looking, and a quiet, well-behaved girl ; and he 
 mio-ht not then have mven another minute to 
 the consideration of her future but for the 
 chance of his mentioning over the breakfast- 
 table that he had lately been to London. 
 
 ' Oh I' cried Glen impulsively, ' what would 
 I not oive to be able to g;o to London !' 
 
 * I hope you will go some day,' said Mr. 
 Merritt vaguely and politely, and he said no 
 more at the moment ; but subsequently, when 
 he and Mr. AVestley were slowly pacing tlie 
 cliffs, he astonished his client by asking : 
 
 ' Why don't you go to London ? You could 
 live almost as cheaply there as here, and your
 
 302 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 dauojliter miffht have a chance then ' — he did 
 not say of what, but Mr. Westley understood, 
 and winced. ' Consider the matter,' went on 
 Mr. Merritt ; ' I think the idea is one well 
 worth turning over in your mind.' 
 
 The lawyer did not know it was one Mr. 
 Westley had already been turning over in his 
 vague, hesitating, irresolute fashion. 
 
 * Glen,' he answered, ' I know, would like 
 to go.' 
 
 ' Of course ; she said so,' returned Mr. 
 Merritt briskly, ' and it is quite natural — she 
 must be moped to death in this place.' 
 
 'Moped to death!' That might be the 
 lawyer's idea ; but when she had achieved her 
 wish, and the London she so ardently desired 
 to visit was reached, and Ballyshane lay as far 
 behind as childhood. Glen's pillow was wet 
 with tears, shed because of the terrible home- 
 sickness some natures never experience, but 
 which to those that do seems as bad as 
 death — indeed, is no poor type of the last 
 parting. 
 
 By the agony the girl endured for nearly 
 two months after her arrival in England it was 
 easy to foresee what the actual loss of those
 
 Stony-Hearted London. 303 
 
 she loved would prove in the sorrowful here- 
 after — the donkey, the ponies, the cats, the 
 dogs, the boys, Mr. and Mrs. Beattie, Teenie, 
 Doctor and Miss Grunley, recurred severally 
 and collectively to Glenarva Westley as she 
 lay awake at night or paced the London streets. 
 She sickened for the roar of the waves, for the 
 taste of the salt brine, for the sweeping wind 
 straight off the Atlantic, for the sight of the 
 turf fire, for the smell of the familiar griddle- 
 bread. 
 
 She could not eat ; food, even such as their 
 landlady considered necessary for her own 
 physical support, was quite beyond their means; 
 and she had thus no equivalent for the milk 
 new and pure, the butter straight from the 
 churn, the eggs that had ' seen no sorrow,' and 
 the fish fresh from the sea — unaccounted 
 luxuries when capable of being procured for a 
 few pence, but things to be wished for when 
 no longer to be had. 
 
 Only a great courage and a persistent will 
 kept the girl up during many trying awful 
 weeks. 
 
 At first her father seemed cheerful and in 
 good spirits. London, though unvisited for
 
 304 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 years, was not strange ground to him, and 
 it somewhat comforted Glen to see his quiet, 
 and to her unintelligible, enjoyment of streets, 
 which appeared to her but one long weary 
 maze, filled with people they did not know, 
 and who knew nothing of them, and with 
 whom the girl felt satisfied they never for ever 
 could have anything in common. 
 
 But even this source of consolation soon 
 failed, and Mr. Westley sank for a time into, a 
 state of deep depression, which Glen, who was 
 totally ignorant of the hope that had arisen in 
 his mind, could only attribute to disappoint- 
 ment at the chilling reception her best writing 
 met with, and regret for having left the sure 
 safe haven of a place where, though poor, they 
 were loved and respected. 
 
 One day, wlien she felt terribly low herself, 
 she ventured to suggest the question to her 
 father whether lie thought they had done a 
 foolish thing in coming to London. 
 
 ' No, my dear, certainly not,' he answered. 
 ^ T think in time you may be able to get 
 something to do here, which I am very sure 
 you never could at Bally shane. Why do you 
 ask, Glen V
 
 Stony-Heartecl London. 
 
 * Because 1 thought you were dull and out 
 of sorts, papa.' 
 
 ' I have been a little vexed because of the 
 non-success of a little scheme of my own, that 
 is all — and another thing, I do not like lodg- 
 ings. When the spring comes I think we 
 had better look out for a cottao;e somewhere.' 
 
 ' Very well, papa,' answered Glen, though 
 her heart sank within her at his words. If 
 they found it hard to make both ends meet in 
 lodgings, how were they to accomplish the feat 
 in a house of their own ? She knew the 
 amount of their income only too well ; and at 
 last she had well-nigh lost hope concerning her 
 writing. A dreadful experience had come 
 upon the girl. She could produce nothing ; 
 the trees were not more bare of leaf or bud 
 than Miss Westley's once active mind of an 
 idea. To pen an original line was a matter 
 c[uite beyond her ability. She had lost even 
 physical energy, and weary in body and sick 
 at heart, with a dreary persistency carried a 
 bundle of manuscript from publisher to pub- 
 lisher, only to meet with 'No,' worded in a 
 hundred different ways, but still pronounced 
 with unmistakable decision. 
 
 VOL. I. 20
 
 306 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 Father and daughter had indeed, \Yithout 
 knowing it, settled themselves in as unfavour- 
 able a neighbourhood for persons fresh from a 
 wild seashore as can well be conceived ; and 
 Glen did not possess sufficient wisdom and 
 self-pity to understand that starting upon a 
 long day's march with nothing to sustain her 
 strength save a cup of w^eak tea w^as almost a 
 sure method of compassing failure. 
 
 She went now with her manuscripts alone. 
 She found she must do this or abandon the 
 attempt altogether, and after a few feeble 
 protests Mr. Westley let his daughter do as 
 she liked. To watch the faces of publishers 
 and editors, to wait for the inevitable refusal 
 he had learnt to expect, was, he felt, beyond 
 his ability. 
 
 At first it seemed to him a dreadful thing 
 for Glen to go out alone through the crowded 
 streets and walks into strange offices and ask 
 to see unknown gentlemen, unchaperoned ; but 
 he soon saw that a girl in narrow lodgings 
 in an unfashionable part of London, plainly 
 dressed, and only adventuring into the main 
 thoroughfares upon business, is, how^ever bred 
 or born, quite a different creature from a
 
 Stony -Hearted London. 307 
 
 young lady residing at the West-end who has 
 never in all her life crossed the threshold of 
 her house without an escort. 
 
 Glen was safe enough, he felt that, and so 
 he swallowed this pill as he had gulped down 
 many another affront to his pride ; and in 
 quite a regular and systematic way she made 
 a round of the trade, who one and all were 
 perfectly agreed upon one point, namely, that 
 even if Lady Morgan or Miss Edgeworth, or 
 Banim, or Carleton, were to return to life and 
 offer an Irish story for their acceptance, they 
 would have nothing to do with it. 
 
 Ireland at that period had dropped to a 
 tremendous discount. Fashionable novels, 
 Glenarva was told, were the rage — tales of 
 high life — chronicles of the doings and sayings 
 of the upper ten in London — nothing else, one 
 gentleman was good enough to tell her, would 
 go down. Several names of successful writers 
 were cited for her benefit — novels shown her 
 which had achieved notoriety. 
 
 In those days Glen did not in the least 
 doubt her own ability to produce a most in- 
 terestino; narrative relatino; to wicked lords 
 and fine ladies ; but, unfortunately, when she 
 
 20—2
 
 308 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 approached the task she found she could not 
 write at all. 
 
 Matters were in this state when, one dull, 
 damp, miserable afternoon, the girl, after a 
 longer round even than usual, during the 
 course of which she had seen and talked with 
 the editors of several new magazines destined 
 
 o 
 
 to an early death, found herself towards the 
 close of the short day standing on the steps of 
 their lodging-house, which to her mind seemed 
 almost like a mean prison. 
 
 The street lamps were lighted, and within 
 doors the hall as she entered was almost 
 dark. 
 
 Wearily she turned the handle of the sitting- 
 room, where her father was leaning back in an 
 armchair, talking to a gentleman who sat at 
 the opposite side of the hearth. 
 
 As she paused on the threshold surprised, 
 for no visitor had hitherto appeared to brighten 
 their solitude, Mr. Westley said : 
 
 ' Oh ! here is my daughter ; Glen — Mr. 
 Lacere.'
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY. 
 
 LTHOUGH Mr. Bernard Kelly was 
 
 not suffering from home -sickness 
 or experiencing any wild longing 
 for the sight of his relations, still about the 
 same time as Miss "Westley thought she had 
 well-nigh sounded the depths of despair, her 
 fellow-pilgiim, with hands plunged into empty 
 pockets, where a whole legion of devils seemed 
 to be holding high carnival, gloomily de- 
 cided he had somehow ' got to the back of his 
 luck.' 
 
 It was very low water with him. Things 
 indeed had got so bad, he more than once 
 found himself pulling out his watch and con- 
 templatively regarding its merits, not as a
 
 310 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 chronometer, but as an article upon which he 
 might raise money. His training had caused 
 him, however, to regard a visit to the relative 
 sportively referred to by the young Dawtons 
 as the ' gentleman with three balls for crest ' 
 in the light of a crowning humiliation, and he 
 felt almost that when reduced to such a strait 
 he would retire from the sight of men ; for 
 which reason he still could tell Mat and his 
 female belongings the 'right time,' a matter 
 which seemed at West Ham wrapped eternally 
 in mystery. 
 
 As for Mr. Donagh's watch, it appeared 
 never to be right for a week together. Either 
 the spring got broken, or some misfortune 
 happened to the glass, or the hands failed 
 to move properly, or the works wanted 
 cleaning. 
 
 Before he had been many weeks at Abbey 
 Cottage Mr. Kelly became quite accustomed to 
 disappearances which at first struck him as 
 most remarkable. Nothing Mat and his be- 
 longings now did or left undone interested him 
 in the least. He saw very clearly the Donaghs 
 were not likely to prove the slightes.t help on 
 his way, and that, even so far as the mere
 
 Every Dog has His Day, 311 
 
 matter of shelter was concerned, all they de- 
 sired was to get rid of him. 
 
 Mr. Donagh actually w^ent so far as to ask 
 Miss Cavan one Sunday morning at breakfast 
 if * the Yidelles, from Saffron Walden, were 
 coming at Christmas ;' but the poor lady 
 proved herself so unequal to carry on the 
 ingenious stratagem for which Mat had for- 
 gotten to prepare her mind, that Mr. Kelly 
 heard him afterwards, in softly modulated but 
 intelligible terms, reproaching his relative for 
 being * destitute of the first rudiments of 
 sense,' because if we do not 'take Basan 
 by the horns, he ^vdll inflict his incubus 
 upon us till we succumb from sheer exhaus- 
 tion/ 
 
 That same afternoon Mr. Kelly boldly took 
 Mr. Donagh by the horns, and asked whether 
 he might for a time remain at Abbey Cottage 
 as a lodger — paying for his ' shot.' 
 
 ' I know I shall be having money ere very 
 long,' he explained, ' and I will then settle up 
 honestly. Meantime, you could put that two 
 pounds you borrowed as a trifle to my 
 credit. It would be a great convenience to 
 me to stop here for a little longer/ he added,
 
 312 A Struggle f 07^ Fame. 
 
 ' but I do not like encroaching on your hospi- 
 tality.' 
 
 *My good friend,' returned Mat, with a 
 benign air of pity and forgiveness which might 
 have seemed effective to anyone but the unim- 
 pressionable mortal he addressed, 'we don't 
 profess to keep a lodging-house !' 
 
 * I did not mean any offence, Donagh/ 
 explained Mr. Kelly. ' I only wanted to 
 know if you would let me share the ex- 
 penses.' 
 
 ' Couldn't think of such a thing,' answered 
 Mat wisely. ' Fallen I know we are — every 
 dog has his day, and the Donaghs have had 
 theirs, and it is past and gone — but still 
 w^hile I am able to keep a roof over my head, 
 1 trust I shall never have to descend so low as 
 to take pecuniary acknowledgment for extend- 
 ing its humble shelter to a friend.' 
 
 ' Then I am very sorry to say you will 
 have to keep him as your guest till the state 
 of the exchequer improves,' said Mr. Kelly, 
 who did not mean to move till it suited him 
 to go. 
 
 * You are very w^elcome to such poor 
 hospitality as I am able to offer,' returned
 
 Every Dog has His Day. 313 
 
 Mat ; but his tone was far from cordial, 
 and his manner lofty and dignified in the 
 extreme. 
 
 From that day Mr. Kelly, who was by no 
 means deficient in shrewdness, could not avoid 
 noticing the ridiculous suggestions his host was 
 always throwing out on the subject of em- 
 ployment. 
 
 Apparently, in Mr. Donagh's opinion no 
 field of labour was too distant, no post too 
 obscure, for his friend. He had arrived at the 
 conclusion he declared, after a long experience, 
 that any place on the face of the wide earth 
 presented a better opening for a man than 
 London. 
 
 * Look at me,' he said, * after all these years, 
 knoTSTi as I am, respected as it is only right 
 and fair I should be, a powee, though I say 
 it myself of myself — I repeat a power — still 
 just from hand to mouth, nothing tangible, 
 nothing certain. Why, I declare to you there 
 was one week, shortly before you came to 
 us, I earned close upon a hundred pounds in 
 two days, while during the whole of this last 
 month I have not received a fifth part of that 
 amount.'
 
 314 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 ^ I wish I was in the way of getting even 
 a tenth every month,' returned Mr. Kelly. 
 
 * I dare say you do/ said Mr. Donagh 
 patronizingly. 
 
 ' And I must remark,' proceeded Mr. Kelly, 
 a little nettled by his host's tone, ' that it 
 seems to me, judging from the small quantity 
 of writing I see you turn out, twenty pounds 
 a month, if you never made another sixpence, 
 is a very good screw.' 
 
 * And permit me to remark,' retorted Mr. 
 Donagh, 'that, primarily, you know nothing 
 about what I do, and therefore are not in a 
 position to form any opinion whatever about 
 my concerns ; and, secondarily, that since you 
 came to London you have grafted upon your 
 Irish solecisms the most extraordinary amount 
 of slang I ever heard accumulated in so short 
 a space of time, even by those whose circle of 
 undesirable acquaintances was much more 
 extensive than I can imagine even yours to be.' 
 
 ' My acquaintances do not as a rule talk on 
 stilts, if that is what you mean,' answered Mr. 
 Kelly, as he went off laughing, to indite a 
 letter to one of his mother's brothers who had 
 succeeded to the paternal shop in Derry.
 
 Every Dog has His Day, 315 
 
 The burden of this epistle was, ' Send me 
 ten pounds, for I am regularly stranded. Once 
 Christmas is turned, I have good hopes of 
 getting on ; but till then, without help from 
 some one, I scarcely know how I can manage.' 
 
 A week elapsed, but brought no answ^er. At 
 the end of three more weary days, however. 
 Miss Cavan handed their visitor a letter with 
 the Callinacoan post-mark. 
 
 It was from Mr. Marcus Balmoyle, and 
 stated that his nephew's letter had to be for- 
 warded on to him from Derry, or he would 
 have answered it sooner. 
 
 ' I have come here at your mother's request,' 
 he went on in very crabbed characters to ex- 
 plain, ' to see what's to be done at all with your 
 father, for he'll neither kill himself with drink 
 nor keep from it ; and now I am here, I feel I 
 might just as well have stayed away. It was 
 an evil day for the whole of us when she set 
 eyes on Daniel KeUy I And then there's you, 
 as might have been a comfort and a credit, 
 making your family a laughing-stock both 
 here and there, setting the one of our name 
 we were so proud of, and who would have
 
 316 A Struggle f 07^ Fame. 
 
 made your fortune, against the whole of his 
 relations. It's a burning shame for an able- 
 bodied man to be writing home for money like 
 a helpless child. Here's ^ve pounds, in a 
 bank draft at seven days (which saves the 
 commission), and I tell you plainly this is the 
 last farthing you need expect from any of us. 
 Barney, Barney ! you'll just have to set to and 
 do what I know you abhor from your very 
 soul — work. You must try and make an 
 honest living, "if it is only by picking 
 pockets," as the Quaker said. 
 
 * I was talking to the priest about you this 
 morning, and he remarked what a pity it is 
 you have not been brought up in the true 
 faith, because then some of the good fathers 
 in London might have been able to give you 
 a hand. I told him I didn't think it mattered 
 a pinch of snufi', for I believed you had not a 
 bit of religion about you. 
 
 'Tell Miss Bridgetta, with your mother's 
 respects, I am going to ship off a hamper as I 
 go home for her. She may find it useful 
 about Christmas-time, particularly with you in 
 the house. If you play as good a knife and 
 fork across the Channel as you did at home, I
 
 Every Dog has His Day. 317 
 
 know it is not sixpence a day would find your 
 breakfast, to say nothing of other meals ; and, 
 indeed, I wonder to myself you haven't more 
 spirit than to be troubling the Donaghs as you 
 are doing, and running the chance of wearing 
 out your welcome into the bargain. 
 
 * Your mother bids me let you know Miss 
 Fortescue and the new pad-groom from Eng- 
 land were married three days ago on the sly. 
 Mr. Fortescue is willing to give two hundred 
 pounds down if they'll sail for America, but 
 the husband wants double that and leave the 
 old woman behind. It's a pity, when you had 
 got things so far on, you took fear. You 
 might have made yourself for life ; and if she 
 wasn't young, she had genteel ways with her, 
 and any amount of good clothes. 
 
 * We shall all be glad to hear you have got 
 some work, and mean sticking to it. 
 
 ' Your loving uncle, 
 
 ' Marcus Balmoyle.' 
 
 Whatever Mr. Bernard Kelly's feelings 
 might be on reading this epistle, there was no 
 alloy in the pleasure Miss Cavan experienced 
 at the prospect of the coming hamper ; and she
 
 318 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 rushed oflf with the news to her nephew, who, 
 on hearing that good Mrs. Kelly was forward- 
 ing another * crate of edibles,* commented ' on 
 the principle of sending coals to Newcastle ' 
 with that princely manner of his which 
 ignored such vulgar creatures as the butcher 
 and the baker. Indeed, Mr. Donagh seemed 
 to think all food came into the house spontane- 
 ously, and was supplied gratis. 
 
 ' Oh ! you wouldn't find such butter as hers 
 if you searched London through,' answered 
 Miss Cavan, whom the certainty of a well- 
 stocked larder filled with unselfish delight. 
 ' We'll not need now to buy anything for our 
 Christmas dinner ; and the eggs'U see us well 
 into the New Year. And I'll hang the bacon, 
 and ' 
 
 ' Pray, spare me these distressing details,' 
 interposed Mat, waving his hand as a signal 
 that he ' would be alone.' At the time he 
 was in an exceedingly impecunious condition, 
 and consequently more than usually inclined 
 to lordly silencing of his womenkind. 
 
 He had spent his hundred pounds, and a 
 good many other pounds to the back of that. 
 
 Christmas, with its bills, its duns, its many
 
 Every Dog has His Day. 319 
 
 requirements, and its accustomed difficulty of 
 providing money, was what Mr. Donagh, in 
 his simple language, described as ' imminent.' 
 Further, he had saddled himself with an old 
 man of the sea, whose presence would, he felt, 
 render a six-months-old hen turkey tough, 
 and make butter fresh from Mrs. Kelly's churn 
 ranker than anything Miss Cavan, in the 
 exercise of an economy laudable in intention, 
 though unwise in fact, sometimes procured 
 from ' that thief of the world,' as Mr. Madlow, 
 a local grocer, was usually styled by the ladies 
 at Abbey Cottage. 
 
 But Fate and Mr. Kelly decreed otherwise. 
 
 When that five-pound Bank of Ireland draft 
 arrived, Mr. Kelly said to himself : 
 * If I'm ever to get out of this hole, where, 
 as my uncle implies, I have worn out my 
 welcome, if I ever had one, I must make a try 
 for it now.' 
 
 A few days previously he had seen tire 
 advertisement of a lodging to let in Ber- 
 mondsey, which he thought would suit both 
 his convenience and his purse ; and he went 
 to look at it with a trembling determination 
 to cut himself adrift from West Ham, and
 
 320 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 sink or swim, unaided and unimpeded by his 
 own countr3rfolks. Cautious, however, in all 
 things, he did not close with the landlady on 
 the spot. He told her he would think the 
 matter over, and while he was doing so he 
 bent his steps towards a tavern much fre- 
 quented by the younger Dawtons, where, 
 indeed, already he had met one or other of 
 them frequently. 
 
 As it happened, just as he was walking up 
 the court, at the top of which the familiar 
 portals stood invitingly half open. Will Dawton 
 overtook him. 
 
 ' I am so glad to have chanced on you to- 
 day,' said the young fellow cheerily, clapping 
 him on the shoulder, 'for at last I am the 
 bearer of good news. Our editor has read 
 your story, and accepts it, and says you may 
 send in another as soon as you like.' 
 
 Mr. Kelly made no answer, for the simple 
 reason that he could not. The revulsion of 
 feeling was too sudden, the relief too great. 
 He stood still and silent for a few seconds, 
 like one dazed. Then Will Dawton took his 
 arm, and led him into the dingy tavern, re- 
 marking the while :
 
 Every Dog has His Day. 321 
 
 * Never mind, old boy. I know what it is. 
 The first time I saw my name in print I had 
 to walk for half an hour about the Temple 
 before I dare venture into Fleet Street ; and 
 as for Jim, he disgraced the family by throw- 
 ing up his tile in the Strand and kicking it 
 across Wellington Street. He narrowly escaped 
 being taken in charge.' And thus talking, he 
 conducted Bernard Kelly to a box in a quiet 
 corner, and whispering a command to the 
 waiter, he hung up his hat, and after perform- 
 ing the same office for the man who had at 
 last got his start, proceeded : 
 
 ' Let me see, this is Thursday. WeU, it 
 would be no use trying to see the editor this 
 week ; but you had better come about Monday 
 or Tuesday and be introduced. You must not 
 mind his finding fault. He is always finding 
 fault. He was chosen for his present post 
 solely, I believe, on account of his disagreeable 
 manner ; but he is all right when you get 
 below the surface. Now have some wine to 
 pick you up.' 
 
 Though he had not a penny in his pocket, 
 Mr. Kelly drank and was comforted. Hope 
 was now in residence instead of the legion of 
 
 VOL. I. 21
 
 322 A Sf niggle for Fame. 
 
 devils. A day — an hour — a minute had suf- 
 ficed to change the whole aspect of his life. 
 He felt a man, not a beggar ; he would be 
 able to leave Abbey Cottage — to tell his uncle 
 luck had turned, to make a joke about Miss 
 Fortescue ; he could laugh at the humours of 
 his friend, and say what he had never dared to 
 say before when the reckoning came. 
 
 ' I must ask you to lend me half a sovereign, 
 for I have no money about me except a bank 
 post bill, which has still a week to run, and be 
 hanged to it.' 
 
 * You are not going to be paymaster, 
 though,' answered Will, who when he had 
 money flung it about right royally ; 'but if you 
 want anything changed, I'll get it cashed for 
 you. What are you going to do this afternoon ? 
 Come home with me and have some dinner ; 
 the old folks will be delighted to hear you are 
 accepted.' 
 
 But Mr. Kelly declined to avail himself of 
 this invitation. There was, he told young 
 Dawton, something he wished particularly to 
 attend to that very day, and accordingly after 
 he had got his five pounds duly counted out 
 by the obliging w^aiter, and drunk some more
 
 Every Dog has His Bay, 323 
 
 wine and eaten a few biscuits, and made an 
 appointment to meet his friend at the same 
 place on the following Tuesday at one o'clock, 
 he wended his way l3ack to Bermondsey and 
 closed with the widow, who promised to have 
 a couple of rooms ready for him to take pos- 
 session within a week. 
 
 That night he gladdened ]\Ir. Donagh's 
 heart by mentioning three facts — namely, that 
 he had at last got something to do ; that he 
 was going to dinner with some friends on 
 Christmas Day ; and that he had found lodg- 
 ings, into which he proposed to move very 
 shortly. 
 
 ' Indeed I' exclaimed Mat. ' May I inquire 
 the name of the locality in which you intend 
 to bivouac V 
 
 ' Bermondsey,' was the explicit answer. 
 
 ' You have probably selected that neighbour- 
 hood as being near the scene of your future 
 labours.' 
 
 ' I think I shall find it convenient for my 
 work,' returned Bernard Kelly ; and, declining 
 Mat's offer of a second tumbler of punch, 
 which was made with a cordiality to which 
 that gentleman's manner had for a long time 
 
 21—2
 
 324 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 been a stranger, he lit his candle, and marched 
 off to bed. 
 
 For some reason best known to himself, Mr. 
 Donash evolved out of his internal conscious- 
 ness a conviction that his 'uncivilized com- 
 patriot ' had, through the ' medium of some 
 other savage from the wilds of the sister 
 island,' procured a situation at one of the many 
 wharfs in Kotherhithe. Mr. Kelly had said 
 nothing calculated to lead to such an idea ; but, 
 upon the other hand, when he found the 
 nature of Mat's surmises he took no step to 
 dispel the illusion. He never mentioned the 
 Dawtons ; he refrained from uttering the name 
 of the Galaxy ; he said not a word about his 
 literary efforts ; he remained silent while Mat, 
 overflowing with good spirits which the pro- 
 spect of Mr. Kelly's speedy departure induced, 
 made many jests and remarks he afterwards 
 wished he had kept to himself, and reassumed 
 all the old lordly airs that for a time he doffed 
 only in order to don a robe composed of 
 general sulkiness and irritability. 
 
 He gave the departing guest many raps 
 about his accent, his manners, and his deport- 
 ment, by inference suggesting there was only
 
 Every Dog has His Day, 325 
 
 one model of a perfect demeanour in London. 
 He revelled amongst long words, lie held him- 
 self up as an example, he bounced and bragged 
 about what he had done and what he should 
 do till his listener could have kicked him. 
 He rolled French and Latin phrases through 
 his mouth as if he were gargling with foreign 
 languages, and he ' mixed ' ]Dunch in a manner 
 which next morning made poor Miss Cavan 
 hold up her hands in horror at sight of the 
 depleted contents of the decanter, and observe 
 to Miss Donagh that if Barney did not ' mind 
 himself,' he would soon be ' a worse drinker 
 than his father.' 
 
 Bernard Kelly knew pretty well what they 
 were all thinking — but he said nothing. 
 
 He only vowed that if ever the chance came 
 his way, he would not spare Mat. 
 
 There are men who, though ready enough 
 to register such vows in the time of adversity, 
 speedily forget them when the sun of pros- 
 perity appears above the horizon ; but Mr. 
 Kelly had no weakness of this sort — quite the 
 contrary. 
 
 Mat failed to understand this, however. In 
 his egotism and conceit he persisted in con-
 
 326 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 sideling * Young Kelly' a poor insignificant 
 creature ; and even had he been told that Mr. 
 Barney was an edged weapon with which it 
 was extremely dangerous to play, he would not 
 have believed the story. 
 
 Somehow or other, nevertheless, the pair got 
 through four days of the time intervening 
 between the guest's departure without any open 
 rupture, and they might have bade each other 
 farewell tolerably civilly had not the week 
 opened for Mr. Donagh with some stroke of 
 good fortune which immediately threw that 
 gentleman's extremely ill-balanced mind ofi" 
 its equilibrium. 
 
 At his best it was hard to get on with Mat, 
 whose conversation was an even mixture, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Kelly's mental summing up, 
 of * uninteresting reminiscences and lies ; but 
 when luck befriended him, the master of Abbey 
 Cottage grew simply unendurable. 
 
 Then he ascended the throne, assumed the 
 crown, seized the sceptre, folded the ermine 
 majestically around his form, and held forth. 
 
 Heavens 1 how he did hold forth ! If he 
 had been the father of railways, if he had in- 
 vented balloons, if he had owned the Times
 
 Every Dog has His Day. 327 
 
 newspaper, if he had paid off the National 
 Debt, if he had won the battle of Waterloo, 
 he could not have rated his achievements 
 higher. 
 
 And the worst of the matter was, he never 
 said what those achievements were, and so 
 gave his companion no chance of disputing 
 their value. Instead of doing this, he adopted 
 the safe plan of criticizing Mr. Kelly's failures, 
 and extolling his own success by the mere force 
 of contrast. 
 
 Now, this is an extremely irritating process 
 to the individual who has failed, or who is 
 supposed to have failed. It is one under which 
 the best-tempered man might be excused for 
 losing his patience, and Bernard Kelly w^as not 
 good-tempered. He had suffered many things 
 at Mat's hands, and that night he found the 
 temptation to hit back and hit hard more than 
 he could withstand. In the course of his * con- 
 nection with literature,' Mat seemed to find 
 drink as necessary as ink, and even before he 
 began to 'mix' that initial tumbler for which 
 Mr. Kelly's presence gave him so plausil)le 
 and fatal a pretext, anyone, except his female 
 belongings, must have perceived he was in that
 
 328 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 state Jim Dawton figuratively indicated as 
 * Pretty well, I thank you !' 
 
 Very shortly he grew hypercritical, and 
 spoke with a candour which, unhappily, is not 
 confined to gentlemen in his then condition, of 
 the many shortcomings of his fellow- creatures in 
 general, and the scapegoat Bernard in particular. 
 
 The supposititious wharf came in for a large 
 share of his animadversion. He could not un- 
 derstand anyone 'voluntarily, or even under 
 compulsion, sinking his identity amongst tar 
 and bargees.' ' No doubt he was peculiarly 
 constituted, but rather than chain himself like 
 a galley-slave to the desk, at the beck and call 
 of some coarse and uneducated master, wallow- 
 inor in the mire of his ill-ootten riches, he 
 would turn peripatetic tinker, and mend the 
 domestic kettle.' 
 
 * There is one advantage, and only one, I 
 can perceive in the nature of the appointment 
 you have accepted,' he went on. ' Your Irish- 
 isms will pass unnoticed amongst a class whose 
 native English is a libel on language. AYhere 
 you are going you will not find your accent 
 an insurmountable drawback, as it might be 
 elsewhere.' 
 
 :;a
 
 Every Dog has His Day. 829 
 
 ' I don't think I will,' answered Barney. 
 * One of the accidents of my life, for which, 
 though it was brought about by misfortunes 
 almost unparalleled, I can never feel sufficiently 
 thankful,' pursued Mat, ' is that fate willed 
 I should be brought up on the right side of 
 St. George's Channel. To have found it in- 
 dispensable in the first flush of early manhood 
 to unlearn the habits of the most impression- 
 able years of life would have been w^ell-nigh 
 unendurable. Some one says the perfection 
 of language is so to speak that no man could 
 declare the country of the speaker.' And 
 having thus modestly placed this keystone in 
 position, Mr. Donagh complacently took a long 
 pull at his tumbler and waited to hear Mr. 
 Kelly's remarks upon what Mat was in the 
 habit of calling his ipse dixit. 
 
 All jVIr. Kelly elected to observe was this : 
 ' If there be any truth in the extremely foolish 
 statement you have just repeated, you fail to 
 reach the ridiculous standard indicated, for no 
 human being could imagine for a moment you 
 were anything but an Irishman.' 
 
 ' I confess I don't understand what you
 
 330 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 mean/ said Mr. Donagh, turning red and look- 
 ing very angry. 
 
 ' I mean exactly what I say. Though you 
 have been so many years out of Ireland, any- 
 one who wasn't an absolute fool could tell in a 
 moment the place you hail from.' 
 
 ' Do you wish to insult me V asked Mr. 
 Donagh. 
 
 ' No, indeed. Why should you be ashamed 
 of the country of your birth ? I would rather 
 be thought to have been born in Ireland than 
 any other place. Indeed, I never knew any 
 fellow who tried to cut his native land ex- 
 cept yourself, and it really is great nonsense 
 on your part, Donagh, because, as I said before, 
 you can't disguise the matter — your tongue 
 bewTayeth you. If only, to go no further, 
 I never heard you pronounce anything but 
 the word " boy," I should know on which 
 side the Channel you had spent your calf 
 days.' 
 
 ' Here is a second Daniel come to judgment !' 
 exclaimed Mat, addressing vacancy, his lips 
 trembling with rage, the while he tried to 
 speak with composure. 
 
 •' I am not a Daniel at aU, first, or second,
 
 Every Dog has His Day. 331 
 
 or third,' answered Mr. Kelly. ' I only say if 
 I were in your place, I would not try to talk 
 as the English do. It comes natural to them, 
 but it is not natural to you, and your accent 
 does not sound natural. Besides, you use 
 phrases no one but an Irishman ever employs, 
 and not even an Irishman who had been 
 taught better/ 
 
 * You really are extremely good/ said Mat. 
 * Will it be troubling you too much to ask you 
 to instance one of the phrases you are so 
 kind as to indicate ? That is, if you are 
 able.' 
 
 * Oh, I am able enough,' answered Barney. 
 ' Do you remember this evening telling your 
 aunt about one of your acquaintances who 
 w^ould not step off the boat V 
 
 ' Certainly. And what then V 
 
 'You said : "So, if you please, the gang- 
 way had to be shoved ashore for him." Now, 
 that is an Irish vulgarism, not an English.' 
 
 To state that Mat was stricken dumb would 
 be an exaggeration, because he still retained 
 the power of speech ; but he felt like a boy 
 who, after having stood at the top of his class 
 in one school, suddenly finds himself shifted
 
 332 A Strngcjlefor Fame. 
 
 to the bottom and called dunce in another. 
 He was so angry and amazed, his indignation 
 could not find vent all in a moment, and he 
 was obliged to take refuge in what he con- 
 sidered the cutting sarcasm : 
 
 ' And where, may I venture to incj[uire, did 
 Mr. Bernard Kelly acquire his marvellous 
 knowledge of the signs and tokens which dis- 
 tinguish an Irish gentleman from an English ? 
 I should have considered such lore quite out 
 of the beaten track of his former life. Who 
 was the teacher, where the college ? He never, 
 I am satisfied, studied the niceties of lan- 
 guage amongst the porcine animals on his 
 father's farm !' 
 
 Mr. Kelly coloured. ' Never mind,' he said, 
 ' who was my teacher, or where the college ; 
 but take my advice, and don't be ashamed of 
 your country. Amongst people who know 
 what is what, your afi"ectation of superior pro- 
 nunciation must render you a complete laugh- 
 ing-stock.' 
 
 The string of Mr. Donagh's tongue was at 
 length loosed. 
 
 ' This comes well,' he observed, with a wither- 
 ing glance directed to the corner of the room,
 
 Every Dog has His Day. 333 
 
 *from the guest seated on my own hearth- 
 stone.' 
 
 * Hang it, Donagh !' retorted the guest re- 
 ferred to, ' am I always to take and never 
 to give ? Am I to keep silent for ever while 
 you go on taunting me and extolling your- 
 self?' 
 
 ' I have never taunted you !' thundered Mat, 
 striking the table with his clenched fist. 
 
 ' What have you been doing, then, the 
 whole of this evening till I broke cover ? I 
 am as good a man, and as clever a man, and a 
 precious deal more sensible man than you ; 
 and yet if you were Solomon and I Phil Adrain, 
 the town fool at Callinacoan, you could not 
 evince greater contempt for my understanding. 
 I would never have said anything about your 
 accent had you only let mine alone. As you 
 are fond of criticizing, consider a little what 
 you are yourself. Look at home before you 
 begin to look about you out of doors.' 
 
 * This is the viper,' began Mat, in a dull sort 
 of recitative — ' this is the viper I nursed in my 
 bosom, the ingrate I welcomed to my humble 
 home.' 
 
 ' Now stop that, Donagh, do,' broke in Mi.
 
 334 A Struggle for Fame. 
 
 Kelly ; ' in the first place, you never welcomed 
 me ; and in the second ' 
 
 * He has shared what we had to ofifer him,' 
 pursued the irrepressible Mat, 'he has been 
 treated as a son of the house, he has eaten of 
 the best we could procure, and drunk of the 
 same liquor as myself I deemed him harm- 
 less if dull, grateful if deficient in the higher 
 qualities ; but now I see the true nature — the 
 cloven hoof begins to show itself, the Kelly 
 taint becomes apparent, the ' 
 
 The true nature of Mat's peroration was 
 never revealed, for at this juncture Mr. Kelly 
 rose, and, taking his tumbler, still half full of 
 punch, flung the contents under the grate, and 
 saying, ' It is so late I am obliged perforce to 
 avail myself of the shelter you think so much of 
 for the nio'ht, but I will never ao;ain take bite or 
 sup under your roof,' walked out of the room, 
 leaving Mat alone with the decanter and his 
 own wise thoughts. 
 
 ' ril just have a thimbleful more to compose 
 myself,' he decided, after he had recovered 
 from the first astonishment caused by Mr. 
 Kelly's words and Mr. Kelly's exit; but so 
 many thimblefuls were required for the pur-
 
 Every Dog has His Day. 335 
 
 pose, that when he at length essayed to go to 
 bed he experienced great difficulty in finding 
 the whereabouts of the friendly baluster. 
 
 It was not very late, however, next morning 
 when he descended to the parlour, where he 
 was anxiously greeted by Miss Cavan with the 
 inquiry : 
 
 *What have you been doing on Barney, 
 Mat ? Mary says he started off at screech of 
 day without any breakfast, or waiting even to 
 have his boots cleaned. I don't wonder at 
 his wanting nothing to eat, considering what 
 he drank overnight. There's not a table- 
 spoonful of whisky left ; but it's strange he 
 should go out with dirty boots, and him so 
 particular.' 
 
 Mr. Donagh closed his eyes and groaned in 
 spirit. Never, never before had his aunt's 
 * figures of speech ' seemed to him so abhorrent. 
 ' Pray moderate the rancour of your tongue,' 
 he entreated ; and from these few words Miss 
 Cavan understood he and Barney must have 
 had a 'fall-out.' 
 
 * And it was a pity, too,' she said afterw'ards 
 to her niece, ' when the time was so short they 
 had to put in together.'
 
 336 A Struggle for Fame, 
 
 ' I am glad/ thought Mr. Donagh, ^ he is 
 going to that wharf in Eotherhithe ; such a 
 ruffian is not to be encountered with impunity 
 in civilized society.' 
 
 END OF VOLUME I. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD AND LONDON. 
 
 (?., C. & Co.