wf ■ ,v\«««N«»S8 If ^' A^^r^t v^^^> 4* V^ ^l* v^Wf^A;v4>< iM^x;::W^^j^pu^^ "L I B RARY OF THE U N 1 VERS ITY Of ILLINOIS Kf'"'-^' ■iire: mii'i^:^ EICHAED DAEE VOL. I. EICHAED DARE BT MRS ALFRED BALDWIN AUTHOR OP TBE 6T0RT Of A MARMAGK' ' WHERK TOWN AVB COCNTK¥ MEET" KTC. "Each iman has his own vocation ; his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. Bmebson IN TWO VOLUMES— VOL. L LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1894 lAll rightt rtterttd] ^ ^ 6137^ '1 ■l\> <-0 TO MY HUSBAND C^ CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME CHAPTER PAOB I. The Blacksmith and his Son . . . . 1 II. Wives in Council ...... 36 III. A Leap in the Dark 45 IV. Richard Falls on his Feet . . . .71 V, A Home Tragedy . Ill VI. The Chances of War 130 VII. A Modern Miracle 155 VIII. The Man and the Hour 176 IX. Borne on the Wind 203 X. Fresh Trouble for Mrs. Atherlev , . 225 XI. The Teacher Taught 233 XII. Contemporary History 259 XIII. A Momentous Walk 270 XIV. Mrs. Peveril 283 ^ EICHAED DAEB CHAPTER I THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON * Dinna curse him, sir ; I have heard a good man say that a curse was like a stone flung up to the heavens, and maist like to return on his head that sent it.' — Scott. It was a drowsy afternoon in August. The clock in the Market Place of Dormington had just informed as many of the inhabitants as were awake to listen to its remarks that the time was half-past three, an unprofitable hour for man and beast, when the spirit of slumber descends upon all alike impartially. A fiour- waggon rumbled slowly along the road in the direction of the bridge, the driver so fast asleep on his perch that he was borne nodding , VOL. I. B 2 RICHARD DARE past his favourite public-house without being aware of the fact, and the pot-boy on the look- out for him had his eyes shut at the moment, and was so deaf with yawning that he did not hear the heavy wheels approaching. At the upper end of the Market Place, opposite the Town Hall, a man and a boy were slowly unpacking a crate of earthenware in front of a crockery shop, frequently pausing to rub their elbows and to gossip with the passers-by. They had littered the road and obstructed what little traffic there was since early in the forenoon, which combined exer- tions necessitated frequent visits to the public- house, whence they came back, refreshed, to resume what they were pleased to call their work. In front of a comfortable-looking red-brick house below the church, a painter on a ladder was feebly smearing the Venetian shutters of a second-floor window with green paint, taking a holiday between each dip of the brush into the paint-pot to gaze up and down the Market THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 3 Place from his high point of vantage. Whether the man was a native of Dormington or not, he had caught the prevaihng spirit of the place, and had spent a week up a ladder very contentedly without making any visible progress with his work. It was obvious that in Dormington labour was paid for by time and not by piece. Little hard work was done there except by the women, and as they toiled chiefly in the capacity of wives and mothers, their ceaseless service was taken — like other good things — too much as a matter of course, though, had they gone on strike, their families would have raised a bitter out- cry. Yet, even in sleepy Dormington, the spirit of competition had made its appearance, and a number of tradesfolk, by no means blood-thirsty in other respects, were busy cutting each other's throats as fast as they could. Where formerly two drapers had sufficed for the little town and made a livelihood for themselves, there B 2 A RICHARD DARE were now four, boasting much plate-glass among them and tottering on the verge of bankruptcy. Shoemakers' shops, too, had sprung up in advance of all possible wants of Dormington for years to come, even had the inhabitants been quadrupeds and required two pairs of shoes apiece. Only the public- houses seemed to multiply without detriment to themselves, and in the main street two glaring new ones did a brisk business on market days. But the houses in which the hardest drinking was done, irrespective of times and seasons, lay discreetly hidden in the back streets, where the chill glance of respect- ability might be most easily avoided. In one of these, the Barley Mow in Dog Lane — a dark and dingy house favourably known to seasoned topers — Samuel Atherley, the blacksmith, was sitting with his pipe and pot according to his invariable afternoon practice. Said the landlord of the Barley Mow, with pardonable professional pride, ' I 'aven't a more reg'lar, respectable, 'ard drinkin' THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON customer than what Sam Atherley is ! He's that punctual, you might set the parish clock by 'im. 'Alf-past two of an afternoon 'e comes in, and upo' the stroke o' five 'e's out again, and it's a credit to see 'im when 'e's blind drunk go for the swing door, as straight as a' arrer and as 'armless as a' infant ! Sometimes o' nights, I don't deny as e's a bit quarrelsome and free with 'is fisses, but in general 'e does that kind o' thing at 'ome, like a gentleman, and keeps 'is company manners for the Barley Mow.' It was the blacksmith's custom, while he spent the afternoon at the public-house, to leave the smithy in charge of his son Eichard, with strict injunctions not to send for him unless it was for work that the boy could not manage to do single-handed. It was not five minutes' walk from the Barley Mow to Atherley's forge, that stood back from the High Street in a small enclosure flanked on one side by his own house and on the other by a baker's shop. b KICHARD DARE The blacksmith was not often disturbed in his afternoon's carouse, for the bulk of his work was done by dinner-time. From six o'clock in the morning till eleven, however drunk Atherley might have been overnight, the forge resounded to the cheery ring of the hammer on the anvil, and children on their wandering way to school clustered round the door, to watch the rush of fiery sparks up the wide chimney and listen to the hoarse roar of the big bellows, thrilled with a sense of adventure as they peeped into the deep shade of the smithy. And the delight of seeing Eichard blow the bellows while his father shaped a glowing horse-shoe with ringing strokes of the hammer, was heightened by attendant peril. For as soon as the irate blacksmith could throw down his work, he rushed out of the smithy brandishing his hammer, and scattered the little crowd to right and left. Samuel Atherley had bitter complaints to make of his son that afternoon to his boon THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 7 companions at the Barley Mow, and liis dull, pompous face was heavy with disapproval as well as purple with drink. ' That lad sober don't frame to work as well as me drunk ! His nails isn't tempered proper, and 'is shoes 'ud lame any beast as was shod with 'em, and it takes 'im twice as long again to make a set as it took me afore I was 'is age, for all 'e's so strong and well growed. Would any sane man, knowin' 'is trade, credit as 'e's more interested in the 'orse's foot than what 'e is in the 'orse's shoe ? ' and he looked fiercely round after the statement to see if his hearers were duly impressed by his son's lack of intelligence. ' Aye, but I tell you 'e is ! He's allays took up wi' things as don't concern 'im. Why, only t'other day if 'e 'adn't the impe- rence to tell me what 'ad lamed one o' Mr. Featherstone's hunters as was brought me to shoe 'cause it was a ticklish job, and I could do it better'n any man this side o' the country. So Master Eichard 'e ups and 8 EICHARD DARE examines the 'orse's foot same as if be was a VET. paid to give his opinion professional, and, says 'e, " Father," 'e says, " this isn't a case for shoeing, but for the lancet," and if he didn't take and cut open a habscess 'idden away right under the frog, where no sharp fellow was likely to ha' looked for such a thing ! Now me and the groom 'ad settled as it was somethin' quite different, and it was most on- pleasant. So I says, " Things is come to a pretty pass when my own son sets up a- teaching of me ; it's time as I ripped the blow balHes, and douted the fire, and took and set up in a trade as I may be allowed to know somethin' about ! " You never see a lad more daunted by that than 'e was ; why, he didn't open 'is mouth again that day ! ' ' Well, to be sure, 'is imperence ! ' said the sycophant of the moment, whose glass Atlier- ley had just refilled from his own jug, ' 'is im- perence ! ' ' You may say that ! ' replied the injured father. ' Why, one arternoon when I was a- THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 9 settin' 'ere peaceful, like a honest workman as 'ad slaved best part of a morning through, 'ow do you think 'e was a-wasting of 'is time ? You give it up ? I should think so ? Why, if 'e didn't make a wooden leg and lash it on to a old hen as 'ad got hers broken accidental under the wheel o' Ben Stott's waggon, and there it was a-peckin' about the road on its peg leg like a reg'lar old timber-toes, and if it 'ad been chewin' a quid as well I couldn't ha' been more surprised than what I was. There was a crowd o' gaping boobies follow- ing the old 'en about, and praisin' our Rich- ard, and some on 'em said, " Who but 'im could ha' thought o' such a thing ! " Who but 'im indeed ! ' and in the roar of laughter that followed Atherley felt some consolation for his disappointment in his son. He was listened to and applauded at the Barley Mow if Eich- ard disregarded him at home. On this particular afternoon, while Sam Atherley was relating his son's misdoings to a congenial audience, the boy was happily 10 RICHAED DARE busied with his own affairs, anxious to finish his work before his father returned at five o'clock. He had shut and bolted the lower half of the smithy door, that no one might come in upon him unawares, and, thus pro- tected, was standincr behind the big bellows carefully tending a mysterious something simmering in a pot over a charcoal fire in a tall, three-legged brazier. The lad's dark, curly head was bent over the open vessel, and the glow of the fire illumined the eager young face, that wore an expression of vivid, concentrated interest. To-day's work was only the continuation of yesterday's enthralling pursuit, when, in a spirit of scientific curiosity, he had made a post-mortem examination of the remains of a small drowned puppy. But he was not con- tent with his researches in its tiny interior. He was bent on making acquaintance with the young retriever's bones also, and when he had counted their number and endeavoured to find out their use, he intended to fasten THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 11 them together with wire, and set up a beau- tiful skeleton of a dog. But to get the bones perfectly clean, it was necessary to detach the flesh from them by careful boiling, and, without going through the formality of asking permis- sion, Eichard had borrowed one of his mother's pans wherein to do his unhallowed cookery and prosecute his researches with all the curiosity of his sex. For, in spite of the popular fallacy to the contrary, it is man and not woman who is the inquisi- tive being. Man and not woman is the dis- coverer and inventor. He it is that, impelled by the prompting of an insatiable curi- osity, has explored the heavens and the earth, counted the stars and weighed the planets, and wrested from Nature her most hidden secrets. If a woman instead of a man had seen the historic apple fall from the tree, would she have been led by the contemplation of so commonplace an event to enter upon vast and far-reacliing scientific speculations ? Even had the apple forcibly attracted her 12 EICHARD DAEE attention by falling on her head instead of on the ground, it would have roused no penetra- ting curiosity in her to discover in obedience to what law the fruit dropped to the earth when the stalk broke, instead of soaring, bird- like, away through the air. No ; a woman would have smoothed her hair and straight- ened her bonnet, and drawn this practical lesson from the circumstance, that it is unsafe to walk under an apple tree when the fruit is ripe and heavy, and there the matter would have ended. The boy smiled to himself, then, as he bent with keenest masculine curiosity over the pan in which boiled and bubbled broth of abom- inable things. Suddenly, he heard himself called, ' Richard ! ' and, looking up with a frown in anticipation of being disturbed in his con- genial work, he saw his mother standing at the door, his baby sister on her arm and his little four-year-old brother tugging at her skirts. She was about to draw the bolt and enter, but Richard hastened to prevent her. THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 13 and, leaning his arms on the top of the half door, said, ' I don't want Eeuben in here, mother, the little chap's sure to get into mischief or hurt himself.' Mrs. Atherley smiled at her son with as sweet a pair of grey eyes as ever lent grace and charm to a plain face. ' That's not the real reason, my lad, why you don't want 'im to come in ! You're after somethin' o' your own that me and Eeuben should 'inder, that's what it is. I hope it's nothing as your father'll find out and be angry with you over, for 'e says you mind a many things more than your own proper trade.' An angry light kindled in the boy's eyes. ' He's right there if he thinks that ! I hate the blacksmith's trade and everything to do with it ! ' and he pushed his cap back on his brow with an impatient gesture. ' I'm sure I don't know what you want different, Eichard,' said his mother in a gentle, fretful voice. ' It's a respectable trade is the 14 RICHARD DARE blacksmith's, and if your father didn't drink so heavy he'd make a good Hving out of it. But I'm onlucky, that's where it is, \vi' a hus- band as can't keep from the drink and a son as thinks hisself above an honest trade,' and she sighed as slie dandled the fractious baby on her arm. Sighing came naturally to Mrs. Atherley. For days together when things were very bad at home she drew her breath in sighs, an in- voluntary relief to her oppressed spirit. Her life, for seventeen years as Sam Atherley's wife, had been a slow martyrdom. She had been so long the slave of a man unfit to be trusted even with a dog, that, between fear of his temper when he was sober and of his violence when he was drunk, what little spirit she had possessed in her youth was crushed out of her. But a plaintive pliancy in bending before the storm she was powerless to avert had stood her in good stead. She never replied to her husband's upbraiding, always allowed him the privilege of the last THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 15 word and silently accepted a curse as the end of a tipsy harangue. The only sign, besides her prematurely grey hair and worn face of suffering, which she regarded as inseparable from married life, was a mild sourness of temper, as of some fluid, originally weak and sweet, that had been exposed to circumstances unfavourable to its preservation. And now Mrs. Atherley repeated her plaint, ' It's along o' my bad luck, as my son turns up 'is nose at an honest trade ! ' Now, this was not the case, and it vexed the boy to find how completely he was mis understood. ' It's nothing of the kind, mother ! A blacksmith's trade's as good as any other, but I hate it for all that. Whether it's because I've been beat and bullied over it till I've had enough of it, or because I hate the trade itself, I can't justly tell, but no one'll make a black- smith o' me when I can see my way to being anything else ! ' ' And whatever else can you want to be ? 16 RICHARD DARE Be quiet, Eeiiben, will you, and don't bother I do think as my children is more tiresome than other folkses,' this last spoken to the fidgety little fellow who had pulled his mother's dress out at the gathers, and was lashing her with a toy whip to make her move on. ' Whatever else do you wish to be, Richard ? ' repeated his mother. The boy lifted his arms from the half door on which he was leaning and stood upright, almost a man in height and size. He was sixteen years old, his dark eyes shone with enthusiasm, and though his features were unformed and immature, his face expressed more strength and resolution than is common at his age. ' Well, mother, I like everything about a horse better than making his shoes and putting 'em on. I'd rather drench and blister him, and all that, than I'd do black- smith's work ! ' ' Why, Eichard, you never mean as you THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 17 want to be a beast leech ! ' said his mother, puckering her brow and giving an adroit backward slap at little Eeuben. ' I'd a deal rather be that than what I am now, mother. But I'm thinking o' something beyond horse doctoring. I should like to be a proper doctor — a surgeon with operations to do, cutting off folks' arms and legs, and curing complaints as had puzzled all the other doctors. And I'm fond o' bones, very,' he added, casting a loving glance over his shoulder in the direction of the steaming pan on the tall brazier, ' and of getting to know what's in our insides.' ' For shame of yourself, Eichard ! ' broke forth Mrs. Atherley with unwonted energy ; ' for shame of yourself ! prying into things as Providence 'as thought best to keep 'id ! If the Lord 'ad meant us to know what our insides was like, he'd ha' made no secret of 'em, but hung 'em up outside where we could ha' seen 'em plain ! ' and she was so wrought up that she would have delivered a rambling VOL. I. C 18 RICHARD DARE and incoherent scolding to her son if a timely- interruption had not diverted her from her purpose. The afternoon silence was broken by a sound of hoofs, and there rode into the enclosure in front of the smithy, from the High Street, a gentleman mounted on a stout grey cob, accompanied by a pretty and very young lady on a chestnut pony. Mrs. Atherley cast a scared glance over her shoulder, pulled little Eeuben down from the mounting-block on which he had managed to scramble, and dragged him away protesting along the alley that led to the garden. From thence she hurried, baby on arm and child swinging from her skirts, to talk over Richard's strange tastes with Mrs. Windybank, her nearest and most intimate gossip. The elderly gentleman riding the grey cob was Mr. Featherstone, a wealthy land- owner in the neighbourhood, and a well- known figure in the streets of Dormington. He was a good-humoured, talkative man, THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 19 rendered popular by his love of local gossip and curiosity in small matters, that left every one with whom he spoke under the im- pression that he took a special interest in him and his affairs. For the rest, he had frank blue eyes and a laugh so merry and light- hearted, it sounded more like a boy's than that of an elderly man. The very young lady accompanying Mr. Featherstone was his motherless daughter and only child Margaret, a girl of fourteen, already possessing more dignity of manner than her father, to whom she bore little or no resemblance. She was tall and slender, with an exquisite complexion of red and white, and a quantity of reddish-brown hair, of the same colour as her eyes, hanging about her shoulders, and a smile that came and went with tremulous rapidity. As yet she was very shy, speaking quickly with much change of colour, ways that in a cottage child wearing a sun-bonnet would have been called by their proper name, but that in Miss 2 20 EICIIARD DARE Featlierstone were supposed to be indications of pride. Eichard Atherley had never seen Mr. Featherstone's daughter before, and it marked an era in his Hfe. At the sight of her he forgot to move the pan that was now boiling briskly and filling the smithy with savoury fumes, such as might greet the delighted senses of a Chinaman at a dinner party in his native land. Mr. Featherstone roused the lad from his day-dream. ' Here, young fellow ! Fasten up the cob will you, and hold the pony while I help my daughter to alight. He's cast a shoe, and I want him shod as quickly as possible. Where's your father, young fellow ; where's your father ? ' Eichard i^rew crimson as he felt the beautiful red-brown eyes fixed upon him. He became suddenly conscious of his grimy face, of his dirty leather apron, of every liair on his bare, muscular arms. He made an irresolute snatch at his sleeve as thougli he THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 21 would pull it down, and then remembered that lie must work bare-armed. ' I'll send for my father, sir ; he'll be here almost as soon as the pony is ready for him.' ' Father at the public-house, young fellow ? Hey ? Spends too much time there. Deuced bad habit, too, in the day. He should wait till night ; wait till night,' ' Here, Jack ! ' shouted Richard to a small boy standing a wrapt spectator at the entrance of the blacksmith's yard ; ' cut along to the Barley Mow, will you, and tell my father he's wanted to shoe Miss Featherstone's pony.' The idle boy received Eichard's imperious order with open mouth, as though that were the organ of hearinf;^, but neither stirred nor spoke. Then the idea slowly filtered into his mind, and the dawn of intelligence was visible on his chaotic countenance. He tightened up his loose lips, took his hands out of his pockets, and disappeared round the corner like a ilash. Margaret laughed, and Eichard, blushing like a girl, and for the first time in his life 22 RICHARD DARE regretting that his face wanted wasliing, stood at the pony's head while she sprang hghtly down. ' Step in, my dear,' said her father cheer- fully, ' and take a look round ; I don't suppose you were ever in a blacksmith's forge before,' and, gathering up her habit about her slender form, the young girl passed into the smithy like a ray of sunshine, and gazed wondering, but without interest, on the dingy objects about her. As Eichard fastened the pony's bridle to the ring in the wall, he noticed that Miss Featherstone's bright hair was of the same colour as its chestnut mane, and he did not know till that day that human hair could be of such a beautiful shade. While the young girl stood regretting the interruption in her pleasant ride, and wonder- ing how long the blacksmith would keep them waiting, her father walked restlessly to and fro, lashing the side of his leg with his whip, and peering into every hole and corner. As he penetrated into the back of the smithy an THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 23 unmistakably appetising smell was perceptible, and, led by the nose, he promptly followed it up to its source in the pan over the charcoal fire with an eager sniff and short laugh. 'Wliat the deuce have you got boiling away here, young fellow ? Hey ? Ton my word I never smelt anything so savoury in my life ! Does your mother do her cooking here with a charcoal fire, like a regular cordon bleu ? ' and Mr. Featherstone bent over the open pan sniffing audibly. Quick as lightning, fearful lest his father should drop in upon him before he had removed all traces of his work, or Mr, Featherstone's curiosity probe the mystery, Eichard lifted the pan from the brazier and looked round distractedly for a place of con- cealment. ' It's not cookery, sir, it's something nicer — I mean more interesting than anything to eat. But I've no business with it in here, and I don't want my father to see it,' and the boy stood a picture of distress holding the pan 24 RICHARD DARE from which curled upwards the tell-tale steam. ' Hey ? Wliat ? Have you been poaching, young fellow ; been poaching ? It's a smell to draw a hungry man by the nose, but you'll find poaching's a dangerous game ; a dangerous game ! ' ' Indeed, sir, it's nothing to eat ; it's only an experiment I'm trying with a few bones ' ' Now, young fellow, you're fibbing ! You're not bound to tell me what's in the pan unless you like, but don't go out of your way to tell lies ! A few bones never made a smell like that since cooking first was known.' 'Don't tease the poor boy, papa,' said Margaret, laying her hand on Mr. Feather- stone's arm. 'It's something he wishes to hide from his father. See, he wants to carry it away,' for Richard was making for the door to hide the guilty vessel in the garden at the back of the smithy. He shot a grateful glance at the young girl, and as he did so rushed straight into his father's arms, pan in THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 25 hand, upsetting enough of the scalding con- tents on his feet to make him start with pain, in spite of his thick boots. ' What devilry is this you're up to now ? I can't leave you a couple of hours to mind the place but you're up to some mischief or other ! I'll pay you out for this, you young dog ! ' he shouted, unwittingly naming the contents of the unlucky pan, when he merely thought he was abusing his son, and he raised his arm to strike him, but the boy wrenched himself free from his grasp. 'Do what you like afterwards, but you shall not strike me before the young lady ! ' and Richard's face was white and set as he stooped to pick up what looked like a boiled rabbit that had been shaken out of the pan in the colhsion with his father. But before he could touch it, Sam Atherley, with a curse, stamped on it with his heavy boot, and broke all the delicate bones, and there was an end of the boy's liope of possessing a puppy's skeleton of his own preparing. 26 RICHARD DARE ' Oh, ray bones ! my dog's beautiful bones!' cried the boy, scarcely able to keep back his tears. For a moment Mr. Featherstone's sense oi humour got the better of his good-nature, and he laughed aloud. ' So that's what you were so secret about, young fellow ! Nobody would have known anything about it if it hadn't smelt so good. Cleaning the bones, were you, to set up a dog's skeleton of your own ? But that's a con- founded nasty trick of yours, Atherley, to serve the lad in that way ! He's more of a medical student than a blacksmith. How comes a son of yours to have such a turn? Eh?' • ' Medical student you call him, sir ! I call 'im a good-for-nothing wastral, that's what he is ! ' growled the blacksmith, rolling up his sleeves and glaring vengefully at his boot, still smoking from the scalding brew that had fallen upon it. ' But I'll teach 'im to know hisself, and take the nonsense out of THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 27 'im with a strap till 'e's black and blue, afore 'e goes to bed this night ! There, blow the bellows and be damned to you, can't you ! ' and Eichard, burning with shame and rage to be spoken to so before Miss Featherstone, sullenly did as he was bid, and soon the fire roared up the wide chimney and the strokes of the blacksmith's hammer rang out loud and clear. ' I sha'n't stay in this place, papa,' whis- pered Margaret under cover of the noise. ' I hate that man, he's cruel to his son and uses horrid words,' and the young girl slipped out of the smithy to walk to and fro in the en- closure in front. She patted the nose of the grey cob, and then, going to the entrance of the courtyard, stood looking up and down the quiet High Street. Richard watched her go regretfully. He knew what she said to her father as well as though he had overheard her words. ' She thinks we're no better than brutes, and no wonder if she does ! ' 28 RICHARD DARE Atherley's ringing blows fell thick and fast on the glowing iron, and the shoe was nearly shaped. ' I hope I've not got you into trouble, young fellow ! ' said Mr. Featherstone to Eichard with kindly anxiety. ' Your father won't thrash you ? Hey ? ' ' Likely as not he will, sir ; but it doesn't matter, nothing matters ! ' for the boy was reckless with shame and sullen resentment. ' That's all nonsense, my lad, you can't play philosopher at j^our age ! ' and he shouted against the noise of the bellows, ' Is your father drunk, young fellow ? ' ' Nothing to speak of, sir,' replied Richard, looking up with a critical and experienced eye. ' You've nothing to fear for the pony ; he works as well drunk as sober,' he added with a joyless pride in his father's skill. The blacksmith worked on with knitted brows and compressed lips, that boded ill for the lad when he should be left alone with him. Mr. Featherstone felt thunder in the THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 29 air and said good-humouredly, ' Atlierley, don't be hard on that boy of yours for his harmless experiment ! Remember, you've been young yourself ! ' The blacksmith paused as he was nailing on the pony's shoe, to look up with a scowl. ' I don't remember feeling no different from what I do now, no, nor acting different neither. I never set to a-boiling o' dock's bones ! I'd more sense, I 'ad, young or old, and if it don't come nateral to 'im I've fjot to thrash it into 'im. I'll teach 'im to know as 'e's got a father ! ' ' A doubtful blessing, a very doubtful blessing ! ' said Mr. Featherstone to himself as the pony was led out of the smithy. While Richard was unfastening the cob's bridle from the ring in the wall, Mr. Feather- stone said in a low voice, * I'm afraid you'll catch it to-night, young fellow ; take this as a salve for a sore back ! ' and he tried to slip half a sovereign into his hand. But Richard, buraing with blushes as he felt Margaret 30 EICHARD DARE Featherstone regarding him with girlish curiosity, decUned the proffered gift. ' Thank you, sir, all the same, but I don't want the money. I can promise my father sha'n't thrash me to-night, no, nor ever again, that's certain ! ' and there came an expression over the lad's face as hard as that of the elder Atherley's. ' I meant you well, young fellow ; I meant you well ! ' said Mr. Featherstone, slipping the coin back into his pocket, and he and his daughter rode out of the enclosure into the sunny High Street. Richard stood shading his eyes with his hand as he watched the beautiful young girl pass from his sight, and printed her image in his memory. When he could no longer see her, he turned again towards the smithy, where his father was busily comparing the length and testing the strength of a couple of stout straps, and the lad knew very well what it was for. He had often felt the sting of them on his shoulders, but he vowed that he would THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 31 do SO no more. Swift and straight as an arrow he darted out into the High Street, across the Market Place, and through a narrow alley leading into a maze of back streets down by the river ; then, following the course of the stream, he ran like a hunted hare till he had passed the utmost straggling fringe of the little town. At length, by the road side, he came to a fir coppice, where, exhausted with running, he threw himself at full length on the ground, breathing in deep gasps. The boy need not have run so far nor so fast. His father was not fleet enough of foot to have overtaken liim even if he had tried to do so, and he made no attempt beyond following him shouting some fifty yards down the street. Then he returned to the smithy, drawing the strap through his horny palms, muttering to himself, ' Young devil ! It'll suit me better to give it 'im after supper ! ' But Eichard's flight was not from his father only. All the pent up irritation and 32 EICHARD DARE hatred of his home hfe found physical ex- pression in his passionate haste, as if the Furies were in hot pursuit. He was turning his back on the past, pressing towards a future filled with golden dreams of congenial work worthily achieved, and recognition of talents of which he had begun to be uneasily conscious. Within the last hour, wlien he had seen Margaret Featherstone and con- ceived himself degraded in her presence, thoughts that had floated loosely in his mind had knitted themselves together and taken shape in definite resolution. He would not submit to be beaten again for nothing by his drunken father, and to make sure of this he must run away from home. And he thought it all out as he lay there in the coppice, with closed eyes and still breathing heavily, with no one to disturb him and no sound heard but the sweet sighing of the firs overhead. Eichard determined to go to London, the ocean wherein more bright hopes have foundered than ever have sunk in the deep THE BLA.CKSM1TH AND HIS SON 83 sea. There he would be as completely lost to his father and severed from his life in Dormington as though he were dead and buried. What he should do when he had emancipated himself he did not know, but if ever he was to be anything better than the assistant of his drunken father in a trade that he detested he must run away, and that without loss of time. And the lad's face OTew crimson beneath the smoke and dust that blackened it, as he thouo-ht of his father's treatment of him before Mr. Feather- stone and his daughter. He grieved, too, over the wanton destruction of the bones he was so lovingly preparing, and the brutality and injustice of his father's conduct struck him as forcibly as if he had been a spectator, instead of an actor, in the scene. He would bear it no longer ! Let his father pay a lad to help him in the smithy, and see if any hirehng alive would submit to the thrashings his son had had to put up with, while there was a VOL. I. D 34 EICHAED DARE magistrate to grant him a summons against his master ! ' Mother'll be sorry when I'm gone, and that's the worst of it, for she's got enough to vex her without that, and I don't hke to hurt her feelings,' Eichard thought as he lay on the dry ground with outstretched arms idly plucking at the scanty grass. ' And I can't tell her where I'm going to, nor nothing about it, or father 'ud get it out of her and come after me. I can't help it. I vex her as it is. She doesn't hke the things I care for, and she thinks I'm proud and look down on my father's trade. Eeuben and the baby make her happier than what I do, but she'U be proud of me one of these days, when I'm a full-blown doctor, as I intend to be, see if she isn't ! ' And Richard determined not to go home before he thought sleep would have over- come his drunken father, and the promised thrashing perforce put off till the morning. When he was sure that he was safe in bed. THE BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON 35 he would creep quietly upstairs to his room, make a bundle of the few things he needed, and leave the house in the dead of night, and when his father rose in the morning he would find to his wrath that the bird was flown. D -2 36 EICHAED DARE CHAPTER n WIVES IN COUNCIL What do you think of marriage ? I take 't (as those that deny purgatory), It locally contains or heaven or hell ; There's no third place in it. Websteb, Duchess of Amalfi. It may be remembered that when Mrs. Ather- ley hurried away from the smithy, it was to seek comfort in a gossip with Mrs. Windy- bank, for her mind was more than usually disturbed by her conversation with Eichard, and in whom could she confide so naturally as in the neighbour who knew her trials as intimately as though she dwelt under the same roof with her, and whose caustic re- marks had often acted as a tonic to her feebler spirit ? Mrs. Windybank was busy ironing, and WIVES IN COUNCIL 37 Mrs. Atlierley, after settling Eeuben to boating walnut shells on a puddle in the yard, an enthralling pursuit that would relieve his mother of his fidgety presence for half an hour at least, entered the kitchen with her baby on her arm. Her wrinkled brow wore an air of mild perplexity, that caused her friend to enquire briefly, ' What's up now?' ' Oh, nothing more'n usual, only I'm a bit puzzled about our Richard.' ' What ! 'As he took to drink too ? ' said Mrs. Windybank setting the iron sharply down on the stand. ' If 'e was my lad I'd give 'im a good thrashing and stop that game afore it was well begun ! There's enough o' that i' your house a'ready, Mrs. Atherley ! ' ' No, it's nothing o' that wi' Richard, but there's summat of 'is father in 'im for all that. He's set hisself ag'iii 'is father's trade ; he says what ever else 'e is he won't be a blacksmith, and when he's made up his mind 'e's that obstinate you can neither push nor pull 'im. 38 RICHARD DARE as the saying is ! I doubt there'll be trouble between 'im and 'is father over it, and I shall 'ave to put up with him same as I put up wi' my 'usband.' ' You do try my patience, Mrs. Atherley, with your puttings up wi' this and your puttings up wi' that, when you'd ought to teach your 'usband and your son to know theirselves ! But you begun at the wrong end for that when you was married, more's the pity ! ' ' Ah ! Mrs. Windybank, married life's a narrow path for two to walk in all their days, and when the man's i' liquor mostly, and hitting out like a mad thing, it makes it narrower than what it really is, for it ain't wide enough for quarrelling, nor argyfying, nor nothing, but only for jogging along side by side,' and she seated herself on a low chair by the fire with her baby on her lap. ' My word ! If I'd a husband Hke yours I should ha' left 'im long ago ! ' said her friend, bringing down her iron with such force that WIVES IN COUNCIL 39 she smashed a pearl button on the absent Windybank's shirt front. ' When you've got the crooked stick you've just got to put up with it. We can't all 'ave good 'usbands, Mrs. Windybank, you must own and allow,' and Mrs. Atherley punctuated her remarks with a series of gentle pats on the fat back of the baby, who was bending over her hand, blinking drowsily at the fire. *And us that's got bad tempered uns,' she continued, ' why, you may do somethin' with 'em by humouring 'em, same as if they was cross childern. Allays let 'em liave the last word, they think a deal of it, and never con- tradict 'em, for they are not formed to abear it. That's 'ow I've managed my married life,' and Mrs. Atherley sighed. ' And a pretty time you've 'ad of it, too, with your ways o' managing ! ' said her friend in aggressive tones. ' And it 'asn't done no good to your 'usband neither, so fer as I can see, lettin' 'im 'ave 'is own way in everything, and trampling on you regardless ! ' 40 RICHARD DARK Mrs. Atherley was silent for a minute, while she laid the now sleeping baby across her lap, and then she spoke. ' I've had to think out things for myself like as well as I could, and I've learnt a deal since I was a wife, that when I was a maid I couldn't understand, nor shouldn't have be- lieved if you'd told me. This world's all of a muddle, Mrs. Windybank, and neither you nor me can set it straight. I sometimes think as the Lord's made three kinds o' creatures in the world — men, women, and childern. Now we're women, you and me, we're women.' ' Aye, there's no call to contradict you so fer ! ' Mrs. Windybank admitted graciously as she went to the fire for a fresh iron. ' If you said no more than that there's no one 'ud wish to quarrel with you ! ' 'Well, what I've often thought is this,' continued Mrs. Atherley, puckering her brow in the effort to express herself clearly, ' as the menfolk and the childern is more like each other, than what we women is to either of 'em. WIVES IN COUNCIL 41 Both men and childern is thirsty and restless and werritting, and wanting to be amused all the time, and fond o' games, and makes more dirt and noise i' the house than what we do. They neither of 'em can't behave reason- able when they're ill ; they gives 'emselves up for lost and runs us women oil" our legs wait- ing on 'em. But directly they feels a bit better they're up again, as cross as two sticks, and there's no manai'ino- of 'em at all,' and Mrs. Windybauk gave a short laugh as though she recognised the truth of the picture. Mrs. Atherley's brow had now become exceedingly furrowed with thouglit, but she held on bravely, for the pleasure of having a perfectly clear idea in her usually bewildered mind. ' Well, that's where the men and chil- dern is like each other, but the Lord's made us women different from both of 'em, so it must be for a good purpose. And I think sometimes as we're 'ere to keep the peace. The men is set over us for masters like, and the childern is under us for rebels, so if we 42 EICHARD DARE can't try and smooth things a bit, we should be reg'lar crushed from above and below, between the 'ammer and the anvil, as the saying is.' ' You 'ave a poor sperit, that you 'ave, and I've often been ashamed of you for it ; but I never thought to 'ear you stand up for it and like glory in it ! You seem to think as wives 'as nothing to do but to make it easy for them as wants to trample on 'em, and make pin- cushes o' theirselves for them as enj'ys stick- ing pins into 'em ! The men set over us for masters, indeed ! ' continued Mrs. Windybank, bristling; with indignation. ' I don't think some'ow as Windybank 'ud say as 'e was my master ! No ! If there's any commanding to be done I must do it ! Not but what Windy- bank's respectable. I'd say that for 'im any- where. And childern beino' rebels, too ! Not mine, Mrs. Atherley, awhile I keep the use of my senses and know 'ow to use a birch rod or a stick, according to the age and the impe- rance ! ' ' Why, if I'd 'ad your sperit, Mrs. Windy- bank, my 'usband would ha' killed me 'ears WIVES IN COUNCIL 43 ago ! I seem soft to you, I know, but if you'd spent the best 'ears o' your life wi' a vi'lent, onreasonable man in liquor, you'd ha' tried as hard as I 'ave to make the best o' things ; to bring some good out o' wliat's bad, and save your own soul if you couldn't save no one else's along with it. It's a queer topsy- turvy kind of a place is this world, and we've got to do the best we can and ratj^le on some- how. I don't think as us women can do better than just grease the wheels o' life and try and make things run smoother.' Mrs. Atherley's sentiments filled her friend with such lively contempt she could hardly hear her to the end. ' So you call being trodden on, and sat on, and never 'aving the last word, nor the first blow, greasing the wheels o' life, do you ? It 'ud try the patience of Job to 'ear you talk, and I don't wonder as your 'usband Hkes the company at the Barley Mow better than yours, though I'm your best friend as says it ! You're the kind o' woman the men 'as in their 'eads when they say them nasty words about " a 44 RICHARD DARE woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, the more you beat 'em the better they be ! " that's what you are ! ' said Mrs. Windybank angrily. ' K I don't see your master through the winder, coming up the street red i' the face wi' run- ning, and cracking a strap in 'is 'ands like a cart whip, and swearing fit to make your 'air curl too, I be bound ! What's he up to, I wonder ? ' and she craned her neck to watch him till he disappeared in the enclosure in front of the smithy. Mrs. Atherley sighed as she gathered up the sleeping baby in her arms and rose from the low chair. ' It'll be somethin' up more than usual between 'ini and Richard again. I must go 'ome and see what's the matter, for young fellows won't stand what a woman'll put up with,' and Mrs. Atlierley called Reuben from manoeuvring a fleet of walnut shells in the puddle, and, taking his grimy little handinhers, walked slowly to her own door, not knowing what might await her there. 45 CHAPTER III A LEAP IN THE DAKK A growing youth has a wolf in his belly. — Proverb. EiCHARD continued idly lying on his back in the coppice with his hands clasped under his head, tranquil now in mind and body. Gradually he ceased to watch the shifting flecks of blue between the swaying tree tops, the song of the birds grew faint and far away, and he fell fast asleep. How long he slept he could not tell, but the sun was set when he was waked by the application to his cheek of something moist and cool. He opened his eyes, to look full into those of his faithful spaniel Nance, who had followed her young master in great anxiety, and, having found him at last, was gently sniffing his face to enquire if all was well with him. 46 KICIIARD DARE Eichard clasped his arm round the dog's neck, then, springing to his feet, shook the withered grass from his clothes. ' Good old girl ! did you think I was lost ? To-morrow you may look for me as much as you like, and you won't find me anywhere ! I'm going away, old girl. I've made up my mind I won't stand another thrashing. I'm going to bolt, Nance ! ' and she looked up at her master with her head on one side as though she took in the meaning of every word, and wagged the stump of a tail that was much the worse for wear. The lad's appetite was keen set by now, and his noon dinner felt to have as little con- nection with him as though it had been eaten by somebody else. He had a few pence in his pocket and might have satisfied his craving with bread and cheese at a public house, but he would have so much greater need of his pennies later on that he could not think of parting with one of them. Therefore he buttoned his jacket tightly round his lean A LEAP IN THE DAEK 47 waist where was the seat of hunger, took his mind off the subject of food, and, whisthng his dog, set forth on a long tramp, to pass the time till he might safely go home. Unpunctuality was not one among Sam Atherley's many irregularities, and Eichard knew that in accordance with invariable habit he would leave the Barley Mow, after his evening visit, at the stroke of ten. He knew, too, exactly what he would say when he reached home and found that his son had not returned, that he would go to bed with many a curse and growl determined to give him the promised thrashing in the morning, and his mother would be sitting up for him depreca- ting his father's wrath. The clock in the Market Place had clanged out the hour of ten, the upper storeys of the houses were dotted with lights in the bedroom windows, the downstairs regions barred and shuttered, when Sam Atherley staggered silently home, for it was not his wont to shout or sing when he was drunk 48 RICHARD DARE He was never hilarious in his cups, and his naturally sour and ungenial temper was not mitigated, but enhanced, by drink. ' Eichard knows as I'm a man o' my word, and when I've said a thing I stick to it,' he muttered to himself with drunken pride as he set foot on the shallow step that seemed to him a yard deep, lifted the ]atch and reeled into the kitchen. His wife looked up from her work with a timid olance as he entered, snuffed the lom? wick of the candle and went on with her darning. ' Where's the lad, where's Eichard ? ' asked Atherley fiercely. ' Nay, it's no good asking me, I don't know ! I've not set eyes on him since I left 'im in the smithy, when Mr. Featherstone and the little lady come along.' ' Young dog, not come 'ome yet ! Damn him, I'll have decent ways in my 'ouse ! No son o' mine shall take to late hours ! I'll sit up for 'im if it's till two o'clock i' the morning, A LEAP IN THE DARK 49 I will, for I've promised to thrash 'im and I'm a man o' my word,' and he spoke with proud rectitude. But it was mere empty brag ; his drunken eyes burnt with sleep, he sat down in the big chair and his head sank on his breast. ' You go to bed and leave things be till morning,' suggested his wife, hoping by gaining time to spare Eichard, for who knows, she thought, but he may forget his anger against the lad when once he goes to sleep ? Atherley nodded his heavy head a second time before he made any reply, and then said, as he pulled himself up by the help of the chair, ' I don't mind if I do ; I shall give it 'im 'eartier after a good night's rest, so you can tell 'im what he's got to expect for 'is break- fast,' and he stumbled up the narrow staircase to bed. Mrs. Atherley 's heart yearned over her boy, as her tears fell on the sock she was darning. The candle on the table burnt dun and unheeded, with a big ' thief at the end of the long wick, when the door opened softly, VOL. I. B 50 RICHARD DARE and Eichard entered tlie kitchen, looking weary and excited, followed by old Nance, foot-sore with wandering with her master. ' Is he in bed ? ' he said, jerking his head in the direction of upstairs. ' Yes, he's been gone a good half-hour, but 'e's very bitter against you, my lad ; very bitter.' ' That's an old story, mother,' said Richard, throwing himself in the chair that had served his father for a halting-place on his staggering journey bed wards, ' and I'm about tired of hearing it.' His mother sighed. ' You was right to stay out late, Richard ; it's saved you for to- night, but your father's promised to give it you in the morning, and when 'e's made up his mind mad dogs can't turn 'im — he'll do it, my lad, as sure as you're ahve, and I can't 'elp you,' and the poor woman looked at her son with brimming eyes, that differed only in colour from the faithful spaniel Nance's. A LEAP IN THE DARK 51 Eichard gave an impatient shake of the head and a short laugh. 'Don't you fret about me, mother. Father won't thrash me no more. I'm getting about tired o' that kind o' pay for my work. Can't you find me something to eat ? While we've been talking away about what's never going to happen I'm sick with hunger ; it's more'n ten hours since I've tasted a morsel o' food.' Mrs. Atherley rose at once, blaming her- self for not having thought of it before, wiped her eyes, and went to the larder in quest of supper for her son. It was the very diversion best suited to stir her sad thoughts. ' I might ha' seen as you was worn out wi' hunger when you come in, my lad. I'll get you summat to eat as quick as can be,' and she set half a loaf of brown bread, apiece of Dutch cheese and an onion before Eicliard, and he fell to with voracious appetite and infinite rehsh. B 2 ilSn. ««'«"' 52 RICHARD DARE When he had eaten steadily in silence for some minutes, he looked up at his mother sit- ting near him, resting her head on her hand, regarding hira intently, with eyes full of un- spoken solicitude. ' Do go to bed, mother ; you're very tired, and I ni all right now.' ' Yes, you're all right now, my lad, but your father won't let you be in the morning, and I can't 'elp you no more than the dead,' and she added fretfully, plucking the hem of her apron, ' I can't think what you've done this time to make your father so mad with you ! You'd ought to ha' known better by now not to put 'im about so.' ' Don't you fret yourself, mother. It's between father and me, and if you mix your- self up in the row, you'll find yourself between the hammer and the anvil. I can't tell you nothing about it, but I promise you he won't beat me in the morning, so you may go to bed and be easy,' and Richard put his arm round liis mother's shoulder, a most unusual A LEAP IN THE DARK 53 demonstration for him, and kissed her twice. A soft smile came over the care-worn face. ' Well, if you've 'ad your supper I'll go then, though how you'll get yourself out of this fix I don't know. You're a good lad, Richard, and if there was more justice i' the world you'd have a father as knew it, my lad,' and still smiling softly the weary mother left the kitchen and groped her way up the dark stairs. No sooner was Richard left alone than he took up the candle and went to the larder to make an examination of its contents on his own account. It was a lean larder, and a shabby, as became that of a drunkard's house- hold. His mother had given him of her best. There was nothing on the shelf but the heel of a stale loaf and a bowl of milk, with the cream just rising on the surface. He set down the candle and, taking the bowl in both hands, raised it to his lips, when he set it down again untasted. He remembered the 54 RICHARD DARE milk was for little Reuben's breakfast. But the bread lie had no scruple about finish- ing, and water would do as well as anything else to wash down his second edition of supper. For the craving of a healthy boy of sixteen after a ten hours' fast is not lightly appeased, and though he did much in a short time, the state of the larder, and not his own sensations, compelled him to leave off with an appetite. When Richard had gathered up every morsel of cheese and crumb of bread that mouse or sparrow could pick, and deftly carried them to his mouth on the point of his knife, it was half-past eleven, and he had important work to do. To-night was the turn- ing-point of his life. He stood at the parting of the ways, and it lay with himself to decide which path he would choose. The one he had so far trodden led straight to the easily attainable, and entirely unattractive, goal of moderate success in a trade he detested, to a repetition of his father's life in Dormington, A LEAP IN THE DARK 55 minus the drunkenness. The other path, rainbow-tinted with hope and imagination, stretched grandly into the unknown, fraught with boundless possibilities and appealing to him to strike boldly into it with all the strength and vigour of his youth. The sound of his mother's footsteps over- head had now ceased for some time, and the house was silent as the grave. Eichard took off his boots and crept softly upstairs, to the small, low-ceilinged room next to his parents', where he and little Eeuben shared the same bed. To-night, when he wished to be silent as a burglar, every inanimate object seemed gifted with noisy powers of expression. The hinges groaned when he opened the door, and the bolt shot with a rusty scrape as he fastened it. The boards creaked under foot, as he never remembered them to have creaked before, and when he set the candlestick on the chest of drawers, to his overstrained hear- ing it seemed as if he had put it down with a crash. Nothing short of the crack of doom 56 RICHARD DARI'] could wake his father from the depth of his drunken sleep, yet he cast apprehensive glances in the direction of the door, as though he expected him to burst into the room in one of his furies, like Giant Despair ready to slay poor Christian and Faithful. ' I'm as nervous as a girl ! ' Richard said contemptuously, as he sat down on the foot of the bed and wiped the moisture from his brow, while he listened to the reassuring sound of his little brother's breathing, regular as the ticking of the clock in the kitchen below. The chest of drawers under the window con- tained the boy's scanty wardrobe, from which he selected the few things necessary for his flight. It did not take him long to make up his mind on a subject offering no alternative choice, and in a few minutes he had tightly rolled up his Sunday suit lined with a change of linen, after the manner of a veal olive and its stuffing. Into the heart of the bundle, as an after-thought, he thrust a small Prayer Book, the gift of his mother, bearing his name A LEAP m THE DARK 57 on tlie fly-leaf in her poor chaotic writing A choking sensation came in his throat when he thought of his mother, and therefore, boy- like, he resolved to think of her as little as possible. She would be proud of him one day, and that must make amends for the pain he was causing her now. The bundle of clothes knotted up in a blue cotton handkerchief and set on the one chair in the room, Eichard proceeded to unlock the top drawer of the chest, contain- ing treasures dear to him as jewels to a woman or gold to a miser. He kept it under lock and key from a wholesome dread of little Eeuben, who, if he climbed on the chair and put his fat, mischievous hand in among the frail bird's eggs and fine mouse bones, would work ruin comparable only to that of the proverbial bull in a china shop. He took up an egg shell delicately between finger and thumb and held it near the flame of the candle, and the light shone through it softened, as by a porcelain shade. Next he bb RICHARD DARE looked admiringly at his collection of tiny- bones of birds and mice, clean and white as ivory, each labelled with its proper name, where he had been so lucky as to find out from a book what it was called. Then he tenderly turned over a number of botanical skeletons of his own preparing, blanched crhosts of leaves that had once waved on the bough in sunshine and wind, but that now, in the chill beauty of death, remembered no more their ' green felicity.' Richard looked farewell to his treasures ; he closed the drawer and was about to lock it, when lie paused and left it open after all. * The little chap's welcome to 'em,' he said to himself. ' They've made me happier than any- thing else here, but I've done with my life in Dormington, and p'r'aps Reuben '11 find he cares for the same things as I do And if he doesn't, why it'll please him to smash 'em up, and get his own sort o' pleasure out of 'em, so he'll enjoy 'em anyhow.' Lastly, Richard counted his money, and A LEAP IN THE DARK 59 found that lie was master of his destiny to the extent of three shilhngs and ninepence, cur- rent coin of tlie reahii. It did not strike him as an absurd and inadequate sum for his capital It was the utmost he had ever pos- sessed, and he felt rich when he remembered stories of poor boys who had gone up to London to seek their fortunes without a penny in their pockets. It even seemed to him that if your pocket is ultimately to be filled, it should begin by being empty, as the best pos- sible state for receiving the good gifts to be poured into it. Then he looked round the familiar room for the last time. He had not slept in any other, and ever since he could remember his waking eyes had opened to the light streaming through the white dimity curtain drawn across the window at the foot of the bed . But he had done with it now, and where his eyes would open next in the morning he neither knew nor cared, as long as it was far enough away from Dormington, so bitter had 60 RICHARD DARE his home become to him. He stepped softly to the mantle-shelf where were two small photographs of his parents, and by an in- voluntary action, more transparently truthful than words can be, he revealed his inmost feelings unmistakably. He pressed his mother's portrait to his lips with a fervour and tender- ness he had never shown to her personally. At his father's he looked with a scowl exactly reflecting that in the photograph, then tore the picture lengthways down the narrow, severe face, and a second time across the flat cheeks and long upper lip, and threw the pieces in the grate, but he put his mother's portrait in his breast pocket. There was no one to say good-bye to but the sleeping Eeuben, and Kichard's frown re- laxed as he stood, candle in hand, by the bed- side, looking at his restless little bedfellow. The child had kicked off the blankets and lay with his shirt twisted into a rope round his chest — a naked baby, with dimpled arms out- stretched, and a small leg thrown up with an A LEAP IN THE DARK 61 airy grace, like one of Lucca della Eobbia's dancing boys. Eichard remembered with compunction how he had grumbled to his mother, and begged her to let Eeuben sleep by himself, for it was like sleeping with a windmill in full sail when the child took to dreaming, and lashed out like the figure on a Manx penny, all legs. Well, there would be room enough for him now, and drawing the blanket over him, only to be kicked off again by the restless little sleeper, he passed his hand across the boy's brow, whispered ' Good- bye, little chap,' and slipped silently out of the room. Something pulled strangely at his heart as he crept on tip- toe past his mother's room. He leaned forward, candle in one hand and bundle in the other, pressed his lips to the door, and turning away crept silently down- stairs. Lightly as Eichard trod in his socks Nance heard him, and was waiting for him at the foot of tlie stairs, wagging a welcome with her 62 EICHARD DARE stumpy tail. When she saw him put on his boots her dehght was extreme, and he had much ado to keep her joy within the bounds of silent demonstration. She forgot that she was footsore and weary, and life became un- expectedly delightful now that there seemed a prospect of sudden midnight walks with her dear master. But Richard motioned her to be quiet and lie down on the hearth. The clock was on the stroke of twelve, as, swinging his bundle sailorwise over his shoulder on the crook of a stout stick, he put out the light and softly opened the front door. The night was still and dark, the moon had not yet risen, and Eichard paused on the threshold of the home in which he was born before he closed the door behind him and cut himself adrift from all the landmarks of his life. His last thought was of his mother. He looked up at the window of the room where she was sleeping, unconscious of the trouble the morrow would bring. ' I'm bound to go, mother; I can't stay here,' he muttered, as he A LEAP IN THE DARK G3 pressed his cap lirmly on his head and strode out into the darkness. As soon as he was clear of the courtyard in front of the forge, the echo of his steps on the paved street seemed to be telhng all the town that he was a runaway, and he expected doors and win- dows to fly open, with eyes to recognise and hands to waylay him as he passed by. But soon he grew accustomed to the sound of his strong boots, waxed bold, and added loud whistling to the noise he was already making, walking at a pace that carried him in a short time beyond houses, pavements, and lamp- posts, and fairly launched him in the open country. Richard was used to walking in the dark, and strode fearlessly on througli black lanes, where a townsman would have stumbled at every step. He met not a single soul on his lonely way, but a farmer overtook him driving from Dormington, and breaking the silence of the nigh with enormous lung power. He was singing boisterously, ' The fox jumped over 64 KICHARD DARE the 'edge so 'igh, and the 'ounds all arter 'im go-o-o ! ' When the last notes of the jovial song with its accompanying rattle of wheels had died away in the distance, nothing was heard but the inarticulate sounds of night, a ' going ' in the tree tops, and the multitu- dinous murmur of dry grain rustling in the fields. Eichard had now turned his back on the lanes and directed his steps across the fields towards the railway. His plan was to avoid Dormington station altogether, and at a point about a couple of miles beyond the town to climb the embankment, and, taking the up line for his guide, follow its course and walk to London. It would prevent all chance of losing his way and wandering wide of the mark. The journey itself would cost him nothing, and he looked to his three and nine- pence halfpenny to find him food and drink during its course. How long it would take him to walk the hundred and thirty odd miles from Dormincfton to London he did not A LEAP IN THE DARK 65 know. He would rest when he was tired, sleep at night under a haystack, or in a barn as he might have the luck, and then pursue his way by the side of the line, his unerring guide to his destination. When he reached London most probably he would be penniless, but he saw no further than his journey's end — that was the goal in view. If grim difficulties awaited him there, so he believed did great dehverances, for Eichard was at the age when nothing seems impossible and the thought of hardship is stimulating instead of depressing. The boy scrambled up the embankment in the dark, and hitching his bundle on the crook of his stick snugly over his shoulder, set out at a swinging trot and with a light heart towards the great unknown. The moon had now risen, and in her soft light obscured by passing clouds, the glint of the worn and polished metals at his feet was visible, but the three rails beyond he could not see. He had only to keep steadily to the left VOL. I. F 66 RICHARD DARK walking between the line and the telegraph posts that followed its course, to run no risk of being cut down by a passing train. The night breeze wailed in the wires over head, sounding mournfully as an Eolian harp, and the boy's limbs grew heavy and weary as the fatigue of the last twelve hours crowded upon him. He could scarcely keep his eyes open. He shifted his bundle from one shoulder to the other, and then swung it by his side as the weight grew heavier. He tripped over every inequality in the ground, and began to look eagerly for the lights of Yarnley Junction, though he knew that he could not see them for a couple of miles yet. His steps dragged wearily, and, stumbling as he went, he caught his foot against the rail, and only saved himself from falling by bounding forward on the permanent way between the metals. By this time the moon was hidden in cloud and the line ran through a deep cutting, so that in the darkness he did not perceive the mistake lie had made. A LEAP IN THE DARK 67 On Eichard tramped doggedly, planting his feet more surely, when, at a curve in the line, a white light suddenly shone in his dazzled eyes, a huge dark outline looming above it, and the express bore down upon him with the roar of a hurricane. He had barely time to spring aside when it rushed by with a wind that blew him flat against the side of the cutting, in a shower of pebbles and gravel thrown up by the terrific speed and weight of the train, while the ground vibrated under his feet. It was gone in an instant, shrieking like a Banshee ; the light from its long chain of carriage windows merged in one flash, and nothing was visible but two eyes of red fire growing less every moment. Sick and dizzy, Richard shut his eyes and leaned his back against the cutting, and then, with knees that trembled under him, felt about in the darkness for his cap and bundle. The bundle lay uninjured between the metals where he had dropped it when he leapt aside, V 2 68 RICHARD DARE and his cap, that had been torn from his head by tlie wind of the rushing train, swung from a bramble that scratched his face as he was feelinsj about for it. Strong as the boy's nerves were, it was with difficulty that he stepped out fearlessly again in the dark, even when he was once more secure by the side of the line. The distant shriek of an engine made him start violently, and when he could not see the metals he stooped and felt them, to make sure that he was by them and not between them. At length the lights of Yarnley were plainly visible, and, wide-awake and treading warily, Eichard kept to the path of safety. It was now raining sharply and a cliilling wind had sprung up, but he pressed forward, for he was not yet ten miles on his way. He reached the junction, where the up and down lines were duplicated many times, and there were great stores of coal, and sidings with goods trains of tarpaulin-covered trucks A LEAP m THE DAEK 69 drawn up in them, spending the night very comfortably. He avoided the station, and chmbing over the wall of the coalyard, went round by the back of the signal box to regain the line beyond it. The man on duty was looking out of the door at the top of the flight of steps leading into the brightly lighted room, where he presided over a row of steel levers controlling the destiny of all railway travellers passing through the June tion, and he it was who so lately sent the express rushing down upon Eichard's path. Fearful of being observed Eichard kept well out of the light and went into the siding, intending to get on the up line again as soon as the signal man returned to his work, when a bright idea suddenly struck him. It was raining heavily, and he was cold and tired. Here was a goods train, with a long row of trucks snug and waterproof — what was to hinder him from creeping in among the packages and boxes under tlie tarpaulin into a place of rest and shelter ? It was too dark 70 KICHAED DARE to see which truck looked most promising for his purpose, and he spent a weary time chmbing up by the wheels, and fumbling in the dark under the heavy coverings, in search of one not too closely packed to afford him space to lie down in. At length, when he was about to de- spair of finding what he required, by great good luck he scrambled into a truck that was partly filled with casks of earthenware standing on end, with space between them where he could stretch himself on his side, and sit up for change of position. With a sigh of relief Eichard dropped tlie heavy tarpaulin over the place where he had climbed in, flung himself down among the casks, making a pillow of his bundle, and the hard truck felt soft to his acliing limbs as any feather bed. And in black darkness and silence he fell fast asleep. 71 CHAPTER IV RICIIAKD FALLS ON HIS FEET Sudden resolutions, like the sudden rise of the mercury in the barometer, indicate little else than the changeablenesa of the weather. — Haee. Whoever has sixpence is sovereign over all men — to the extent of sixpence ; commands cooks to feed him, &c., &c. — to the extent of sixpence. — Carltle. ' Lie still, Reuben, can't 3^011 ; you restless charvy ! ' shouted Richard under the impres- sion that his irrepressible little bedfellow was practically illustrating the activity of his dreams. ' Be quiet I tell you ! ' But the sharp nudge of the elbow that accompanied the words failed to produce the usual effect of a drowsy howl followed by a momentary lull, and the bed continued to shake under him with a mysterious rumbling, thumping sound. 72 RICHARD DARE Richard sat up and rubbed bis eyes. He looked for the hght of dawn ghmmering through the window at the foot of the bed, but all was black darkness. He stretched out his hand to feel if Eeuben was near him, but instead of touching the child's moist hair, his hand struck against a cask. In an instant he remembered where he was and laughed aloud. While he was fast asleep the train had left the siding, and he might now, for all that he knew, be a hundred miles on his way — or out of it, as he happened to be travelling north or south. He raised himself and crept on hands and knees among the big casks to the side of the truck, hfted up a corner of the heavy covering and peeped out of his hiding- place. It was not an inspiriting sight that met his eyes. Yesterday's warmth and sun- shine had departed like a dream. The morn- ing was grey and wet, and the train, uttering now and then a dismal, prolonged whistle, rumbled slowly along a flat meadowland wrapped in mist, through which loomed RICIIAED FALLS ON HIS FEET 73 ghostly the heads of pollard willows, indi- catinoj the course of a windins^ stream. Eichard had never before ventured twenty miles from his birthplace, and he was unable to hazard a guess as to where he might be, but it was clear that he was not in his own neighbourhood, the character of the country told him as much. He leaned out of his travelling bedroom and turned his head to right and left, and before and behind him stretched a chain of trucks covered with tar- paulin sheets humped up by the packages under them into strange fantastic shapes, and black and shining with rain. There was not room for him to stand upright among the casks, and the shaking of the loosely coupled trucks made his breakfastless stomach sick and faint. He turned up a flap of the heavy waterproof covering to let in air and light, and lay down again at full length on the bottom of the waggon. The rumble and thump of the wheels grew rhythmical to the boy's ear, and he 74 RICHARD DARE jolted along for miles to the tune of ' Eosalie the Prairie Flower,' crround out with exas- perating emphasis and repetition. But gradu- ally, as the pace slackened the time grew slower and slower, the wheels hammered, with vast deliberation, ' Light of the prairie home was she ! ' when a series of short, smart con- cussions passing from truck to truck, the entire length of the train from the engine to the guard's van, gave him severe warning that they were coming to a standstill. Several times the maddening mancEuvre was repeated. Each truck gave its neighbour before and behind an ill-natured shove, expressive of the will without the power to smash it, when Eichard peeped out again and had just time to read the word ' Oxford ' as the train crept through the station, before he was thrown backward among the casks by the next con- cussion. The train drew up in a siding for the engine to take in water, and during the delay Eichard would have liked to look out and EICIIAED FALLS ON HIS FEET 75 about him, but tlie fear of detection overbore his natural curiosity. He had to be content with knowing where he was, that so far every turn of the wheels had been taking him nearer to London, the place of his desire, a piece of luck beyond likelihood or anticipation. There was nothing for it but to lie hidden till the end of the journey, or wait till the train stopped in some place where he could get down unperceived and take to his legs. When the train was once more in motion he boldly threw back his curtain and enjoyed a view of the spires and domes of Oxford, while a church clock near the line struck eleven, and he was borne southward. Eichard's frugal supper of the night before was forgotten long ago, and for many a weary mile of the slow progress hunger mastered all other feelings, and he ceased to beguile the time by watching the country unfold itself in changing panorama before his untravelled eyes. But gradually, as houses began to be thickly sprinkled over the landscape, and 76 RICHARD DARE paved streets to take the place of green lanes, in spite of empty stomach and aching head, he knelt up, and, resting his elbows on the side of the truck, watched with thrilling interest the strange transformation of the effacement of the fair country by the en- croachment of a vast and grimy city. For half an hour before they reached Paddinoton, as the train rumbled through interminable suburbs, he thought again and again, ' London ! At last we're going to stop ! ' and still to his surprise it went on its way, thumping and whistling, till he feared it was bound for some place beyond London, which it would only pass through on the way to its destination. As they drew near to the great city the air was thick and murky — it was summer when he left the country — but here there was nothing in the sky by which he could have guessed the season of the year. The houses were darkened with smoke, and stood so close together Richard wondered how people could live in them, at least if RICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 77 they were free to clioose, for to him they looked Hke prisons. He thought they must be approaching a very big junction ; the hues were so multiplied, and trains followed each other in such quick succession that, remembering his narrow escape of the pre- vious night, he expected to be inevitably run into and smashed. But at length the train reached its destination in safety and steamed into the goods station, where, after a faithfid repetition of the shattering concussions that had attended its stopping at Oxford, it came to a final standstill. Eichard peeped out discreetly from under his curtain, and, seeing a number of porters about, thought it wisest to leave the train by the side furthest from the platform, and he endeavoured to creep across the bottom of the truck with this intention. But he could not squeeze himself between the big casks that blocked his way, and had to crawl back again and trust to luck in seizing the right moment for escape. He had not long to 78 EICHARD DARE wait. Most of the porters were busy unload- ing a train that had come in before his, others were workina^ with their backs towards him, and now was his opportunity. Quick as thought Eichard swung a leg over the side of the truck, grasped his stick and bundle in one hand and stood on the axle of the wheel, stretching out a leg behind him as a feeler for the ground, when unexpected help was afforded him. A strong hand grasped him by the collar, hastening his descent considerably, while a loud voice said : ' Hallo ! Is this the way you young country chaps come up to London without paying your railway fares ? ' and he thought that he had fallen into the hands of the police. . But when he twisted his head round in his tightened collar to look at his captor, he did not wear a blue coat as he expected. On the contrary, he was clad in green corduroy, he had a frank, sailor-like face, with grey eyes, and though he used strong lani]^uao"e and ferocious threats, the lad saw RICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 79 in an instant that he had not to do with a dano-erous man. Eichard's lucky star was in the ascendant that day. He had travelled all the way to London without spending a penny on the way, and tlie first person with whom he was brought into contact was that rare beim?, a man who remembered that once upon a time he had been a boy himself. Furthermore, he had not forgotten that he had run away to sea when he was younger than the truant before him, and as he recalled these things he blustered out more threatenings, and gave Kichard a hearty comprehensive shake. ' You young devil ! I've a good mind to hand you over to the ])olice for cheating the company ! ' Richard ducked his head m a vain effort to wrench himself free from the man's iron grip, for it is a disadvantage in argument to be held as in a vice by your opponent. ' Come now ! Who have I been cheating travellino; in a goods train, I should like to 80 EICHARD DAEE know? You don't issue tickets for folks to travel in trucks, or I'd ha' bought one. You could but ha' spoken so if you'd caught me out travelling in a first-class carriage with- out a ticket. If the railway company's hard up I don't mind giving 'em a shilling to carry on with, but it 'ud be a deal too much to pay for the accommodation I've luid in that truck ! I'm all cramped with squatting among them casks, and bruised till my bones'U be sore for a week ! You don't couple the trucks half tight enough on your line. I shall write to the newspapers about it ! ' The corduroy-clad porter grinned at the lad, and as two or three men had paused in their work to watcli them, added in a low voice : ' Look 'ere, you young limb ! I know all about you same as if you'd told me your- self You're a runaway from 'ome, that's your game, and no business of mine, but it is my business not to overlook your defrauding the company ' ' Haven't I just told you I'm not defraud- RICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 81 ing the company, nor anybody else neither ? ' said the boy with another impatient twist of the head and shoulders. ' How slow some folks is to understand ! ' ' Can't you keep quiet, you young fool, or you'll get into trouble ? If I don't settle this 'ere with you now out o' hand, it's a question of the police. But 'ere's a chance for you ! I'm going to ketch you a clout o' the head — I'm the company's servant and I'm bound to do it — and mind you hoUer Hke a good 'un, so as my mates can 'ear I've done my duty if any questions is ast, and then cut away as fast as your legs'U c^rry you ! ' ' All right ! ' was the cheerful reply, and the porter lifted his arm with an appearance of praiseworthy zeal, and brought his fist down with a whack on the boy's head. Eichard received it with a howl as requested, that was in reality an inarticulate ' Thank you ! ' to a friend in need, and, the comedy being played out, he ran away witli all his speed. The porter made a feint of giving chase, VOL. I. G 82 RICHARD DARE when justice was supposed to be appeased, and he stood for a minute watching the boy's flying heels, and his verdict Avas, ' That young fellow's got imperance as well as pluck ; he'll get on in the world, he will ! ' Oh the disenchantment of the first half- hour in the crowded, muddy streets of London ; those very streets that, in his childhood, Eich- ard had believed, on the assurance of those older and wiser than himself, to be paved with gold ! For his unknowing steps wan- dered through endless squalid streets in the slums of Paddington, full of pawnbrokers' shops and marine -store dealers, with public houses sandwiched in between them and cin palaces at the corners. But drink was not in the boy's line, though such a neighbourhood would have been a land of Goshen to his father if he had been on his travels. Richard was hungrily looking out for some place where he could buy food, when he lighted upon an opportune cookshop with steaming peas-pudding in the window. He entered KICHAED FALLS ON HIS FEET 83 joyfully, and ordered sausages as well as pud- ding, in as lordh^ a manner as though tlie shillings in his pockets were pounds. The master of the shop, who served him, a greasy man in an apron that had once been white, had seen many a fine appetite blunt its edge before it came to the fourth sausage and third serving of 'pudding. But the big coun- try lad ate as if he had never seen food before, and when he called for his sixth sausage he thousfht it wise to ascertain if his customer was solvent by reminding him that they were twopence each. But his orders were peremp- tory : ' Bring 'em, if they're fourpence, till I tell you to stop ! ' For Richard could do nothing till his hunger was appeased, and as he did not know when he would sit down asfain to a plentiful meal, he would make sure of it then if it cost him tlie half of his fortune. It was eighteen hours since he had eaten a mouthful, and the stomach of a healthy, growing lad is, even in these days of slack authority, a master who will be obeyed. G 2 84 RICHARD DARE When Eichard had consumed food and drink to the amount of one shilhnof and six- pence, his head once more was clear and steady, and he was able to take a vivid interest in tlie new world in which he had fallen, with- out feeling much anxiety about the future that lay blank before him. He wandered aimlessly along the streets, standing still to gaze at everybody and everything that attracted his attention, and looking into shop windows till, by degrees, he won his devious way into a better part of London on the north side of Oxford Street. The country boy was overawed by the size and number of the palace-like houses, and for the first time since he set out on his travels he felt truly lonely. The abounding tokens of great wealth, such as liis mind had no conception of, op- pressed him with a sense of his own insignifi- cance and loneliness. He wondered if the people who lived in those splendid houses ever had troubles like his ; if harsh fathers, RICHARD PALLS ON HIS FEET 85 downtrodden wives, and unhappy sons dwelt in them. And he decided with the prompt- ness of ignorance that trouble could not easily penetrate those massive doors and thick walls, and that, when he was a rich man, which every poor boy dreams of becoming, he would live in one of these palaces and ask his mother to share it with him. In the meantime a big house near Hyde Park was all one with a castle in Spain, his immediate want being employment of some kind, no matter what so long as it was honest and put food into his stomach and money into his pocket. Richard knew no trade but the blacksmith's, from which he was flying as much as from his furious father, and at pre- sent he felt as if he would take a turn at star- vation before he would seek his old work. He wanted to learn some trade that would keep him for the next few years, when, with a sturdy faith, he believed he should be able to follow his natural bent. As he trudged wearily along the endless streets, it struck 86 RICHARD DARE him that he was not m a part of London where things are made but sold, and he looked in the shop windows at the goods displayed, that seemed to have notliing to do with him. He saw no factories of any kind. As he was sauntering slowly along the Edg- ware Eoad, he suddenly caught sight of some promising words written on a sheet of paper in a draper's window, that seemed as if they might solve the present difficulty. ' Errand Boy Wanted.' Errand boy ! that would suit him exactly ! It required no knowledge of a trade to be an errand boy. Nothing was wanted but ordinary intelligence and extra- ordinary strong legs, and he could answer for it that he possessed both qualifications, and thus emboldened he entered the shop, and offered himself as the errand boy required. A sickly, effeminate-looking man, with hair plastered to his head with pomatum, was standing behind the counter measuring pink ribbon with a yard measure. He paused in EICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 87 his lady-like occupation to look up at the sturdy lad, as he stood before him, cap in hand, grasping his stick and bundle. To his cockney apprehension there was something extremely ludicrous in the appearance of the stalwart country youth, and he asked him sar- castically if he could oblige him with anything in the ribbon or feather line. ' No, sir, thank you, I'm not a customer. I've seen your advertisement in the window, and I've come to offer myself for tlie place.' The master of the shop tittered in an irritating manner, and glancing towards his assistants to secure an admirino^ audience for his wit, said, ' Oh, that's what we owe the honour of a visit to, is it ? Any boy that takes my situation must be smart and know his w'y about town, and that 'ud 'ardly be you, I fancy ! ' ' Can't say whether I'm smart or not, but give me a couple of days and I'll find my way about town as well as any. other lad,' Richard replied stoutly. 88 RICHARD DARE ' People wouldn't understand you when you ast tliem where you was a-going, not till you'd learnt to speak Henglish,' said the draper, with an elegant flourish of the pink ribbon, and feeling very witty before his young ladies, who were staring rudely at the country boy, and wishing the jackanapes they walked out with on a Sunday afternoon had half such a pair of shoulders. ' If I don't speak English, I know what good manners are for all that,' he said, look- ing round scornfully, ' and I thought that the master of a shop like this should ha' been a gentleman, but I was mistook. When I've lived in your London a bit longer, I shall know more about it,' and he left the shop with a sullen dignity that for the moment quenched the tittering behind the counter. ' Confound that ape among the ribbons ! ' thought Richard, as he turned into the street again. ' No more drapers for me ! Black- smiths rather, if it comes to that ! I'll see if they want an errand boy in any of the RICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 89 chemists' shops. That 'ud be more in my hne than a place stuck full o' women's fallals, where they speak mincing cockney and don't understand good English when they hear it ! ' And without waiting for advertisements in the windows Richard offered himself as errand boy in at least a dozen chemists' shops, and though no one was in want of his services, he met with civility, occasionally mixed with a word for his good, as when he was told he had done a foolish thing in coming up to London without securing employment beforehand. When he began to perceive that no one wanted his services, he offered an inducement and a bribe in the shape of unpaid labour for the first three months. Only give him food and lodging, and he would serve any master in any honest calling for a quarter of a year, but even on those terms no one cared to employ him. In several of the shops where he had 90 EICHARD DARE applied he was asked his name, and he had frankly replied ' Eichard Atherley,' but now, as he tramped along, he thought, ' If I'm going to be unlucky it sha'n't be in my own name. It's plain to be seen that if I get a job at all it'll be a poor one, and I don't want them at home to find out anything about me till they can be proud of me. I'll stick to the Eichard, I shouldn't know myself without that, but other folks 'ud know me by my second name, so I must change it. Father might p'r'aps get wind somehow of me, and find me before I'd done anything worth doing. No ; I've gone clean away, same as if I was dead, and they mustn't be able to trace me nor nothing,' and he began turning over in his mind all the family names he knew. The list was not a long one, and he soon came to an end of it, and then he looked above the shop windows for suggestions, to see if he could find one that he liked well enough to adopt as his own. But the lad was hard to please. Some names were too fine for EICIIAED FALLS ON HIS FEET 91 workaday purposes, while others were too mean to exchange for the name of Atherley, and he was besfinnine^ to tliink he would have to invent one, when a tradesman's cart drove rapidly past, so near to the curbstone that he started aside, as he did so reading on the back of the cart in bright, yellow letters, ' Wilham Dare, Boot and Shoe Maker,' and liis mind was made up on the spot. ^ Dare ! That's the name for me ! A plucky name and no nonsense about it ! I'm Dicky Dare, Eichard Dare next time anybody asks me, and a thundering good name too ! ' Eichard's wanderings had led him down the Marylebone Road, through dreary sun- less streets of the sixth magnitude compared with the great thoroughfares by which he had entered them. He was walking slowly along a crowded, narrow street, when he stopped before a chemist's window gay with an attractive display of large glass bottles filled with brilliant-coloured fluids, and having above the door, in gilded letters, the name Peter Colling- 92 EICHARD DARE wood. It was a cheap shop doing a large ready-money business, where faded, shabby women, brincfincf medicine bottles under their thin shawls, came for another pennyworth of the stuff that quieted the cough at night, and brought their pining babies to be prescribed for by Mr, Colhngwood, whose customers regarded him as a full-blown consulting physician. Everything connected with surgery inte- rested Eichard, and he gazed spell-bound at a revolting display of extracted teeth piled up in a corner of the window, as an advertisement and proof of the chemist's skill in dentistry. Next came plasters and bandages of every description, claiming and receiving his closest attention, glass dishes heaped with pills, and huge bottles with gilded tops filled with golden boluses as big as bull's eyes. After a pro- longed inspection, when he had exhausted tlie contents of the one window he went on a voyage of discovery to the other, where, between bowls of cough lozenges and a RICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 93 tasteful display of respirators and knee caps, he beheld a sight that kindled his brightest hopes — a sheet of writing paper reared up against an infant's feeding-bottle, on which was written, perhaps the most abrupt sentence in the English language, 'Boy Wanted,' not 'Errand Boy,' as the draper's advertisement had defined him ; there was no qualifying adjective whatever. There was a pleasing vagueness about it, calling up exciting visions in Richard's mind concerning the nature of the duties the boy might be expected to fulfil. Perhaps he might even have ihe dehghtful task of dressing the window com- mitted to him, and he peeped into the shop. Two men were standing behind the opposite counters, and Richard saw at a glance which was the master and which the man. The assistant was a gawky youth with abnormally large red hands, and a complexion that did not respond to the application of soap and water. Even at that moment, big with fate for Richard, he thought if the young 94 EICHAED DARE man's hands were like beef in summer, what must they be like in frosty weather ? At the back of the shop he caught sight of rows of shelves laden with porcelain jars, labelled, like volumes of the encyclopedia, with strange abbreviations of their contents. In the middle of the shelves was a mirror-covered door, leading straight into the domestic privacy of Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood. As Richard entered the shop once more to try his fortune, he shot a keen glance to right and left, and then his eyes rested on Mr. Collingwood, a thin, middle-aged man in spectacles, wearing a white apron, and busy at the moment bandaoing the hand of a small child whimpering in its mother's arms. The ill-favoured assistant pushed aside the pestle and mortar with which he was pound- ing noisily, and, leaning forward, resting thumb and forefinger on the counter till his elbows stood up like a grasshopper's, asked the new- comer what he wanted. ' Nothing, thank you, till the gentleman EICIIARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 95 can speak to me,' whereat the assistant resumed his pounding with vigour, and Ricliard set his bundle on a chair and stood listening to what the chemist was saying to the mother of his little patient. Evidently he was a kindly man, for he slipped a lozenge into the child's mouth squared for a cry, when it immediately contracted into a round and compact form, indicative of silence and suction. As he dressed the little hand, the chemist remarked to the mother in tones as suave as though she had paid two guineas to hear them in a consultincf-room of a fashion- able doctor, ' It is evident tliat the child has been allowed to play with some sharp instru- ment, and in consequence has given himself a severe cut. A knife is certainly not what the faculty would recommend as a safe plaything for an infant.' ' Well, I declare, if that isn't what my 'usband says ! " Sar' Anne," he says, " what- ever do you give the boy the carving knife to pl'y with, so long as there's a bit o' broken 96 RICHARD DARE crockery 'andy, or anything else as is safe ! " ' and the astonished mother paid her three- pence for surgical bandaging and departed. Eichard promptly took her place at the counter as Mr. Collingwood slipped the coppers into the till, looking mildly over his spectacles at the boy meanwhile. ' There's a notice in your window, sir, " Boy Wanted," and I've come to see if you think I should do,' and Eichard stood cap in hand at the threshold of fate. The chemist now looked at the boy through his glasses instead of over them, and the assistant became all ears, large red ears, and ceased pounding to listen. ' Yes, certainly, I want a boy ; but I want a good boy this time, if such a thing is to be had. My shop boys have given me a great deal of trouble.' ' If you'll take me, sir, I'll try not to give you any trouble. I'll do whatever you tell me, whatever my duties are,' and he looked earnestly in the chemist's mild face. RICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 97 ' Your duties would not be heavy, but they would have to be despatched with what we term punctuality and precision,' said Mr. CoUingwood in tones as polite as though he were addressing a customer. ' Could you tell me what they would be, sir ? ' and the boy drew nearer and laid one of his large shapely hands on the counter. ' Well, to begin with, you would have to rise very early in the morning, sweep out the shop, and light the stove in cold weather, take down the shutters and keep the windows clean, run errands, take out medicines, put up the shutters at night, and — and please Mrs. CoUingwood. Most of my boys have failed to do this — I fail to do it myself occasionally — and they have had to leave in consequence. Some, indeed, have been excellent boys, but rude to Mrs. CoUingwood, I regret to say, and I have been obliged to part with them.' ' Whatever else you find me, sir, I think I can promise you I shouldn't be rude to a woman.' VOL. I. H 98 EICHARD DARE ' To a lady you mean,' said the chemist gently. 'We term Mrs, Collingwood a lady,' and it was as mild a rebuke as the good chemist ever administered. The red-handed assistant covered his ungainly mouth with a corner of his apron to keep himself from laughing outright, and Eichard feared he had spoilt his chances by his unlucky remark. ' I'll do my best to please the lady, as well as yourself, if you'll engage me, sir. I'm very strong and there's nothing here that I couldn't do easily, and, though I've only just come to London, I'll undertake to find my way about town as well as that fellow there giggling be- hind the counter,' and Eichard nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the assistant. The chemist raised his eyes and observed mildly, ' Mr. Jakins, your levity ' when the youth dropped his apron and resumed his pestle and mortar work with furious energy, and a face like a thunder-cloud. ' Only try me, sir,' pleaded Eichard ; ' try EICHAKD FALLS ON HIS FEET 99 me. Pay me as little as you like, I'll be con- tent and serve you willing and hearty, if you'll teach me about the drugs and things in the shop. And there's teeth in the window,' con- tinued the boy eagerly ; ' if you'll teach me the use of the dentist's tools, and how to draw teeth, there's nothing I wouldn't do for you in return.' Mr. CoUingwood gave a little gasp of as- tonishment. ' This is extraordinary ; most extraordi- nary ! I must have had some twenty boys in the course of my experience, and not one of them has evinced the slightest inclination to discriminate between the nature of cod-liver oil and Epsom salts, or cared to know whether teeth were extracted from the head or the heels of the patient ! ' ' It's the one thing I care for, everything about surgery and operations ! ' said Eichard earnestly. ' Look here, sir, if you'll only teach me aU I can learn in your shop, I'll ask you for nothing but food and clothing for a whole H 2 100 EICHARD DARE year. I'll serve you night and day with a hearty will if you'll only teach me ! ' The chemist liked the look of the boy, and his manner interested him ; but there was someone else besides himself to be consulted before he dared to come to any decision, and he murmured softly, ' I wonder what Maria would say to it all ? ' The quenched assistant looked up from the pestle and mortar as Eichard repeated, with the intensity of a prayer, ' Only give me a trial, sir ! ' when the mirror-covered door among the jar-laden shelves jElashed open, and Maria herself appeared upon the scene, and a sharp voice said : ' You're ten minutes late for your tea again, CoUingwood ! I should ha' brought you a cup myself, but it don't look well when customers come in, and I don't fancy the taste of it all among pills and plasters. Jakins, you might have the manners to stop that row with the pestle and mortar while I'm speaking to your master ; I can't hear the sound of my own RICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 101 voice ! ' and the pestle dropped from the big red hand as thouorh it had received a blow on the knuckles. Mrs. Colling wood was a dark-haired woman, with wiry ringlets and a puckered brow, roving black eyes and drawn-in corners of the mouth, and Pdchard felt that until that moment he had not seen the real master of the establishment. He took the measure of the lady at once, and making his best bow, said, politely, ' I'm asking Mr. Collingwood to employ me as his shop-boy, ma'am, and, if he'll teach me about drawing teeth and drugs, I don't want any wa^es for a twelvemonth ! ' Eichard's good looks, that the chemist had not noticed, but which the assistant had seen at a glance and hated him for, stood him in good stead in the eyes of a woman, and after surveying him from his comely shock of hair to his uncouth country boots, Mrs. Col- lingwood's features began to work, and she looked at her husband. 102 EICIIARD DAKE ' Oh, CoUingwood, can't you see it for yourself? Why didn't you send for me at once ? The boy might ha' gone without me seeintT 'im and what a thins^ that would ha' been ! I never see such a likeness ! It's our Willy come back again ! ' and Maria burst into tears. The assistant grinned, and, turning his back towards the counter, rubbed his large red hands together as though he were enjoying himself very much. But Richard opened his dark eyes wide. Was it possible that he had already offended the susceptible lady, on whose account so many boys had been dismissed from her hus- band's employ ? ' Compose yourself, my dear,' said the chemist, who knew these scenes by heart, and he offered his wife a bottle of smelling salts that stood conveniently near him on the counter ; but she continued to steal furtive glances at Eichard, and then covered her face with her handkerchief, as though to shut out the painful sight. RICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 103 ' You had better wait till Mrs. Colling wood feels equal to seeing you again,' said tlie chemist in a mild voice, and he and the afflicted lady retired together through the mirror door into private life. ' What on earth's the matter with the woman ! ' exclaimed Richard in amazement, looking at the reflection of his own as- tonished face where Mrs. Colhngwood had stood a moment before. ' What on earth's the matter with the woman ! ' ' What's the matter with yourself, you mean,' retorted the ugly assistant, with an unnecessary contortion. ' I've a mind to wear a curly wig myself, and paint my face, and see if the missis won't take a fancy to me and think I'm like Willy too' — when customers entered the shop, and Richard could only wait as he was bidden and hope for a favourable solution of the mystery. But mystery there was none, and Mrs. CoUingwood's extraordinary conduct was ac- counted for by a plain fact. Some years pre- 104 RICHARD DARE viously the chemist and his wife had lost their only child. It had been a grievous trouble to them, but one from which the father, by lapse of time and by constant occupation, had en- tirely recovered. The five short years in which his home had been brightened by the presence of his little boy, had become in memory a mere episode in his life. He had mourned his loss heartily and wholesomely, but when he had enlarged the shop and en- gaged an assistant qualified to make up pre- scriptions when he was driving Mrs. Colling- wood out in a hired phaeton, he felt a renewed interest in life. The world went on very much as it had done before Willy Collingwood paid it a five years' visit, and his father saw no reason why, because he was again childless, as he had been for the greater part of his life, he should grow slack in the performance of his duty, and generally reproach Provi- dence. It was not so, however, with his wife in losing her child. She was not a woman of KICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 105 warm affections, but she had suffered the utmost that her narrow nature could suffer, and, worst of all, she had lost her occupation and had no longer any object of absorbing interest. Moreover, she was deprived of the one creature absolutely under her despotic sway, for though her husband was usually submissive, there had been occasions on which he had ventured to assert himself, while Willy was at that convenient age when overt rebellion is most appropriately dealt with by the application of physical force. She still grieved bitterly, and reproached her husband as a heartless monster for finding much to be thankful for in a world from which her Willy had departed. Mrs. Collingwood's grief had long since passed through the acute phase, and become chronic at the luxurious stage in which she slept soundly, ate her food with discriminating enjoyment, took the keenest interest in her new bonnet, and yet was ready to burst into tears, embarrassing to the beholder, at any- 106 EICHAKD DARE thing and everything recalling Willy to her remembrance. Her husband was unable to discover by what obscure mental process objects different from each other, and all of them totally un- like Willy, recalled him vividly to his mother's mind. It was natural, perhaps, that she should look at every baby in a perambulator and be struck by its likeness to her little boy ; but it was in the highest degree perplexing to Mr. CoUingwood, when he took her to the play, to have her burst into tears and whisper between her sobs, ' I can't bear it, CoUing- wood ! I don't know what it is, but that old gentleman in the stalls, when he uses his hand- kerchief, does so put me in mind of our Willy ! ' And when he took her to a Volun- teer Review in the Park she wept at the sight of the reviewing officer, a stout, red- faced man on horseback, issuing the word of com- mand in a series of short, staccato barks. He struck Mrs. CoUingwood as just such an- other as her Willy would have been had he KICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 107 been spared to fifty, instead of five years of age. Of course, every lad from five to twenty had a look of Willy about him, but it was the special and striking resemblance borne by the russet-cheeked, well-grown youth to the rickety, pale-faced departed, that overcame Mrs. Collingwood the instant she set eyes upon Eichard. The chemist was used to these outbursts of feeling, and they were generally mixed with considerable asperity of temper on the part of the chief mourner. No sooner, there- fore, wei'e Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood alone in the parlour than his wife turned and chode with him. ' Don't tell me you've been a father and can look on that noble face and not see as it's our Willy over again ! Wliere are your eyes and your heart, and your feelings as a parent ? ' ' But, my dear, I was under the impression that Willy was very fair and small, altogether different in size and colour from this boy.' 108 EICHARD DARE ' 'Ark at you ! ' said Maria contemptuously drying her eyes. ' As if likeness had any- thing to do with size or colours, indeed, or any such nonsense ! Likeness is something you see in faces, and if you don't see it, it's your own fault because you've got such a hard heart. As if a mother wouldn't know who was like her own child and who wasn't ! I'm ashamed o' you, CoUingwood. You en- gage that boy directly ; it'll be a sort of a comfort to see a face as puts me in mind o' Willy, though my comfort's the last thing you'd think about. And look 'ere, CoUingwood, that boy don't take his meals down in the kitchen along o' Mary Anne and the black beadles ; I must have that face at table with you and me and Jakins.' ' There'll be an end of all discipline if the shop-boy dines in the parlour,' objected the chemist, well aware with what a burst of indignation the proposal would have been met if it had come from himself. ' End of disciphne ? End of a fiddlestick ! RICHARD FALLS ON HIS FEET 109 That boy's got your own son's face, and you've got to behave according. Where are your feehngs as a father ? Go and engage 'im this minute, or I will myself ! ' and thus menaced by his wife, Mr. Collingwood called Eichard into the parlour and made his bargain with him there and then. When all arrangements were satisfactorily concluded the chemist said gravely, ' Mrs. Colhngwood considers that you bear a certain resemblance to our son who is dead, that is why she was overcome at the sight of you, and I hope that you will endeavour to behave like him.' Though, truth to say, had Eichard behaved like Willy such conduct would have been unbecoming in an errand boy, who is not expected to refuse to do as he is bid, or scream himself black in the face when he can't have what he wants. Mrs. Colhngwood graciously consented to allow her husband to teach the shop-boy dis- pensing and tooth-drawing, but would not let him be taught in lieu of wages, as the lad in 110 RICHARD DARE his eagerness had himself proposed. ' It 'ud be Hke keeping our Willy without pocket- money,' she said, laying her hand on Eichard's shoulder and terrifying him lest she should kiss him. ' And now what's your name, my lad ? ' ' Richard Dare, ma'am,' and, as he uttered his new name for the first time, the colour mounted to his face. ' That s not a name as anyone need blush for, I'm sure. I'd an uncle once myself, a very respectable party, as kept a shop in the Mile End Road, and 'is name was Richard, and there's something quite venturesome about Dare. I like it,' and Mrs. CoUingwood smiled graciously on the new shop-boy. Ill CHAPTER V A HOME TRAGEDY 'Twas pitiful ; 'twas wondrous pitiful. — Othello. Early in the morning after Richard's flight, his mother was waked by little Reuben crying loudly in the next room. Her husband was wrapt in the stupifying sleep of drunkenness, and she mig;ht have shouted ' Fire ! ' in his ear and he would not have heard her, but she was roused in an instant, and, throwing a shawl over her shoulders, hurried to the child. ' It's Richard making 'im cry, I know. I wish he wouldn't be so sharp with the little 'un,' and she opened the door prepared for a querulous remonstrance with her eldest son, when to her astonishment she found Reuben alone in bed crying, between his sobs, ' Where's Dicky ; where's brother Dicky ? ' 112 KICHAED DARE Mrs. Atherley looked about her in dis- may. No trace of Richard was to be seen ; his clothes were gone and the chest of drawers stood open. It shot through the mother's heart that her darling, the boy she was so proud of, had run away from home rather than submit any longer to his father's harsh and unjust treatment. She understood now what he meant when he had assured her so confidently that his father would never thrash him again. But as hope will not suffer itself to be quenched at once by unwelcome cer- tainty, she strove hard to think he might possibly be in the kitchen, or have risen early to go to some work of his own in the smithy. Mrs. Atherley did not stop to dress, but hurried downstairs as she was. The morning sunshine was streaming into the kitchen in slanting rays from above the closed shutters, showing the poor remains of Eichard's supper on the table, but no Richard was there. The dog lay on the hearth looking up with sad, A HOME TRAGEDY 113 intelligent eyes. She knew all about it, and when Mrs. Atherley opened the door through which the spaniel had seen Eichard go out into the wide world, Nance sprang up and gave a bark that a fellow doij would have understood, but that her mistress failed rightly to interpret. The anxious mother hastened to the smithy, though her heart told her that it was on a vain quest. She opened the upper half of the door and let a stream of sunshine into the dark smithy, only to find, as she expected, no trace of her son. Slowly Mrs. Atherley returned to the house and upstairs to little Reuben, who by this time had forgotten his trouble and was standing barefooted on the chair by the chest of drawers, breaking Richard's collec- tion of birds' eggs with speed and precision. His mother whisked him off the chair and had him in bed in a moment, with both his fat little hands full of broken treasures. ' You naughty boy, you ! Leave brother's VOL. I. I 114 RICHARD DARE things alone ! Richard's gone away, and p'r'aps you'll never see him no more ! ' and she rocked to and fro on the edge of the bed and the tears ran down her cheeks. ' Where's Eichard gone ? ' asked the child with round eyes. And ' Where's Eichard gone ? ' echoed the mother's heart and lips for years to come, and no answer was given to the question, though she asked it of God and man. The blacksmith's amazement as the day wore on and his son did not return, was so great that he was compelled to go thrice instead of twice to the Barley Mow, to talk the matter over with his boon companions. ' If ever there was a lad as was onhkely to turn linty and shirk a thrashing, it's our Eichard, though I says it,' Atherley remarked over his gin and water. ' I could ha' taken my oath as he'd ha' come 'ome afore this and stood 'is strapping like a man, and I've often give it 'im pretty hot for fooling about wi' messes and things as he'd no business with, A HOME TRAGEDY 115 and he's never cried out nor nothing. Such a father as I've been to 'im too ! ' ' Well, whatever you may ha' been you gone too fer with 'im this time ! ' said a candid listener who paid for his own drink, and, needing nothing from Atherley, was free to speak his mind. ' You gone too fer with 'im, that's what it is ! He's had a deal more kicks than ha'pence from you, and 'e thinks 'e had about enough on it, so he's took French leave and run away, and small blame to 'im I say ! ' ' Is this a free country where a man may chastise his own lawful begotten son or is it not ? ' asked the blacksmith with dignity. ' But for all your talk you'll find as Eichard'll come back to-morrow, and take 'is thrashing, and settle down to work in the smithy just as if 'e'd never played the fool, you see if 'e don't ! ' But Atherley spoke thus certainly because his heart misgave him. He felt that the boy would not return, and that his neighbours would laugh at him, and he took another I 2 116 RICHARD DARE glass, this time gin without water, and in- wardly chafed and fumed. Someone must sufier for this. If Eichard had run away, there should be someone on whom he might visit his displeasure, and with instinctive and unconscious cowardice he thought of the weak woman at home as a convenient victim. ' The lad's always been too thick with his mother, that's where it is ! They've laid a plot between them two to rob me of the lad's services, and she got me to bed last night a purpose, and started 'im off somewhere out o' my road, and she knows where 'e is, I be bound ! ' and he hurried home to have it out with her at once. The Atherleys' front door was shut and all was quiet within — Eeuben at school and the baby asleep in the cradle. There were cleaner kitchens and cleaner children than the gentle Mrs. Atherley's, for a touch of the shrew usually goes with a hawk's eye for fugitive dust and secretive dirt. But if the children were not always redolent of A HOME TRAGEDY ] 17 yellow soap, their mother never greeted them with shrill volleys of scolding, or Hew at them and shook them, and she was always ready to kiss the tears from a troubled and grimy little face. She was going about her house this morning more limply than usual, with eyes red with crying, when her husband entered the kitchen suddenly, leaving the door wide open behind him. He threw his battered hat on the table, and she saw at a glance that he was excited with drink. He began in loud, hectoring tones, ' Come now, you'd better say straight away where the lad's gone, for you know all about it ! You and 'im 'ave laid your 'eads together to make a fool o' me, but I tell you I won't stand it ; I've found out your tricks ! Come now, where's Eichard ? ' and he stepped towards her with a threatening gesture. ' Wiiere's Eichard, I say ? ' ' I wish I could tell you where he is ! God knows, for I don't ! ' ' Let's 'ave none o' your profanity, missis ! ]18 RICHARD DARE You know as it was you as put the lad up to running away, he'd never ha' thought of it but for you. It's a woman's trick all over, and you done it ! You 'elped 'im to run away from a father as was only doing his duty by 'im, and you know where 'e is now well enough ! ' For the first time in her life Mrs. Ather- ley looked at her husband when he was in a passion without fear. Anxiety for her son conquered her natural timidity, and she re- plied quietly, ' If you say as I helped the lad to run away and that I know where he is now, you tell a he, Samuel Atherley ; ' when the blacksmith's fist struck her a sledge-ham- mer blow on the breast, and, with a sharp cry, she fell senseless to the floor as Mrs. Windy- bank entered the kitchen. ' Oh, you big brutal coward ! ' cried the nimble little woman, flying at Atherley like a stinging wasp. ' I saw what you done as I past the window ! I'm not your wife as I should be afraid of you ! If you dare to lay A HOME TRAGEDY 119 a hand on me I'll have the law of you. Stand back, I say ! You sha'n't touch 'er, nor 'elp to 'eave 'er up nor nothing ! Out of the place with you, and leave that poor martyr o' yours wi' me, and if you've killed 'er, you shall swing for it, as sure as I've breath to witness against you ! ' and the astonished householder was thrust forth over his own threshold, his own door slammed at his back, and the bolt shot by an alien hand before he knew where he was. When Mrs. Atherley recovered conscious- ness, she was lying on the floor, a woman's arm supporting her, and her dazed head pillowed on a woman's breast. The feminine touch reassured her, and, looking up at Mrs. Windybank, she closed her eyes while large tears slowly coursed down her cheeks, and she gave a great sigh. 'Oh, I wish it was ray last breath I was drawing ! ' ' And no thanks to that murdering bully of a husband o' yours as you 'aven't got your 120 RICHARD DARE wish ! ' said Mrs. Windybank vehemently. ' Of all the brutal things I ever see this is the worst ! ' ' He never would ha' struck me if he'd been sober ; leastways, not so hard,' urged the poor wife. ' He never would ha' done it. God forgive 'im ! ' ' Don't you begin excusing of 'im or you'll 'ave me angry with you just now, Mrs. Atlier- ley ! And talk o' God forgiving 'im, indeed ! There's a deal 'as to go before forgiveness in my opinion, and in general I'm right. There's got to be repentance, and never doing it no more, and speaking your mind plain, and tell- ing folks straight out to their faces what you think o' their doings, before you get so fer as talk o' forgiveness ! ' and she moistened the now fainting woman's brow with vinegar and water. Little by little Mrs. Atherley told her friend that her husband had struck her be- cause he believed that she knew where Eich- ard was, and had helped him to run away, A HOME TRAGEDY 121 ' and if he'd serve me like this, what wouldn't he ha' done to my poor lad if he'd stayed at 'ome for it ? ' ' And a deal better if 'e'd tried it on with Eichard, Mrs. Atherley ! He'd ha' give 'is father as good as 'e got, and serve 'im right ! Eichard's getting a young man now, and I see it in 'is eye as 'e wasn't agoing to put up wi' things much longer. Come now,' she added gently, ' can you bear your 'ead on this piller, and let me get up and put the kettle on, and then we'll see what the damage is, for it's 'urting you cruel bad I can see.' And in a short time Mrs. Windybank had boiled the water and made a cup of nerve- shaking, blood-impoverishing tea, the poor woman's comfort in all troubles of mind and body. ' There, take a cup o' tea, my dear, it'll pull you together like and 'elp you,' and the little gimlet-eyed woman held the cup to her friend's trembhng lips. 122 RICHARD DARE ' What should we do without each other, us women ! ' sighed Mrs. Atherley. ' Aye ! you may say that ! — and now, as you've drunk your drop o' tea, let me see what the 'urt is,' and Mrs. Atherley fumbled in vain with shaking fingers at hooks and eyes. ' 'Ere, let me do that for you, you're all of a dither,' and she unfastened the front of her bodice, and found that the hurt was far worse than she had feared. It was a sight contrary to nature and abhorrent to humanity, the breast of a mother giving suck, wounded by the cruel blow of the father of her babe, and when Mrs. Windybank saw it she struck her hands together with dismay. ' Lord ! 'ow could your 'usband do it ! And 'im born of a woman too and fed at a woman's breast, though no one 'ud credit 'im with it ! I doubt you're 'urt very serious, Mrs. Atherley. A doctor must see to this ! ' ' Not if it kills me, a doctor sha'n't see it, Mrs. Windybank ! He'd ask who done it and I can't 'ave folks talking ! ' A HOME TEAGEDY 123 ' Ask who'd done it ! Not he ! Anyone with 'alf an eye 'ud see as your 'usband 'ad done it ; nobody else in the world but 'im ! ' and the little woman's eyes flashed with indig- nation. ' Oh, don't carry on so, Mrs. Windybank, but just 'elp me up on the settle ; I shall feel better when I'm off the floor, it puts me too much in mind of 'ow I come to be there,' For the next few days Mrs. Atherley was in high fever and very ill, and Mrs. Windy- bank nursed her, applying old wives' remedies, that did their duty as they used to do in days before the art of healing was a professional mystery we call in the medicine-man to ex- ercise on our behalf. Mrs. Windybank took entire charge of the household during the mother's illness. She weaned the baby, launching it upon a perilous course of grown- up fare with dismal results to itself, and sent Eeuben to school with his face scarified with yellow soap and cold water. Anything that 124 EICHARD DARE she thought necessary for the children Mrs. Windybank did with pleasure, but it cost her a great strugcfle before she could bring her- self to prepare Sam Atherley's dinner, and she only yielded to his wife's entreaties : ' If 'e don't 'ave nothing to eat at 'ome he'll go more'n ever to the Barley Mow. Do just bile 'im a pertater, do ! ' In justice to the blacksmith one is bound to record that he suffered remorse for which no one gave him credit. He hung restlessly about the house, and when he growled at the bedroom door, ' O'w's Liz'buth now ? ' Mrs. Windybank rephed tartly, ' Not out o' danger yet, nor won't be, not till you alter your ways, I'm thinking,' and she did not allow him to set eyes on his wife for three days and nights. When she was obhged to leave her patient to attend to her own house work, she locked Mrs. Atherley in her room and took the key away in her pocket. When once Mrs. Windybank had con- sented to prepare Atherley's dinner, she A HOME TRAGEDY 125 thoroughly entered into the spirit of it, and enjoyed herself immensely. It provided her too with a splendid opportunity of speaking her mind to the blacksmith and telling him plainly what she thought of him. She contrived to make his food both look and taste as unap- petising as possible, and she spilt the beer over the bread, smeared the cloth with mustard, and upset the salt and vinegar with the best will in the world. ' And now set you down to your dinner, as I've been so kind as get ready for you just to oblige your poor wife, for if it 'adn't been for 'er you might ha' whistled for it afore I'd ha' stirred to cook it. Call yourself a man ! Setting right end up on a chair eatin' off a plate's too good for you ! Why, if everybody 'ad their dues you'd be summat or other going on four legs, as folks took and throwed their bones to when they'd picked 'em ! I thought you wouldn't hke me saying that ! Swear away as 'ard as you like, it don't 'urt me ; but if you touch me I'll 'ave 126 KICHARD DARE the law of you ! I'm not your wife, as I'll let you know pretty soon if you lay a finger on me ! ' The blacksmith's language was not good to hear. ' If you was my wife I'd break every bone in your body ! ' ' There you're talking o' what you don't understand, Sam Atherley. I'm not the sort o' woman as 'usban's knock about, for I've got a tongue i' my 'ead and I know 'ow to use it too, and if they've got fisses to 'it with, I've got nails to pertect myself with. No, the sort o' wife you dare to lay 'ands on is Uke that poor-speritted thing upstairs, for you're cowards, the pack of you. And now I'm going 'ome to give my fam'ly their dinner, and taking little Eeuben along with me, and 'ere's your dinner afore I leave,' she said, clapping a dish of cold bacon on the table with a thump. ' And them's pertaters I've cooked for you with all the eyes left in 'em, as black as my shoe, and under-biled a purpose, and may they give you spassims is my prayer I ' with which A HOME TRAGEDY 127 grace before meat Mrs. Windybank caught up Eeuben and departed. Weeks passed by and grew into months, and still no Eichard returned, and neither parents nor neighbours could hear anything of his whereabouts. In his sullen incommu- nicative mind, Atherley acquitted his wife of complicity in his flight, though he did not admit as much. He felt, too, that he had hurt her very badly for nothing, and for the future it was a fact useful to remember, that boys are safer objects for bodily chastisement than women — but one lives and learns. Though Atherley could not bring himself to admit that he had behaved like a brute, he knew it, and he never again used personal violence towards his wife. The man had self-control where he chose to exert it, and when he felt the evil spirit rising within him he would leave the house, if only to make himself so drunk he could be a menace to nobody. Also, lie dreaded more than hell a second invasion of Mrs. Windybank, who had assured liim that 128 RICHARD DARE if ever he hurt his wife again she would return to nurse her day and night till she was well ; so the peace must be kept at any price. Sam Atherley had no idea how much he should miss his son, or, rather, he had not imagined the inconvenience to which his absence exposed him. No hired boy would submit to the beatings he had so freely bestowed upon Richard, who, moreover, had worked without pay, as he bitterly realised on a Saturday night when he grudgingly doled out a scanty wage to the stranger within his gates. Atherlev did not know that his son's dis- appearance was owing to Mr. Featherstone's unlucky visit with his daughter to the forge, more even than to tlie lad's deep discontent. His wounded pride and newly acquired sense of personal dignity, outraged in the presence of the beautiful young girl, had driven him away more than any fear of his father's displeasure. In the light of Margaret Featherstone's eyes he had become conscious of himself in a A HOME TRAGEDY 129 manner he could not have defined, even if he had tried to do so. But the new feeHng found expression in the determination to suffer no hand, whether that of his father or any other man, to be laid on him in bodily chastisement again. And he could not forgive his father for the vile and injurious words he had used to him in the hearing of Miss Featherstone. VOL. I. 130 RICHARD DARE CHAPTER VI THE CHANCES OF WAR Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping ? Hamlet. EiCHARD Dare, as we must now call Eichard Atherley, was grateful for the good fortune that caused hhn to fall, cat-like, on his feet, when he took his first leap into the wide world. But he had no mind to rest his claims to his master's consideration on the imagined likeness Mrs. CoUingwood detected in him to tlie departed Willy. His own sturdy sense told him that a sudden unreason- able fancy is often the forerunner of an equally sudden and unreasonable dislike, and he en- deavoured to make himself so necessary to the good-humoured chemist that, when his mistress lost interest in him, he might retain THE CHANCES OF WAU 131 his situation on the safer ground of his useful- ness. The red-handed assistant detailed to Eichard instructive histories of previous shop- boys who had been dismissed for the involun- tary offence of ceasing to remind Mrs. Colling- wood of Willy. For, in addition to being intensely jealous of liis favoured position in the house, Jakins hated Eichard for his own sake, and imparted the knowledge of his predecessors' fate to him witli a single-minded intention of making him uncomfortable, and imparting a sense of insecurity to his term of service, be it long or sliort. But the assur- ance of the uncertainty of his employment served his best interests, and found robust expression in a devotion to work and greed of learning that were a perpetual surprise to his master. Fearful lest his chances of improvement should come suddenly to an end, Eichard threw his whole energy into whatever he did or learnt, and acquired as much practical knowledge in a few months as K 2 132 KICHARD DARE might have been spread over a year had he been sure of staying so long in his present situation, and the praise his master lavished on him behind his back did not tend to ameliorate the assistant's feelings towards him. Mr. Jakins was sensitive, and resented the presence of the shop-boy at meals in the parlour with Mr. and Mrs. ColUngwood and himself, for if it was not, as the chemist said, subversive of all discipline, at all events it was contrary to custom and established order. But before long a nightly grievance in addition to the daily recurring one was added to Mr. Jakins's burden. The shop-boy had not been a month in the house before Mrs. Collingwood, for some purpose of her own, required his room, and moved him into the assistant's larger one, which she said was amply big enough for the two young fellows to share. Eichard detested the arrangement as much as the assistant, but he held his tongue, being determined not to lose his situation through THE CHANCES OF WAR 13o any folly of his own, and at first he made some efforts to propitiate Jakins's ill-humour ; but, finding that impossible, he became indiffe- rent and left him to himself. In the long winter evenings after business hours, at Eichard's urgent request, Mr. Col- lingwood put him on a course of reading that he went through himself before he became a qualified chemist. He also taught him the art of bandaging and plastering cuts and wounds, and promoted him to the making of pills and the compounding of ointments, and very soon he was able to make up medicines from a prescription as well as Jakins himself. But the greatest joy of all was after he had repeatedly watched the chemist operate while he held the victim's head, he was one day allowed to extract a cabman's tooth, which he did triumphantly, without the sufferer sus- pecting that it was the youth's first experiment in dentistry. When the man had paid his shilling and left the shop, Mr. Collingwood beamed approbation on his pupil through his 184 KICHARD DARE spectacles, praised liis nerve and aptitude, and gave him the shilling for his own. No recog nition of skill, or reward that Eichard received later in life, was as sweet to him as his master's praise or as precious as that first shilling fee. On Sunday afternoons Eicliard had a few hours to himself, when, according to the state of the weather, he either went to service at the Abbey or set out westward in searcli of the country, which seemed to recede indefi- nitely as he grew foot sore in pursuit of it. On a briglit Sunday afternoon when he had been in London a year and had lost much of his rustic speech and appearance, he was walking to Putney, thinking of nothing so little as of the old days at Dormington, when an unexpected sight suddenly took him back to the smithy, and turned the sound of the church bells witli whicli tlie air w^as full into the ring of his fatlier's liammer on the anvil. A liansom drove by with Mr. Featherstone and his dauijliter in it, and the sitjlit of the beautiful young girl who liad unconsciously THE CHANCES OF WAR 135 decided his destiny when he first saw her, filled him with tumultuous excitement. She did not see him, nor would she have known him if she had seen him ; but that did not matter. He had seen her, and that was enough, and he was filled with renewed determination to make his way in the world till he should become worthy of her notice. If it is in the power of man to shape his own destiny, the time would come when the black- smith's son woidd meet Margaret Featherstone as an equal, and though she was now remote as the stars from tlie chemist's boy, tiiey would yet meet without condescension on her part or presumption on his. When Richard returned to the shop in the evening, the fervid feeling that possessed him illumined his face, and for the time being wrought a subtle change in his appearance. The red-handed assistant thouglit young Dare looked disgustingly handsome, and the dark shade of an incipient moustache, of wliich he was deadly jealous, had never been more 136 RICHARD DARE offensively apparent. Even an ugly face is rendered interesting when it becomes the medium through which the inner man shows himself at his best, but when a comely face is irradiated by strong, fine feeling, it effects a transformation akin to beauty that is per- ceived, though not understood, by the dullest observer. Jakins was thinking of Richard, and of a discovery that he had made in his absence that he hoped one day to be able to use to his disadvantage. While he was out that afternoon he had taken occasion to gratify his curiosity with a minute examination of the contents of his locked drawer, in the chest in their bedroom. A key of his own fitted it, and Mr. Jakins had opened the drawer and inspected the shop-boy's meagre possessions with the thoroughness characteristic of un- bidden research. He examined the little Prayer Book his mother had given him, with Eichard Atherley written in her poor scribble on the fly leaf, and the assistant's eyes sparkled THE CHANCES OF WAR 137 as he read. He instantly jumped to the con- clusion that as Eichard was very reticent about himself and his family, this was his real name, and that he had assumed the name of Dare for some bad purpose, as Mr. Jakins devoutly hoped. It would be awkward, no doubt, to explain how he came to find out til at his name was Atherley, so he contented himself with fixing it in his memory, ready to produce it on some occasion when it miglit prejudice his master against Richard, or at least lead the model youth into a maze of hes. Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood were out, and the two young men supped alone in tlie par- lour that evening. Richard was talkative and expansive ; Jakins gloomy and sarcastic. ' I 'ope you don't think as that blue neck- tie o' yours suits you ? for, let me tell you, it's 'ighly unbecoming ! ' he remarked, looking up from across the table at the silk handkerchief knotted loosely round Richard's shapely throat. 138 RICHARD DARE ' Unbecoming is it? That's a bad job, for it's the only one I've got, and I must wear it, whether or no.' ' You can take off the necktie any 'ow, but you can't get rid so easy of that ridicilus appearance on your upper lip ! Anyone 'ud think as you'd been trying 'air washes and lotions to force a moustache, for it never could ha' come natural at your age,' and Mr. Jakiiis spoke contemptuously, but yearn- ing to learn the name of the invaluable hair-compelling agent that had produced the dark shade on Eichard's upper lip. He had furtively tried many applications of the kind himself, with no other result than that of producing a chronic state of skin irritation, neither improving his personal appearance nor conducing to placidity of temper. ' You take an uncommon interest in my looks to-night, Jakins ! You've told me more than the looking-glass has, for I didn't know I'd a moustache coming ; ' and he rose THE CHANCES OP WAR 139 to consult the small mirror over the mantel- piece. ' Hallo ! You're not so far wrong, Jakins. I've either got a very dirty lip or it really is a moustache. Upon my word, tliat's what it is, it won't rub off, you see. Such as it is, it's come of itself ; I know nothing about it,' and Eichard blushed with delight. ' You know nothing about it, don't you ? Ho ! indeed, then I call it a disgusting piece of precocity ! ' remarked the red-handed assist- ant. The bitterness of his feehno;-s must be excused, for Mr. Jakins was twenty and Eichard only seventeen, and he had brought all the power of science to bear on his face since he was that age without producing a single hair on lip or chin. In their double-bedded attic Eichard often pretended to be asleep wlien the assistant came upstairs, and had in conse(|uence been the unsuspected witness of dark mysteries of the toilet that tried his gravity severely. But to-night lie was destined to see Mr. 140 KICHARD DARE Jakins perform a solemn ritual unlike any- thing he had ever beheld before. Eichard had been in bed an hour, thinking too much of his unexpected gUmpse of Margaret Featherstone to fall asleep, when he heard the assistant coming upstairs with unwonted quiet. He was proceeding with the utmost caution, and, when the stairs creaked, he paused for a moment before he put his foot on the next step. He opened tlie door like a burglar, and entered the room shading the light with his hand. Eichard kept his eyes shut, and lay with his back to the door. Jakins softly turned the key in the lock, walked round to the opposite side of the bed and passed the candle to and fro before his face, almost near enough to singe his eye- lashes. Eichard bore the ordeal by fire without wincing, as the light shone blood-red through his eyelids. ' Fast as a church ! ' muttered Mr. Jakins as he turned away, and gave no further thought to the boy. The assistant set the light on the dressing- THE CHANCES OF WAR 141 table, and produced from his pocket three short pieces of candle. These he carefully- lighted, and having fixed the glass at the most convenient angle, set one on the top of the frame, and another on each side of it, and gazed at himself by the illumination with a melancholy glare. His next act was of a suspicious nature. He took a razor and stropped it hard for ten minutes, while Eichard held himself in readiness to rise and pinion him if he attempted to commit suicide. But Mr. Jakins's sole object, moved by jealousy of the shade on Eichard's lip, was to urge on the growth of his dilatory moustache by a third attempt at a shave in the last four- and-twenty hours. But his face was so excoriated with former raspings, and sore from chemical applications, that he was obliged to lay the razor down with a groan and seek consolation in matters apparently unconnected with moustaches, though there was method in all that he did. He stealthily 142 RICHARD DARE crossed the room, opened a drawer, took out several bright- coloured neckties, and laying them before him on the dressing table, con- templated them with silent rapture. No young mother ever made more complete and thoughtful preparation for her expected babe than Mr. Jakins for the moustache that mio-ht occur now at any moment. He had a collec- tion of silk ties of all colours in readiness to suit its style and harmonize with its pr.obable hue. And he laid first one and then another against his sallow cheek to decide whether pale green or blue best suited his complexion, while Richard held the blanket to his mouth to keep himself from laughing aloud. Then Mr. Jakins produced from liis breast pocket a new cork he had brought upstairs from the shop, and, burning it black in the flame of the candle, leaned forward, till he almost touched his reflection in the glass, and marked a pair of fierce moustaches with it on his hairless face, knotted a blue silk tie round his neck, precisely like Richard's, that had excited his THE CHANCES OF WAR 143 scorn at supper, and regarded himself with undisojuised admiration. Eichard shook with suppressed merriment till he could bear it no longer. He threw the blanket from his mouth and burst into peals of laughter. For a moment Mr. Jakins seemed stunned, then, turning towards him a face of genuine fury that quenched the simulated fierceness of his burnt-cork mous- taches, struck him a blow on the head with all his might. In an instant Eichard sprang out of bed and grasped Jakins by the collar. ' That was a devilish nasty tempered blow, Jakins ! I should have burst if I liadn't laughed out loud, and that's the truth. But, if you want to fight, wait a second while I get into my trousers and I'm ready for you ! ' But nothing was further from the assistant's desires than a fight with Eichard. 'Fight you, indeed! I'd scorn the haction! I'll 'ave as little to do as I can 'elp with persons coming into other persons' 'ouses under false names ! Call yourself Eichard 144 EICHARD DARE Dare, do you ? I don't believe you're Dare no more than I am. Your name's Atherley, and if you wasn't ashamed of it you wouldn't ha' took and called yourself by a name that's not your own ! ' ' You lie ! I never was ashamed of my name, and I don't mind telling Mr. Colling- wood how I came to call myself Dare. You've picked the lock of my drawer, and found my name written in a Prayer Book when you were prying about my things, and though I never thought much of you, I didn't give you credit for being such a mean cad as that comes to. I've always kept the key in my pocket, but I didn't know I had to do with a fellow that was up to such dirty tricks. Take that for your pains ! ' and Eichard gave the assistant a knock-down blow. As he fell he made a clutch at the dressing-table, and dragged it down with him, putting out the lights and breaking the look- ing-glass with a tremendous crash. In their excitement the young men had Tllb: CHANCES OF WAR 145 forgotten that their room was above Mr. and Mrs. Colhngwood's. The chemist and his wife, returned late from a supper party, had just come upstairs, when they were alarmed by a heavy fall overhead, that sounded as if it would bring the ceihng down. Mr. CoUing- wood stood for a moment pale and open- mouthed, while three alternatives presented themselves to his wife's mind to account for the hideous noise and commotion. It was either burglars, an earthquake, or the servant walking in her sleep ; but before she could decide which it was, the chemist had rushed upstairs, and as she dared not be left alone, she promptly followed him. He tried the door of the room, and, finding it locked, shook it violently, shouting, 'What's the matter in there ? Open the door at once ! ' ' In a moment, sir ; we're in the dark. I can't find the door,' replied Richard from within. Then a hand was heard searching over the panel, there was a sudden turning of the key, the door was flung wide open, and VOL. I. L 146 KICIIARD DAKE the lig;lit from Mr. Collincrwood's candle re- vealed a scene of desolation The dressmg- table and chair were overthrown on the floor, and amonij the broken fragments of the looking-glass Mr. Jakins, covered with candle grease, was picking himself up slowly and carefully, while Richard, half dressed, flushed, and defiant, stood holding tiie door open. ' What is the meaning of this unseemly disturbance ! ' said the chemist contracting his smooth brow into his version of a frown ; when, catching sight of the assistant's burnt- cork moustache, that in the struggle he had smeared over his cheeks and chin, he could only gasp, ' Mr. Jakins, your face ! ' when his wife pushed past him with a scream. * Oh, my looking-glass, that was my poor mother's when she lived at Ashford before she married again, and as she prized more than her best china, if it isn't smashed in a thousand bits ! My word ! whichever of you fighting ruflSans did that shall leave in the THE CHANCES OF WAR 147 morning, if you'd lived 'ere a dozen years ! Which of you did it ? ' ' Whichever you hke,' said Richard de- fiantly. ' I knocked Jakins down, and he tried to save himself clutching at the table and upset the whole blessed thing.' ' You knocked Mr. Jakins down, Richard ? What was that for ? ' ' He knows why, sir ! He worked hard for it before I did it ! ' Mr. Jakins, who was busy rubbing several very real bruises among a great many imaginary ones, spoke, interrupted by un- manly sobs. ' He flew at me for speaking the truth, sir, which I felt it my dooty towards my employer, sir. I charged 'im with 'is name being Atherley and not Dare, and because he couldn't deny it he knocked me down and half killed me, sir,' and the assistant gulped down his tears. 'Where's your handkerchief, you great lubber ? ' was Richard's sole remark after this statement. l2 148 RICIIAED DARE ' Oh, you young deceiving villain ! Come 'ere under a false name, 'as lie ? That's a thing as my Willy 'ud never ha' done, not if it was ever so ! ' cried Mrs. Collingwood shrilly. ' Be quiet, Maria ! This is my business,' said the chemist. ' Eichard, is this true that Mr. Jakins says about you ? ' ' It's true that my name's Atherley, sir, but he hasn't told you how he came to find it out. He's picked the lock of that drawer, sir, or opened it with a key of his own, and meddled with my things ! He found my name written in a Prayer Book I've always kept locked up, and I knocked him down for the dirty trick, and serve him right ! ' ' Oh, you wicked story, you ! Do you mean to say as you came into this 'ouse under false pretences, taking me in with your likeness to Willy, and all ? ' screamed Mrs. Colhngwood, regardless of her meek hus- band's rising displeasure at her interference. ' I came here under no false pretences,' THE CHANCES OF WAR 149 said Richard hotly. ' I had a right to call myself by what name I chose, and whether I'm hke your Willy or not, I don't know, and I don't care a hang ! I'll tell Mr. CoUingwood why I came here under the name of Dare if he cares to know, but I'll discuss it with nobody else.' ' ColHngwood, will you stand by and hear . me spoken to like that ? How do you know what sort of a serpent we've cherished in our bosoms under false names ? I'm much obhged to Mr. Jakins for showing you up, I'm sure, and how I ever could ha' thought your dark impident face was like one as was pale and fair, and is no more, I don't know, not if I was to be put on my Bible oath I don't ! ' For once in his life the chemist was a resolute man. He took his wife firmly by the arm and led her to the door. ' This is not your place, Maria ! Go downstairs, and leave me to manage my young men myself,' and he pushed her on to the dark landing and turned the key upon her. 150 RICHARD DARE Mr. CoUingwood, was in great trouble. He saw that he would be obhged to part with the best, most promising, and useful boy he had ever had ; one who might some day rise to be a chemist. And he had grown to like Eichard, and grieved that he must part with him under painful circumstances. He would have forgiven the boy himself, but he knew that his wife would never do so. The broken looking-glass had settled the question once for all, and, besides, he no longer re- sembled Willy. ' Come downstairs with me, Eichard, and explain this affair to me quietly,' said his master. ' Oh, sir, you're never going to leave me alone on the spot where I've been nearly assassinated to death, sir ! ' whimpered the assistant. ' Will you oblige me by not being an ass, Mr. Jakins?' said the chemist with considerable asperity. ' The best thing you can do is to get into bed, you are a good deal more frightened THE CHANCES OF WAR 151 than hurt,' and he and Richard left the room together. In the privacy of the sitting-room behind the shop Eichard told his master the truth witliout reservation. He told him the story of his life, of his running away from home, and why he had thought it safer to change his name. ' I kept the Prayer Book with my name in it just because my mother gave it me, safe locked in my drawer, where no one could get at it unless they opened it unknown to me, and I've thought for some time back that my things looked as if they'd been tampered with, and now I know it.' ' Well, Eichard, nothing can excuse the way in which Jakins got to know your real name, and, by the way, I'm glad you told no lies about it, for he coukl not be sure that the name in the book was yours, he could only guess — but I wish you had told me yourself when you first came here.' ' I wish I had, sir ! No one has been so good to me as you, or taught me so much. 152 RICHARD DARE I hoped to have become your qualified assist- ant before very long, and repay you a little for your kindness to me. Won't you over- look this folly, sir, and give me a fresh start ? ' Mr. Collingwood looked kindly at Eichard, but shook his head. ' If it rested with me, the only person who should leave this house would be Jakins. But you remember you were received here on terms I could not approve of at the time, as having no sohd basis — your supposed like- ness to Willy — and now the same power that took you up for no real reason is sending you away for no real reason. I'm sorry that after to-night's unfortunate events I cannot keep you ; I wish I could.' ' But, sir, you are my master, I can't be answerable to anyone else ! If you are willing to keep me, who can prevent me staying ? ' and the chemist looked mildly distressed. ' It was Mrs. Collingwood who engaged THE CHANCES OF WAR 15 o you, Eichard, and I deprecated it at the time, for the likeness to Willy never is strong enough in any of our shop-boys to make her overlook an offence for his sake. But you sha'n't leave me without my doing what I can for you. A friend of mine, a chemist in a large way doing a better class of business than mine in the City Eoad, Mr. Smith, keeps several young men and is in want of a junior assistant. I know he will take you on my recommendation ; it will be better for you than staying on here ; you will see a much larger business and be able to work for your examinations to become a qualified chemist. I'll give you a letter to him in the morning, but make up your mind under which name you go to him, Dare or Atherley.' Eichard was silent a moment before he replied. ' I would rather go as Eichard Dare, sir, if I've satisfied you with my reason for taking the name. I feel the same as I did about it when I came to you. I don't want there to 154 RICHARD DARE be a chance of my father finding me till he can be prond of me.' ' Never fear, your father'll be hard to please if he's not proud of you someday ! I wish you were my son ! And now go to bed ; to-morrow I sliall i>ive Jakins notice. I can fill his place a dozen times over, but it will be pleasanter for you and me if you will go without that formality. Shake hands with me, Eichard — and, I say, no more fighting upstairs ! Jakins won't touch you again,' he said smiling, ' but there must be no row. You quite understand ? ' ' Oh, sir, if I could have known that this fool's nonsense would be the end of my time with you, Jakins should ha' done what he liked, and said what he liked, and pounded me to a jelly if he'd the strength to, before I'd have had a row with him and smashed that miserable oiass ! ' and Eichard wruno; his master's hand hard, and stumbled upstairs in tlie dark for the last time under the kind-hearted chemist's roof. 155 CHAPTER VII A MODERN MIRACLE Is there no way to bring home a wandering sheep, but by worrying him to death ? — Fuller. Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one rascal the less in the world. — Carlyle. While Richard, absorbed in his own cares and work, gave only an occasional thought to the home of his childhood, changes were taking place there that w^ould almost have prevented him from recognising either the house or its inhabitants. It would have been difficult for him to imagine his father a more complete drunkard than he had always re- membered him, yet he had celebrated the loss of his son's services in the forge by a pro- longed series of heavy drinking bouts, from which he emerged filled with black despair, only to seek relief in another and deeper 156 RICHARD DARE plunge into the mire. He had drifted from bad to worse, with the sole redeeming good point that, from the day when he so cruelly injured his wife, he had never again offered her personal violence. As to the pain of the bruised and wounded spirit within, to his gross vision the thinsr that was unseen did not exist, and as long as he allowed his wife to keep a whole skin, he felt that he did all that could be expected of him as a husband. But wife and children were ill fed and ill clad, and Samuel Atherley's name became a proverb of reproach even among old-established local drunkards, whose judgment certainly was not likely to err on the side of severity, and ' Soaking Sam ' was the nickname he answered to with a scornful pride, as who should say, ' If I am a drunkard there shall be no doubt about it ; I'll do the thing thoroughly.' There seemed a finished completeness in the man's ungodliness in the neglect of every human duty and the stubborn choice of evil, A MODERN MIRACLE 157 that led his neighbours to say, ' You could as soon turn the river out of its course as change Sam Atherley ! ' But the good people of Dormington had demonstration afforded them that the age oi miracles is not past, for a very striking one was wrought in their midst in the conversion of ' Soaking Sam ' into a model of sobriety. Every circumstance of the event was common property ; it was not done in a hole or corner, and Sam himself proclaimed it from the housetops. It happened one Saturday when Atherley was as usual at the Barley Mow, that his drink made him more than ordinarily quarrel- some in less than the time generally required to bring about that result. The landlord glanced at the clock as Sam's voice grew louder and angrier, and said, 'Why, he'd oughtn't to be wantin' to fight not for twenty minutes yet ! He's had a drop before lie come 'ere in some low public, tliat's what it is ; my liquors don't fly into a chap's top story all 158 KICIIARD DARE in a minute, they mount a step at a time, quiet and respectable like. Order, order ! I say, I'm master 'ere, not a blow do you strike i' my house one minute afore eight o'clock ! ' But Sam Atherley and a lantern -jawed weaver, still more drunk than himself, had exchanged black eyes before anyone could interfere, and Sam, as the premature stirrer up of strife and law-breaker at the very moment when the commandment was being uttered, found himself roughly ejected from the light and warmth of the Barley Mow, staggering on the pavement outside in the cold twilight of a spring evening. Half sobered by the violence and sudden- ness with which he was thrust out over the muddy threshold, he leaned for a moment against the doorpost and raised his bleared eyes to the clear sky where the pale stars were beginning to shine, and an overwhelm- ing sense of degradation fell on him like a physical load, and bowed his head on his A MODERN MIRACLE 159 breast. Sam Atherley had often been turned out of a public-house before, there was no- thino; new in that, and it stirred no other feeling than one of impotent drunken fury, with the will and the effort to kick down the door that was barred aQ:ainst him. But that evening an abhorrence of himself took possession of him, and a sudden vision of what he was contrasted with wliat he might have been forced a groan from his lips, still reeking with the foul spirit that befooled him. It was not pity for wife or children, nor penitence for years of persistent evil- doing, that wrung that deep groan from him. It was the clear realisation of a man degfraded below the level of a beast, and that man him- self, that pierced his very soul. His anguish of mind became well-nigh unbearable, and in another minute he would have made his way to the river and drowned himself had not help come from an unexpected quarter. Sam Atherley suddenly felt a hand as 160 RICHARD DARE powerful as his own seize him by the arm, and a rough but kindly voice said, ' Hold up your head and be a man ! Here's your hat as I've picked out of the kennel all covered with muck, a drunkard's hat the world over, and good enough for 'em, too. I've seen my own look like it many a score o' times,' and he gave an upward scowl and a futile pluck at his battered billycock, as he did so recog- nising his neighbour Tom Christie, a car- penter, at whom he had often laughed as he saw him go by in his Sunday black suit to Ebenezer Chapel. Atherley grunted a curse and his head sank forward again. Christie slapped the old hat against the wall to get rid of the mud that plastered it, and continued, ' I should ha' known that hat for yourn anywheres. Both you and it is in a beastly condition, Mr. Atherley. I should be deceiving you if I said you wasn't. There's a pretty thing for a chap to put on his head,' he said, holding up the miserable object for derision. 'There's a mud pie to A MODERX MIRACLE IGl carry atop o' your head, when you might ha' worn a stove-pipe hat a yard high, and been respected accordin' ! Look 'ere, Mr. Atherley, you and this hat'll have to part company, if you're to walk in the narrow way. You come along o' me ! There ! — steady, steady — now you're all right, and w^e'll chuck that old drunkard's hat i' the midden, and you'll come to my house with me, and I'll lend you a tidy hat to go home in.' Atherley merely uttered inarticulate sounds as of animal misery, and suffered Christie to guide his uncertain steps. They had not gone far before some boys espied them, to their great delight, and, hoping to have their usual diversion with a drunken man, followed them shouting, and the wit of the party cried out, ' Here's a go ! If it ain't Soaking Sam and teetotal Tommy — gin and water taking a walk together ! ' Atherley turned for a blind rush at his tormentor:;, but again Christie's strontr hand held him as in a vice VOL. I. i; 1C2 KICHARD DARE ' If you run a step after 'em, 111 knock YOU down ! What he says is true and you've just got to put up wi' it ! When you've left the drink, if anyone calls you Soaking Sam, then it'll be a lie, and you may go for 'im. You change your ways and they'll change theirs fast enouiih ! ' ' It's too late to chan^fe ! ' groaned Atherley. ' That it ain't ! It's never too late to mend. I drank heavy myself for ten years, and if I'd listened to words like them I should ha' been at it still.' ' But I tell YOU the devil's ijot me too fast ! ' ' Got you too fast ? Why, can't you see as he's give joii the best chance to-night o' giving 'im the slip as ever a man had? Weren't you kicked out o' the Barley Mow where you'd a'most took root, and 'ud never ha' had the courag:e to ha' left it of your own will ? Well, now, as you find yourself at the right side of the door — don't you mind 'ow A MODEEN MIRACLE 16 o you come to be there — never set foot in a public again as long as you live, and you're a free man for the rest o' your clays ! ' Christie, still holding Atherley in custody, now took him up a narrow entry, and opening the front door of a small house led him straight into the light and v/armth of his kitchen, where Mrs. Christie was ironinji. ' Look sharp, missis, send the children to bed, and bring a bowl o' cold water. Mr. Atherley 'ere 'as 'ad one o' them accidents you used to know so well, and we must tidy him up a bit afore I take 'im home.' Sam seated himself with a sullen, hanir-doo- ' CO expression, while the wife went for soap and water, and the husband reached down a small looking-glass from the wail and held it up before Sam's soiled and bloated face, as thougli determined he should drink the cup of humili- ation to the dreg's. ' Take the cursed thino- away ! ' he said, striking out wildly as he caught sight of his purple face, cut and bruised, with mud on one side and blood on M li 104 EICII.VRD DARE the Other ; ' take the cursed thing away, can't you ? ' ' It isn't my looking-gLass that's a cursed thing, Sam Atherley, it's wliat you sees in it, the face of a man created in the image o' God, and look what you've gone and made on it ! I've a right to show you yourself i' the glass, for it's often give me back my own face as beastly as yours is to-night, but never, thank God, since I signed tlie pledge and turned teetotal. I tell you what, Atherley,' he con- tinued, restoring the glass to its place on the wall as his wife entered the kitchen with the bowl of cold water, ' you don't leave this house to-night afore you've give me jour solemn oath as you'll turn teetotal.' ' Ko, Mr. Christie, no,' said Atherley slowly, ' I may ha' fallen low, but not so low as that comes to neither ! ' Christie made a sign to his wife to leave them alone, and then, standing opposite his guest with his legs wide apart and his hands on his hips, he continued : A MODERX MIRACLE 16-3 ' SamAtberley,yoiirenot agoing to quarrel with the means o' your salvation ! Summat's got to be done to stop you going to the devil quicker than a' express train down a' incline, and nothing but teetotal '11 put the break on. Now, take and dip your old fuddled head in that bowl o' cold water ; water outside and water inside is all as you require, and you'll be a respected member o' society yet ; ' and Sam did as he was bid like a child, and when he lifted his head and face dripping with water even asked meekly, ' Will that do ? ' But the man, who had so strangely taken charge of him and assumed command over him, said authoritativel}^ : ' Xo, it won't do. You dip it in again ! ' and again Sam Atherley did as he was told, and received for his reward a rough towel with which to dry his dripping locks, and a comb, with very few teeth, to dis- entano-le them with and to lessen the strikin*]^ resemblance he presented to a Skye terrier fresh from a bath. Christie lauo-hed and slapped his leg Avith delight. 166 KICHARD DARE ' Why, Atherley, you haven't looked hke that often since your wedding day ! You'll have your old woman falling in love with you over attain ! You ain't half a bad-lookino- chap when the drink's out of you, and when them cuts and bruises is healed, and that black eye right again. Now, first thing upo' Monday mornino- you come aloni:^ o' me and si2:n the pledge, and then I shall take you to a prayer meeting at our chapel o' Wednesday night, and by Sunday you'll be fit to sit right end up in a pew and listen to our preacher twice ! ' Atherley gave his now sober head a sullen toss. He felt like a bull cauo-ht in a net. ' I hate them chapellers ! I'm not going among 'em, I tell 3'ou ! ' ' Not afore Wednesday night you certainly are not,' replied Christie imperturbabl}^ ' I don't know as they'd have anything to do with you at present, but when you go t' Ebenezer along; o' me as my teetotal friend, thev'll sjive you a welcome and make a deal of you too. And now I'll lend you a decent liat o' my own A MODERA^ MIRACLE 167 and take you home, and I'll be round your way by nine o'clock i' the morning and never leave you alone by yourself, not for five minutes, till you've signed the pledge o' Mon- day morning. Don't you attempt to argify with me ' he said, as Sam began to remonstrate strongly at the prospect before him. ' I know what I'm adoing ! When a chap has gone that fer in drink as you 'ave, and as I did, he can't stop hisself. He wants someone like to take and drive him to make a start in the right direction. A ehap did it for me once and saved me, and I'm adoing it for you whether you like it or not ! Swearing's nothing to me, you may just as well save your breath to keep your pledge next week ; you'll want it all, I can tell you.' Great was the amazement and fear of Mrs. Atherley and Eeuben, when, as the clock struck ten, Tom Christie led the father into the kitclien as sober as they were themselves. Such a thing had seldom happened in the memory of the mother, and never in that of 168 RICHARD DARE the son. It was a portent, and betokened strange things to follow. All the next day Christie did as he promised, hung on tena- ciously to Atherley, and for the first time in many years his place in Ebenezer Chapel knew him not for the whole of Sunday. He took possession of him bodily, talked to him for hours, sang hymns at him and to him, accom- panying himself on the accordion, and wdien his victim began to look dangerously bored and as though about to break out into frenzy, he took him by the arm and hurried him oft for a swift walk in the open air. When bedtime came at the end of a Sun- day so long, it oppressed Sam Atherley like an instalment of eternity, he said to his wife : ' ril sign the pledge to-morrow morning if it's only to get shut o' Tom Christie ! ' And sign it he did, wdiich was wonderful ; but that, having done so, he should keep it was more wonderful still. Why Atherley should regard his written promise as more binding than his spoken A MODERN' MIRACLE 1G9 word is difficult to explain, and yet it was so. The most solemn vows had been as powerless to restrain him as the withes that Samson broke with a touch, but no sooner had he signed the pledge in the presence of witnesses than he felt his pride and obstinacy up in arms to kecD it. All Dorminiiton should see tJiat Sam Atherley could be sober now that at long- last he had made up his mind on the subject. He had been a drunkard because he had made no effort to be anythincf else. He had suffered himself to drift aimlessly, but now that he liad planted his foot it would be hard to stir him. Hitherto he had only exerted his will in isolated acts of mulish and insen- sate obstinacy, that proved, however, to be specimens of a dogged power of determination, which was so much force lying dormant in the man. Great skill was shown by the teetotal folk in connection with Ebenezer Chapel in the management of their unexpected convert. It was a double-barrelled triumph for the 170 KICHAED DARE brethren to snatch as it were a brand from two fires at once, saving a drunkard from his vice and a churchman from the error of his ways. Many of the flock were present at the Wednesday evening prayer meeting out of sheer curiosity, to see the black sheep that had been so unexpectedly driven into the fold. Christie was in charge of Atherley as his tamer and keeper, and led him safely through the ritual of the meetini? Duttino- a hymn-book in his hand when they were about to sing, nudg- ino' Ihm with his elbow when he should kneel down, pulling him by the sleeve to rise when prayer was over, and generally treating him as though he were imbecile. As the imme- diate plucker of the brand from the burning, Tom Christie was called upon by Mr. Tranter, the preacher, to open the meeting with prayer, wdiicli he at once proceeded to do in narrative form, beginning, ' Thou knowest, Lord, that as I was comins^ home from my work on Saturday evening last, I saw Thy servant here present in a disgusting state of intoxication, A MODERN MIRACLE ]71 and Thou knowest, too, what a chance it was my coming that way at all, when I usually take the short cut by the riverside, but it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,' and in this oblique way he was able to tell everyone present, as he longed to do, of his adventures with Sam Atherley on the previous Saturday night. SympatJietic groans were heard issuing from the depths of pews, but mostly from the women, who appeared to relish the account of Christie's heroic dealings with the drunkard more than the men did. Then the preacher lifted up his voice and prayed, not so much tliat the grace of sobriety might be given to the reclaimed drunkard, as that he mig-ht be cleansed from the spiritual errors of the Church, and his eyes purged that he might see the truth as Mr. Tranter was able and williufT to set it forth. Next in turn after him rose a pale-faced shoemaker, with red rims to his eyes, who thanked the Lord that a male child, meaning 172 KICHARD DARE the grey-liaired Samuel Atlierley, had been born in their midst, and fortliwith lost him- self in metaphoric mazes, in which he sounded more like a delirious Mrs. Gamp than one whose business lay with boots and shoes. Atlierley had not a notion what it all meant, for as yet he was unacquainted with the phraseology in which the brethren at Ebenezer Cliapel expressed themselves, but he was genuinely gratified to find himself the important man of the meeting. He had always held a very high opinion of himself, and it seemed as if folks, if it were only the once despised Ebenezer folks, were coming round to his way of thinking, or why should they make this pother about him ? All the prayers were for him, and though some of their expressions about him were more free than he enjoyed or thought becoming, still these chapel people evidently thought a great deal of him, to keep on like that for a whole hour and a half. It was fatin-uimi; and borini:? but gratifying, and when lie rase from his knees A MODERN MIRACLE 173 that felt crushed and bruised from the unac- customed attitude, it was with heightened self-complacency, and as his new friends said that he was now converted he supposed they knew best, and that it was all right. When the fiend of drink was cast out of Sam Atherley, another and more subtle a demon immediately entered, and took up its abode in him. At Ebenezer Chapel, instead of offering the reclaimed drunkard a permanent seat on the penitents' bench, a commanding front pew was assigned to him, with tlie option of mounting the pulpil itself from time to time, and his old well-earned name of ' Soaking Sam ' became in reliixion Mr. Atherley. His easy billv-cock was changed into an agonizing stove-pipe hat, and he was set up as an example instead of a warning to the flock at Ebenezer, and was called upon to give his experience at crowded meetinn;s. Under the influence of his zealous new friends, Atherley had exchanged a blatant bodily vice for a hidden vice of the soul, intemperance for spiritual pride, which 174 KICHARD DARE SO far clearly was an improvement, as he indulged in it at his own risk and injured nobody by it but himself. It was no part of Atherley's new creed to admit that his own weakness and want of self-control had led him astray. It suited his vanity better to abuse all stimulants as demons stronger than man, Avhile he secretly envied ]nen of self-government who were temperate in drink as in other things. It was part of his reformation to deprive his white-faced, under-fed wife of the musr of beer with which she moistened the crusts that formed her slender supper. The poor soul would have given up her bread as well as her beer to pro- pitiate her master if he had demanded it of her, and she mutely wondered how long it would all last. As weeks passed by and grew into months, and still her husband kept sober, Mrs. Atherley thought it only right to mark her approval of his conduct by trying to make his home look as attractive to him as the public-house used A MODERN MIRACLE 175 to do. She sanded the kitchen floor, drew forward tlie settle at ri^ht angles with the wide fire-place, hung up a few pewter pots on the wall, and set three brown earthenware spittoons at irregular intervals among the chairs, presenting, as far as the means at her disposal would allow, a modest imitation of the interior of the Barley Mow. 170 RICHARD DARE CHAPTER VIII THE MAX AND THE HOUR There is no man whom fortune does not visit once in liis life. It was late on a summer evening, and Eichard was returning from a chemistry class at the Working; Men's ColleTeat service, and I like your manner of doing it too, but just now I've neither head nor heart, I can't think, I can't feel grateful, I'm nothing but a vast broken leo- ' and the exhausted voice sank into something very like a groan as Eichard stepped quietly out of tlie room. Among the thousands in the great city whose eyes knew no sleep that niglit, Mr. Gage and Eichard kept vigil from causes the THE MAX AND THE HOUR 183 most widely dissimilar. The owner of the broken leg could not sleep for sheer physical pain. He had never before been so un- pleasantly reminded that he was not yet a disembodied spirit, while Fdchard, healthily unconscious of his body, lay staring in the darkness from pure agitation of mind. Again and again he went over every detail of his adventure with Mr. Gage, from the moment when he lirst saw him, courting death and disaster among the cabs and omnibuses in the Gray's Inn Eoad, till he parted from him, the temporary wreck of a man, in bed in his house in Queen Square. Who and what was the eccentric old gentleman who asked to see him again, and wdiat could be the explanation he washed to offer of his strano;e remark ? Visions of a timely friend and helper appearing on the scene iilled Eichard's mind with radiant pictures. Might not Mr. Gage's eccentricity take the amiable form of believing in him, and putting him in the way to attain his 184- KICHARD DAKE lieart's desire and ambition ? At the mere thought he felt as if he and sleep had bidden good-bye to each other, and he passed the short summer nio-ht in tossing; to and fro. Saturday and Sunday Eichard spent in a delightful flutter of indefinable hope, and at the earliest moment after the shop was closed on Monday evening, he hastened to keep his appointment with Mr. Gage. To-night, if he had seen half a dozen old gentlemen running into peril of life and limb, he would have left it to someone else to fly to the rescue ; he was bent on the most important matter in the world, and nothing must stay or hinder him. At lenirth, after iostlinfj along; the crowded streets without adventure, he entered the haven of the Square, where troops of ragged children from the back streets were romping about the pump in the open space, running races with shrieks of laug-hter, and dancing to the metallic notes of a piano organ, that was playing a popidar waltz with mechanical precision and at break-neck speed. THE MAN AND THE HOUR 185 The siuishine still lino-ered in an amber glow in the blackened tops of the trees in the Square garden, and shed a warm lustre on the upper storeys of the houses, as Eichard knocked at the door and asked for Mr. Gafye. He was admitted at once and shown into a large dining-room, darker and cooler than the open air, where a young girl was standing at the window, book in hand, endeavouring to read by the fading liglit. As he entered she turned towards him, and though it was too dark for him to see her face, a strange shy- ness, and even terror, came over him. Eichard did not fear tlie face of man. Men were his friends or foes as the case might be. It was a masculine world to him, except for the memory of his gentle, queru- lous mother, and the glorified ideal he still clierished of Margaret Featherstone, as some- thing beyond and above all womankind. Girls to him were unknown, mysterious beings, and as his friends were mostl}^ yoi-^iig nien as lonely as himself, he had never visited in 18G RICIIAKD DARE families, and was ignorant of the ways and manners of society. Hitherto the only young ladies who had spoken to him had done so across the counter, a prosaic barrier scarcely to be overleapt by the wildest romance or most vaulting ambition. And now for the first time Richard was face to face on equal terms with a young lady. She neither wanted violet powder nor lozenges, nor did she ask him for change for half a sovereign, which so far had represented the nature and extent of his intercourse with ladies. The youni:^ oirl closed her book, and turning frankly toward him said, in pleasant unaffected tones : ' You are the gentleman who came to my uncle's rescue the otiier nio-ht when he was so badly hurt, are you not ? I was from home when it liappened, or I should have liked to thank you then for all your kindness. My uncle thinks he would have lost his life but for you,' and Pdchard was aware that a pair of luminous eyes were fixed on him in the gathering twilight. THE MAN AND THE HOUE 187 He was bewildered by the sweet voice and gentle courtesy. For a moment lie was uncertain how he oii<2;ht to address a lady, but right feeling and simplicity of mind brought him safely through the diffi- culty. If Richard was not a gentleman by culture, he was one by nature ; he respected himself and the person with whom he spoke, and replied without egoism or affec- tation. ' I am only to be thanked for doing what any other man would have done in my place. I am glad I happened to be passing at the time, for I think I was able to save Mr. Gage a great deal of pain,' and finding that he gathered courage in the gracious presence, he ventured to ask a question. ' Do you think Mr. Gage will be well enough to see me this evening as he pro- posed ? ' ' Oh, yes ; the doctor says that you may see him, but it will be kind of you not to stay very long. In a few days he will be stronger, 188 RICIIAKD DARE and may talk as much as he Ukes, and it will do him no harm.' Just then a servant entered the room and set a lamp on the table, and the light revealed to llichard that he was talking; to a remark- ably pretty young girl of about eighteen. She w^as tall and slender, dark haired and grey eyed, with a pleasant humorous expres- sion of mouth, and a way of looking at one as thoutrh she were at leisure from herself to regard everyone and everything about her with interest and innocent curiosity. The quiet self-possession of the young lady set him at ease, and he ventured to say that he hoped Mr. Gage was going on well. ' The doctor is quite satisfied with his progress so far, and is glad to fnid that he has suffered less from the shock than he expected. But will you not sit down while I ask if my uncle is ready to see you ? ' and Miss Gage left the room. In a few minutes she returned and, bidding liichard follow her, led the way up the wide oak staircase to the room THE MAN AND THE HOUR 189 he had been in on the night of his first memorable visit. Mr. Gage was sitting up in bed, appa- rently very (Comfortable, with the broken leg stretched before liini immovably cased in plaster of Paris. The room was fragrant with tobacco, and the counterpane littered over with papers and books, the invalid looking as thoroughly settled among his surroundings as though he had been confined to his bed for months instead of days. He greeted Eichard cordially, and asked him to take a seat near the lamp, that he might see him as they talked together. ' And that must not be for long, my dear uncle,' said his niece as she placed the hand bell within his reach, ' or you will overtirc yourself and the doctor will blame me ! ' ' Would you rather see me another time, sir, when you are stronger?' asked Eichard, fearful of doing harm by his visit. ■ ' By no means ! I have not abdicated because I am confined to my bed. Stay and 190 KICIIARD DARE talk with me, I am still master in my own house ! ' and Miss Gage smiled and left the room, that seemed to Eichard to become perceptibly duller for her absence. ' I am very glad to see you,' said the old gentleman as soon as they were alone. ' The other evening I was unable to speak of the great obligation under which you have placed me. I believe that I owe my life to you I ' and Mr. Gasje looked at Eichard with c^lowinjx eyes, and closed his thin lips as thougli he had done with speech. After a pause he continued : ' You may have heard the old superstition that, if you save a man from drowning, you make him your enemy. Well, you have saved my life on dry land, and have made me your friend. You have rendered me the greatest service in the power of man, and I wish to show you that I appreciate your action. There have been times when I should have felt only moderately grateful to anyone who had saved my life — God knows I have not always set THE MAN AND THE HOUR 191 great store by it, but tliat has nothing to do with the present, and I am deeply grateful to you,' and Mr, Gage extended a lean yellow hand towards Eichard, which he pressed heartily, blushing with pleasure as he did so. ' I am glad indeed, sir, I happened to be on the spot when you were in such need of help. I only wish I had been by your side in time to prevent the accident, instead of arrivinsr a moment too late.' That would indeed have been fortunate ' said Mr. Gage with a rueful glance at his immovable leo; ; ' but wishing is no good after the event, my friend. And now, Mr. Dare, T wish to talk to you about yourself, and to ask you some questions. You acted and spoke the other night as though you were fond of surgery.' ' And so I am ; it is the desire of my life to become an operating surgeon.' Mr. Gage looked at the enthusiastic young man and sighed. ' Ah ! my dear young fellow, a line 192 RICHARD DARE surgeon lias been lost in me ! When I was a young man I felt exactly as 3'ou do now. I had the strongest wish in the w^orld to become a surgeon ! ' ' You had, sir ? May one ask what pre- vented you from following the career you were drawn towards ? ' 'Certainly, I don't mind telling you ; simply this, I was cursed with a competence ! ' and, seeino; Eichard did not take his meanino- ' cursed with a competence, neither more nor less. You do not know what that is, do you ? ' ' I confess I do not. Does it mean having more money than a man knows what to do with ? ' ' Not at all,' replied the old gentleman promptly. ' If a fortune is only big enough, it brings a thousand duties, interests, and cares with it, and finds a man work if lie has never had any before. To be cursed with a competence is a very different thing. It is to have just enough money to cut the sinews of THE MAN AND THE HOUR 193 exertion and clip the wings of ambition, in short, enough for a man to sit down and rust upon comfortably. That was my case. A wealthy old gentleman, thinking me, I suppose, a promising young fellow, in a moment of misdirected kindness left me five hundred a year, and promising I have remained ever since, for devil a thing have I performed, and that's the truth ! ' ' Still, sir, I am afraid I don't quite see how five hundred a year could prevent you from studying medicine,' objected Eichard. '• You don't, don't you ? ' and Mr. Gage laughed pleasantly. 'Then I'll tell you how it was. This precious five hundred a year not only prevented me from being the surgeon I ought to have been, but it prevented me from being anything else of the slightest practical use. If a man is to make a figure in the world, to excel in any attainment or pursuit, he needs prodding on by the sharp goad of necessity, and I was only too comfortable as I was. I was sure of VOL. I. 194 RICHARD DARE a livelihood, and every profession required such strenuous work, while I found it so easy doing nothing, that I rusted on my five hun- dred a year. On a less sum I honestly think I should not have become such an aimless, drifting kind of chap. On two hundred a year, for instance, a man can't exactly rust comfortably. He may, so to say, corrode on it in a sordid kind of Avay, with his nose liali an inch from the grindstone all his days, but that's hardly what one means by living. And so life has gone on, and I have inherited enough money to keep half a dozen old cum- berers of the orround in a crreat deal more comfort than I am inclined to think they deserve, but all the while my debt to society remains unpaid. I have neither become the line surcreon I intended to be, nor have I helped any other man to become one in my place. Now, I am wishful to repair the evil of my laziness,' and he paused and looked keenly at Eichard. The young man was hanging on every THE MAN AND THE HOUR 195 word that he uttered, and his excited feehiifr was evidenced by his rapidly changing colour. Mr, Gage continued : ' You know that, in countries where there is conipulsor}^ military service, there are circumstances under which a man may buy himself off and find someone else to take his place in the army. If I had followed my vocation I should have served my time in the army of healers — it is too late to reo-ret that — but now I think I see a chance of finding a substitute, and of, so to speak, paying a man to take my place in the ranks. If I provide a young man of talent with the means of havim? the best medical trainicE^ to develop into the fine surgeon and valuable member of society I ought to have been, then I shall have made what reparation is possible, and shall feel that I am vicariously serving my fellow creatures. Do you take my meaning ? ' Eichard's mouth was dry with agitation, he could scarcely speak, but he nodded rapidly and said, ' Yes, yes ! ' o2 196 RICIIAKD DARE ' Then, Eichard Dare, will you be the man to represent to the world what I should have been if I had not fallen an eas}' prey in early- life to the debilitating influence of a compe- tence ? ' ' With every power of mind and body, sir, I'll be that man if you will only give me the chance ! ' said Pdchard fervently. The old o-entleman aer knows herself nor the world she lives in. She is a callow bird that should be under the mother's wing, and is as little capable of choosing a husband to live with all her days, as the fledgling is CO^'TEMPORARY niSTORY 261 of buildinof a nest to withstand the g;ales of winter. But Margaret had no mother to shelter her inexperience under a maternal wing. She was an imaginative and impres- sionable young creature, and when the hand- some, grey-haired Colonel Peveril came to visit her father, she sat spell-bound at his feet, and idealised him as her Othello. Never before had Margaret listened to stories of noble and thrillincf adventure of Avliich the narrator was the hero, and the romantic girl followed the Colonel's stirring history of his Indian and African campaigns with devouring interest. Of allthinsjs ayouniT girl adores physical courage in a man. As she grows older another form of courage, and other qualities, may appeal to her as strongly. But in her youth she feels as women felt when the world was young, that the man of brave deeds is the hero : the poet, the thinker, the scholar appear later on the scene. It is a primitive instinct of sex that makes a woman regard with a feeling akin to adora- 262 RICHARD DARE tion the man who does not fear to shed blood in a righteous cause, who defends the honour of his country at the peril of his life. He towers head and shoulders above the man of words, whose glib, time-serving tongue may send brave men to their death, while he performs no higher acts of physical courage than alighting from an omnibus in motion, or crossing Piccadilly Circus on foot. No wonder that Colonel Peveril, war weary, and scarred with honourable wounds, assumed heroic proportions in Margaret Featherstone's eyes. She could not look at his scarred wrist and brow without a thrill of hero worship, and had it ended there, her acquaintance with ihe Colonel would have remained an unmixed benefit to the enthusiastic girl. It would have done her good to have had her powers of admiration worthily excited. But unhappily the beautiful child's undisguised worship stirred a chord in Colonel Peveril's breast that had not vibrated for many a long year. He CONTEMPOKAEY HISTORY 263 fell in love "with Margaret, so far as a man of cold, self-contained nature, and indifferent to women, can be said to fall in love, and he pro- posed to her father for her. Mr. Featherstone's first instinct was to say- no to the Colonel ; but he had so indulged his daughter that she as little knew how to take a denial as he to utter it. She was delighted and flattered that her hero did her the unspeakable honour of wishing to make her his wife, and her father reluctantly consented, trying hard to believe that Margaret knew best what she wanted. It would have been well, since Mr. Featherstone had gone against his sound British sense, if he could have consulted a French parent on the subject of a young girl choosing her husband. But he soothed away his mis- givings by reflecting that if it went wrong, at any rate his daughter could not reproach him. ' I never have thwarted my motherless child, and I cannot begin to do it the first time she has set her heart on anything,' and in a couple 264 RICHARD DARE of months Margaret was married to her vener- able hero, wearing her first long dress on her wedding-day. Es ist ein altes Liedchen — one has heard it so often the wonder is there should be found a couple with the temerity to repeat the experi- ment of a marriage between those who are separated by nature's inexorable barrier of time. Thirty years between the age of the hero and the worshipper, or between father and child, is beautiful and befitting the rela- tionship ; but in marriage, which was first instituted between contemporaries, it is a gulf that cannot be bridged over. Colonel Peveril had the convictions, opin- ions, and manners proper to his age and expe- rience. His wife, belonging to a later generation, sharply divided from the preceding one, looked at life with other eyes than his, and could see nothing from his standpoint. By no effort of imagination could the elderly husband put himself in the place of the young wife, or she in his, nor had lie the indulgent, COXTEMPORARY HISTORY 265 affectionate temperament that would have compensated for much, if he had treated Margaret as an old man's darling. Married in haste, Mrs. Peveril was now at leisure to observe her hero sink gradually to a level where she was spared the mental ten- sion of looking up to him any longer as a superior being. She discovered how much less interesting was the man than the circum- stances that had invested him with a charm, and she endeavoured with all the loyalty of her young heart to surround him once more with the halo of enchantment through which she had first seen him. But the same illusion cannot be made to do duty twice in a life-time. Unhappily the marriage was childless, a state of things that has been compared to the heavens without the sun ; but whether this be true or not, it is certain that young Mrs. Peveril felt her life sadly in want of illumina- tion. The first few years of their married life Colonel and Mrs. Peveril spent on the Con- 266 RICHAKD DARE tinent, where rapid change of scene and the excitement of travel prevented the young wife from reahsing the full extent of her disappoint- ment. But when they settled in one spot for several months, she had time to grow weary of her lonely days, and to become acutely and dangerously bored. But while it was im- possible for Margaret to love her husband, it was equally impossible for her to feel any- thing approaching contempt for him. Colonel Peveril was an upright, honourable gentleman, guilty of but one mistake in his life, when in a fit of enthusiasm, that surprised no one more than himself after it subsided, he had asked a young girl to become his wife. Mr. Feather- stone did not live long enough after his dauo-hter's marriage to see how sound his instinct against it had been. The Colonel was engaged in writing a military history of the campaigns of Central Europe, and when he had visited and in- spected a hundred battle-fields and satisfied himself as to every geographical detail, he CONTEMPOKAET HISTORY 267 returned to England to devote himself without distraction to his work. As he could only write when he was alone, he kept himself the greater part of the day like a treasure, under lock and key, and he and his wife only met at breakfast and dinner, for he lunched by him- self in his study. While his days were spent at his desk it did not occur to him to ask his young wife how she passed her time, or who were her friends. He considered that in mak- ing her his wife, he had conferred an honour upon her that exempted him from taking any further trouble to secure her happiness. She was left to herself in her inexperience, virtually without guidance or control, a young, beautiful woman, disillusioned in her mar- riage, longing for the sympathy she did not meet with at home, and with the sole ex- ception of her pre-occupied husband, exer- cising a charm over every man in her acquaintance. Mrs. Peveril had to make her own interests, and seek her own pleasures, and she availed 268 RICHARD DARE herself largely of her liberty. Her life was so empty within, she grasped at every outward distraction with avidity. She went every- where and knew every one, and ran through as pretty a series of flirtations as ever wife did, who managed to maintain any sort of reputa- tion. She hankered after celebrities great and small, from the Poet Laureate to the latest gymnast at the Aquarium, including all that lay between, and she hunted them like the hart upon the mountains. But what she loved best were aspirants for fame, whose success was not yet assured, and who were still in the humble frame of mind that made them grateful for her recognition and appreciation. Mrs. Peveril's nimble intelhgence and love of change kept pace with society hobbies, which she rode for a time furiously, till she grew tired and went after something new. At present, having exhausted the theatrical hobby, she was ardently absorbed in ambu- lance classes and hospital visiting, and though CONTEMPORARY UISTORY 269 she cared for neither entertainment, she took them up with a fervour that deceived herself, and gave her friends leisure to speculate what her next pursuit was likely to be. 270 RICHARD DAEE CHAPTER Xm A MOMENTOUS WALK There is no such thmg as chance ; and what seems to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny. Schiller. After tlie departure of Mr. Gage and Jolianna, Eicliard flung himself into his work with renewed energy, striving to overcome the sense of sohtude and loss that weighed upon him. Among many unhappy feehngs, he was spared that of self-reproach. He was satisfied that he had acted rightly towards Mr. Gage, in not trying to win Johanna's love. It would have been a great presump- tion, and taking unworthy advantage of his immense kindness. No ; he was master of himself, and must live tliis new feeling down into the original friendship from which it sprang. Eichard was not a spoilt child to A MOMENTOUS WALK 271 snatch at what he wanted and clamour if it was denied him, and he set his practical mind to beUeve that it was best both for him and Johanna that this thing could not be. And he allowed no more freedom to his pen than to his tongue, and wrote to her merely as an intimate friend would, but at great length and very often. At first their letters resembled their conversation, glancing hghtly from one topic to another, and nothing that happened to them, or that they thought about, was too trivial to be related in detail. But this purely personal kind of correspondence can only be kept up at a white heat between those who are newly separated, and still retain a complete knowledge of each other's sur- roundings and mode of hfe. And this essential for continued close correspondence was lacking, for Johanna had returned to a world of which Eichard, whose nose had never projected over the white cliffs of Albion, Knew nothing, and it is difficult to make the 272 KICHARD DARE unknown interesting or intelligible. And Pdcliard's surroundings, with -whicli she had been familiar, changed quickly and entirely as he became better known, and made more friends and acquaintances than he could possibly describe or introduce to her in letters. So it came to pass in the course of nature, that their correspondence languished for mere want of matter to keep it going. ' ' At the end of a year, separation had done its inevitable work in lessening the urgent desire to meet again, and in inducing calm- ness of mind where a storm had threatened. Eichard still faithfully told Johanna any circumstance he thought likely to interest her about himself, and of his advance in his profession which he loved better than life. She in return informed him that she was studying art almost as enthusiastically as he studied surgery, though with what result remained to be seen. For the rest she wrote about her Uncle John, whose health often caused her anxiety, and airily discussed A MOMENTOUS WALK 273 things in general, without mentioning that she had lovers as well as friends and acquaint- ances about her. Johanna believed that she was heart whole, and yet when it came to the point she found that she liked no one so well as her late pupil, whom she would have preferred for her future master to any other man alive. In the meanwhile, though she refused to marry, her life was full and happy, and she looked for time to bring her and Eichard together, or to extinguish the smouldering fire that he had stifled by the quicker process of an effort of will. On a raw November day two years after Johanna and her uncle went abroad, Eichard was walking from Hyde Park Corner to the Marble Arch. He seldom came so far west- ward, and there was nothing in the aspect of the Park on such an afternoon to make him wash to come there oftener. The air w^as thick and murky, the sky overhead leaden, the ground underfoot wet and slippery, inlaid with a brown and yellow mosaic of dead VOL. I. T 274 EICIIAKD DARE leaves trodden into the moist soil, and the varnished panels of the carriages that rolled by were bespattered with mud like carts on a country road. Every one he met looked preoccupied and uncomfortable, except the children out for their afternoon walk, who had broken loose from their governesses and were playing at horses, or bowling their hoops with light-hearted mirth, such as even a spring morning cannot waken in the heart of their elders. As Eichard strode along he was as usual pondering an interesting surgical case under his care, and could not easily have been dis- turbed in his meditation had he not suddenly caught sio'ht of a face that drove everv thought but that of its radiancy from his mind. It was Margaret Featherstone ; he had seen her at long intervals all the years he had lived in London, and lovely as he remembered her to have been, her beauty now fairly surprised him. She had just left her carriage, and was walking westward into the Park, apparently A MOMENTOUS WALK 275 for the benefit of a very fat and breathless pug who objected to exercise, and was being dragged along rather than led by her maid. Eichard did not hesitate to follow at a distance, in the hope that he might catch another ghmpse of the face of faces to him. What memories it called up ! how its beauty when he first saw it had illumined a sordid scene, and made it the turning-point in his life ! If only he could meet her and be intro- duced to her, the gulf between them was no longer impassable. It had narrowed till friendship might clasp hands across it, or love throw a bridge over it. By-and-by Eichard's thoughts returned to sublunary matters, and he watched with amusement the spoilt antics of the pug. The little beast had once been slender, agile and dog-like, but he had so long fared sumptuously every day, and taken so Httle exercise, that his fissure was hopelessly lost in rolls of fat, and had he gone on two legs instead of four, he would have been recommended to undergo a cure at T 2 276 RICHARD DARE Marienbad. As the day was cold and Toby- had ostentatiously shivered on the hearthrug before he came out, he wore his grey velvet winter coat, securely fastened about his rotund frame. His apoplectic neck was encircled by a Eussia leather collar studded with silver bosses, and ornamented with tiny silver bells that tinkled at every movement. His eyes stood out like prawns' eyes, and he was open- mouthed and panting, giving one the oppor- tunity to notice that his tongue was as long as his breath was short. In spite of all his pomp and luxury, poor Toby's expression was absurdly agitated and distressed, and Eichard •diagnosed his case correctly, and predicted death from fatty degeneration of the heart. If the pug was a ridiculous object to human eyes, imagine what he must appear in those of his fellow dogs. Not one of them passed him unnoticed or witli indifference. They made spiteful and contemptuous remarks aloud, and if he had not been led by a string, they would have chased poor Toby across the A MOMENTOUS WALK 277 Park. Hungry dogs hated him for his bloated and overfed appearance, cold dogs were jealous of his top coat, and warm dogs scorned him for his effeminacy in wearing one at all. Dogs who fought loncred to cliallencre him to single combat, because they kncAV he could not fiorht, and dogs who killed rats or cultivated any other useful industry, looked upon him with contempt as a lazy, useless thing. The tinkling of his silver bells irritated all sober- minded dogs, and Toby was as much hated by his kind, as though he instead of his mistress had devised and put on his preposterous adornments. Eichard walked unobserved some yards behind Margaret Featherstone, and it seemed, to his quick apprehension, that her little dog might be the means of an introduction between its mistress and himself. A jfierce black and white colley had made a spring at poor Toby as he passed, and if his owner had not been at hand with a whip and called him to heel, Eichard would have had to interfere 278 RICHARD DARE on the wretched Httle creature's behalf. But his opportunity came quickly from another quarter. A rough-haired EngHsh terrier, free from the controlling presence of a master, observed Toby from afar, and came bounding over the grass with his neck bristles erect, for a closer inspection of this object of offence to dogs and men. For an instant he stood trembhng with disgust, and then in the silence that means mischief, sprang on the un- happy pug, and would have made short work with him, if Richard had not come to the rescue. Margaret tried to seize the terrier by the collar to drag him off Toby, but Kichard said : ' Leave him to me ! Don't attempt to touch him, or he will turn on you ! ' and he struck the dog with his cane with all his force several times before he would loose his hold. He quite understood the terrier's feelings, but if one stops to weigh every one's motives in a crisis, nothing is done, so he laid his stick about him again. The maid accompanied the course of A MOMENTOUS WALK 279 events with a series of thin screams, and in her agitation wound Toby's chain about his legs, so that he was delivered bound hand and foot into the power of the enemy. But when Eichard had driven the terrier away howHng, it was found that Toby's top coat and collar, with bells, bosses, and chain wrapped about him hke armour, had saved him from any serious hurt. His overcoat was rent in pieces^ his collar marked with the teeth of the foe, and his bells bitten flat so that they would never tinkle again, but beyond a torn ear and a few bruises, he was not materially more infirm than when the bristling terrier pounced upon him. ' How can I thank you enough for coming to our help ? ' said Margaret still trembling with agitation. ' But for your kindness, my Httle dog would have been killed ! ' ' I am only too glad to have been of the shghtest service. It is very lucky the pug wore his winter clothes ; it has saved his life. He is more frightened than hurt,' and Kichard 280 EICIIARD DARE examined Toby again to see that he had made no mistake. ' He is very heavy for his size, and he has lost his breath with fright ; you must let me carry him for you to your carriage ; he cannot possibly walk,' he said, lifting the whimper- ing pug in his arms, and its tail, that a few minutes ago had been crisply curled over its back, hung limp and straight with dejection. ' I cannot think why it is that dogs are so spiteful to my poor Toby,' said his mistress walking by Richard's side, while he carried the victim ; ' he runs the gauntlet of all the dogs in the neifrhbourhood when he is taken out for a walk. I suppose they are jealous of him, for he seems to rouse some very human passions in them.' ' I am afraid his velvet coat is too much for their peace of mind. If Toby is to hold his own he should be able to fig;ht for his property, and he is not made on that plan/ said Richard smiling. The maid meanwhile had hastened on A MOMENTOUS WALK 281 before them, and catcliing sight of the carriage beckaned wildly to the footman, who inter- preting it as a signal of distress, laid dignity aside, and ran to see what was the matter. Great was Kichard's grief to find that his walk by Margaret's side was shortened by several minutes, when John Thomas presented himself, and relieved him of the demoralised pug. He could not with propriety remain any longer, now that Miss Featherstone had a servant and maid to look after her and Toby, and they parted, she with many thanks and expressions of gratitude, and he with unspoken regrets. \ She did not ask his name, and she little thought that the useful stranger had often seen her before, and idealised her for many a year, Eichard watched her carriage leave the Park at Cumberland Gate, and forgetting what had brought him westward, retraced his steps, inly blessing timid pugs and bellicose terriers by whose means he had been able to speak with Margaret Featherstone, and render her a service. 282 KICHAKD DAEE At dinner that evening IVIrs. Peveril gave her husband the history of her adventure in the Park. ' A good thing some one came to the rescue, or that apoplectic httle brute would have been killed,' said the Colonel drily. Margaret knew her husband's sentiments with regard to Toby, so she merely said : ' Yes, it was very fortunate. I wish now I had asked to whom I was indebted for such kindness. He is a gentleman decidedly. Shall I advertise in the "Times," saying I should Hke to thank him personally ? ' ' If he is a gentleman he will not wish to utilise an act of common civility to obtain an introduction. You had better be content with Toby's safety, without wanting to enlarge your acquaintance with the addition of Dick, Tom, or Harry,' and the Colonel emptied his glass of generous burgundy with an expression that would have led any one who was not in the secret to suppose his beverage was vinegar. 283 CHAPTEK XIV MRS. PEVERIL It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us. — Schopenhauer. Mrs. Peveril had been too much terrified, at the time of Toby's imminent peril, to pay any particular attention to his deliverer, yet on looking back she felt that he had impressed her favourably. His face, if not decidedly good-looking, was clever and interesting, and of all things she admired men who were not commonplace. Yes, she made a mistake when she forgot to ask him his name. But she was not destined to remain long in ignorance as to who and what was Toby's champion, for shortly afterwards Mrs. Peveril again met Richard Dare in the last place where either would have expected to see the other. 284 RICIIAKD DARE in a ward of the Eastminster Hospital. Mrs. Peveril was at the time very much taken up with the theory of nursing and the practice of hospital visiting. The charm of novelty still hung about her new pastime, and though it was the third hospital she had inspected that day, she was as unwearied as Eoyalty itself She entered the ward accompanied by Dr. Muir, one of the visiting physicians, while Eichard was going his afternoon round among his patients, and her unexpected presence startled and thrilled him with delight. The sight of the fair face that had come as a sudden illumination into his life, recalled with overwhelminfj force that first memorable meeting. Time and space seemed annihilated, and he saw once more the beautiful young girl with glowing hair and eyes, and himself the rough boy blowing tlie bellows in the forge ; he could hear the ring of the hammer on the anvil, and the cheery voice of Mr. Featherstone. His heart beat violently, his face flushed, and his thoughts wandered so MRS. PEVEEIL 285 wide of his duty it was well for his patient's peace of mind he did not know how little attention Mr, Dare was giving to the bandag- ing of his broken wrist, which to the owner of it, of course, was the centre of a disorganised universe. Margaret was talking with Dr. Muir, and did not notice Eichard as she passed him, wafting delicate perfume from the soft folds of her graceful dress. The patient turned his head to follow the lady with admiring eyes, while the surgeon frowned and drew the bandaf^e tii^hter. As soon as his task was finished, Dr. Muir approached him, with Margaret smiling radiantly. The doctor was a stout grey- haired man, wearing a tightly buttoned frock coat, and with a suave bedside manner that did not forsake him even in speaking to a healthy human being of his own sex. ' Now that you are at liberty, Dare, let me introduce you to Mrs. Peveril, a lady who is deeply interested in philanthropic works, especially in hospitals and sick nursing, and 286 RICHAKD DARE indeed in everything that tends to amehorate the sufferings of the afflicted poor,' and Dr. Muir had not rounded off his sentence before Margaret held out her hand with charming frankness. ' Mr. Dare ! I have had the pleasure of meeting you before, when you so kindly came to the rescue of my poor little dog in the Park ! I am delighted to have the opportunity of thanking you again, for I was too agitated to do so at the time as I ou2;ht to have done. Toby must thank you too ; he soon recovered from his fright.' ' I was evidently his predestined dehverer. I so seldom go as far west as the Park,' said Richard, blushing painfully and ill at ease. ' Dr. Muir, Mr. Dare is not a stranger to me ; he saved my little dog's life, and you may imagine how grateful I am to him,' and ]\irs. Peveril turned towards the doctor with her brilliant smile, which she flashed like a hght alternately in his face and Eichard's. ' So you have met our house surgeon MRS. PEVERIL 287 before ! We are afraid we shall not have hmi here much longer, his skill and reputa- tion cannot be confined to the Eastminster Hospital only.' ' I can assure you that your fame has spread beyond these walls already,' said Mrs. Peveril with the charming flattery of a good- natured woman of the world, and this time turning her smile full upon Eichard. ' Only the other day I heard a wonderfully successful operation of yours praised by those who were competent to judge of its skill,' and Eichard, a novice to the dulcet piping of ladies of fashion, drank in the delicious words with aviditv. But though he was strongly agitated by his meeting with Margaret, and by the shock of learninof that she was no longer Miss Featherstone but Mrs. Peveril, it did not deprive him of the power of observation, or prevent him receiving a vivid and truthful impression. He saw, with quick intuition, that her lovely face in attaining the full 238 RICHARD DARE development of womanly beauty, had lost even more than it had gained. Every trace of the spiritual type of her maiden loveliness had vanished as though it had never been, and was succeeded by a purely mundane beauty, appealing to the senses rather than to the imagination. The loss of girlish innocence, increased knowledge of the world, and the disillusion of her marriage, had set their mark on her sensitive face, which was that of a woman who has tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and of evil. At sixteen Margaret, in purity of feature, expression, and tints, resembled a young St. Catherine, to be looked at with reli2:ious emotion. At eight -and -twenty she was like a radiant Venetian lady, such as Paris Bordogne loved to paint, ample, splendid, glowing with life and colour, with magnificent red brown eyes, not easily abashed, and with nothing to sug- gest the celestial to the wildest imaghiation. All this rushed through Eichard's mind with lightning rapidity, but present vivid MRS. PEVERIL 289 impression is so much stronger than memory, that his recollection of the tender purity of Margaret's girlish face was obliterated by the mundane, aggressive beauty of her maturity. Mrs. Peveril gave a comprehensive glance at Mr. Dare with her handsome, experienced eyes. In spite of his somewhat abrupt and agitated manner, or perhaps on account of it, for it was clearly caused by her speaking to him, she felt interested in the house surgeon, on her own account as well as on Toby's, Dr. Muir had told her of some remarkable articles of Mr. Dare's in medical and scientific papers, of his extraordinary skill as an operator, and of his power of diagnosis in obscure cases, amounting almost to intuition, and that great things were expected of him. All this was pleasant hearing to Mrs. Peveril, who though nominally a Christian was in reality a worshipper of the Sun, that is to say, of the rising Sun, for when she met with a struggling man of talent, as yet un- known, if he interested her, she seized upon VOL. I. u 290 RICHARD DARE him as her natural prey, and treated him with a quaint mixture of flattery and patronage. But when the Sun had mounted hicrh above the horizon in art or literature, where all might judge of his capacity, and her pre- science became valueless, she dropped her protege at once. She would be all or nothing to him. Eepeatedly as Mrs. Peveril's name ]iad been linked with that of some aspirant for fame just emerging from obscurity, she had never helped to swell the throng of female devotees that cluster round a man of established reputation. Her pride forbade it, though her vanity made her willing to take him by the liand in his unknown days, when he had neither disciples nor followers. ' I do not know what Dr. Muir may have sliown you in the hospital,' said Richard, who was now at ease in Mrs. Peveril's presence, ^ but as he belongs to the medical and I to the surgical side, I should be delighted if there is anything in my special department you would like to see.' MRS. PEVERIL 291 * Thanks very much. Would you take me through a surgical ward, and show me the theatre where you do all your beau- tiful dreadful operations,' and she gave a pretty little shudder that would have sunk Johanna fathoms in his estimation, but that struck him as sensitive and womanly in Mrs. Peveril. ' This is a surgical ward we are in now,' he replied ; ' almost every one here has broken bones, or cuts and contusions, as you see by arras in slings, and bandaged and plastered heads. Where you notice a patient in bed with a cradle under the blankets to take the weight off him, that means a case of broken leg or ankle.' ' But how is it that your bandaged and plastered patients look so much more cheer- ful than the poor creatures I have just visited in the medical wards ? ' asked Mrs. Peveril with surprise. ' I never saw so many sad faces, or heard so many sad voices, and yet they had nothing to show for it, as these v2 292 KICIIARD DARE have who look as though they had been in the wars.' ' I think I can explain that,' said Eichard eagerly. ' In a medical ward you meet with every kind of depressing ailment, that tries the temper and affects the spirits, that admit of no swift and definite remedies, as most surgical cases do. For unlike surgical science medical science to this day is largely ex- perimental. Doctors are compelled con- stantly to try the nature and power of various medicines on their patients, as the only means of finding out what will really help them, and under these circumstances it would be too much to expect them to look cheerfid,' and he smiled at Dr. Muir as he spoke. ' Now the bulk of cases in this ward are accidents that happen to a man in his ordinary health. He comes here, has chloroform given him, is operated upon at once, and lies in bed com- fortably for a few days or weeks afterwards, eating good food, and often quite well and in the best of spirits.' MRS. TEVERIL 293 ' You must not believe all that Mr. Dare saj-s about us physicians,' said Dr. Muir turn- ing to Mrs. Peveril. ' While he speaks dis- respectfully of our medicines, he does not tell you how many patients die under the surgeon's infallible knife.' ' That's easily ascertained ; there is a record kept of our failures, but no one can compute the deaths attributable to drugs of all kinds, and worse than that, the maimed lives.' ' That is ground for a very pretty quarrel between medicine and surgery,' said Mrs. Peveril smiling, ' and a hospital the battlefield where it should be fought out,' and while she was speaking a messenger came in search of Mr. Dare, who was wanted at once in the re- ceiving room, where a bad accident case had just been brought in. ' Coming directly,' he said in mechanical tones. Then turning to Mrs. Peveril, ' I am sorry I cannot have the pleasure of showing you the operating theatre to-day, for I must go about ni}- business,' he said with very genuine regret. ' But if at 294 RICHARD DARE any other time when Dr. Miiir is unable to accompany you, and you should care to come again, I shall be delighted to be your guide,' and promising to pay them another visit shortly, Mrs. Peveril bade him good-bye. Kichard had just learned a fact which he might easily have anticipated, but for which by some unaccountable lack of imagination he was unprepared. He had always thought of Margaret as Margaret Featherstone ; it had never occurred to him that in all probability she had changed her name by now. He had often thoug-ht of Johanna as a wife, and wondered that she was not married, but Margaret Avas always Margaret Feather - stone to him, set apart in his mind from other women and their common destiny. She was married now, and more hope- lessly beyond his reach even than she had been in her girlhood, when he w^as still behind the chemist's counter. He hated the thought of her as Mrs. Peveril ; it was destructive of every hope and illusion he had MRS. PEVERIL 295 cherished in the depths of liis heart, and tlie next time he met Dr. Miiir, who was evidently an acquaintance of hers, lie asked him wlu> and wliat sort of a man her husband was. Unconsciously to himself Richard did not question him as though it were a mere matter of curiosity, and from the warmth he displayed the doctor drew his own con- clusions. ' You seem uncommonly interested in Mrs. Peveril and her domestic affairs,' he said, ' but 5^ou have met her before, and naturally w^aiit to know more about such a striking person. 1 don't know her husband, but he is a man of good family, old enough to be her father, and how she came to marry the Colonel when slie was too young to have had a husband of any description, I can't tell. He leads a very recluse life, turned literary man in his old age, I believe, and lets Mrs. Peveril do pretty much as she likes ; doesn't even pay her the com- pliment to be jealous of her, and that's a slijjj-ht no attractive woman can for";ive. She 296 KICHAKD DAEE has no children to occupy her, and is pretty much at a loose end, 1 should fancy. She's desperately handsome, and she knows it ; she's a dangerous woman, mind you, and we may congratulate ourselves, I that I am an elderly man and not made of inflammable stuff, and you tliat though you are young you don't move in lier circle. She has great powers of fascina- tion and doesn't scruple to use them.' ' Why did you tell me when you intro- duced me to her, that she was a lady given to philanthropy, and so on ? ' asked Eichard. ' It's only what she would tell you herself, and believe it, too,' said Dr. Muir laughing. ' But you have met her before, I think you said ? ' ' Yes, I have seen her several times ; hers is not a face to be easily forgotten.' Dr. Muir looked up sharply with his small grey eyes. ' You have seen her several times, and you mean to see her again. Dare ! Well, don't say that I haven't warned you. You don't MRS. FEVER I L 297 know much of women, I think, shut up all your time in a hospital where the " Ewigweib- hche " is represented only by invalids and their nurses, and I admit that when a goddess of beauty and health appears on the scene, it is enough to turn a young doctor's head. You're playing wdtli fire, Dare, if you want to know- more of a beautiful, capricious young wife, unhappy in her marriage, and looking out for amusement at any cost, with a keen eye, too, for a clever, promising young fellow in any rank of life. If you are to be a successful medical man, you know that a wife must be a part of your equipment — you will have to marry and forget that syrens exist.' END OF THE FIRST VOLUME rni.VTKD BY SIO'ITIBWOODK ASO CO., NEW B'TOKET SQUAitE LOXDOX POPULAR NOVELS. Each Work complete in One Volume, crown 8ro, price Six Shillings. DARK : a Tale of the Down Country. By Mrs. Stephen Batson. GRANIA : the Story of an Island. By the Hon. Emily Lawless. A WOMAN OF THE WORLD. By F. Mabel Robinson. THE SLAVE OF THE LAMP. By Henry Seton Merriman. THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE. By Mrs. Humphry Ward. THE WHITE COMPANY. By A. Conan Doyle. THE NEW RECTOR. By Stanley J. Weyman. NEW GRUB STREET. By George Gissing, Author of ' Demos ' &c. EIGHT DAYS. By R. E. Forrest, Author of ' The Touchstone of Peril.' A DRAUGHT OF LETHE. By Roy Tellet, Author of 'The Outcasts ' &c. THE RAJAH'S HEIR. By a New Author. THE PARIAH. By F. Anstey, Author of ' Vice Versa' &c. THYRZA. By George Gissing, Author of ' Demos' «S:c. THE NETHER WORLD. ByGEORCE Gissing, Authorof 'Demos' &c. ROBERT ELSMERE. By Mrs. Humphry Ward. RICHARD CABLE : the Lightshipman. By the Author of ' Mehalah ' &c. THE GAVEROCKS. By the Author of ' Mehalah,' 'John Herring,' &c. DEMOS : a Story of Socialist Life in England. By George Gissing. A FALLEN IDOL. By F. Anstey, Author of ' Vice Versa ' &c. THE GIANT'S ROBE. By F. Anstey, Author of ' Vice Versa ' &c. OLD KENSINGTON. By Miss Thackeray. THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. By Miss Thackeray. FIVE OLD FRIENDS AND A YOUNG PRINCE. By Miss Thackeray. TO ESTHER, and other Sketches. By Miss Thackeray. BLUEBEARD'S KEYS, and other Stories. By Miss Thackeray. THE STORYOF ELIZABETH ; TWO HOURS ; FROM AN ISLAND. By Miss Thackeray. TOILERS AND SPINSTERS. By Miss Thackeray. MISS ANGEL ; FULHAM LAWN. By Miss Thackeray. MISS WILLIAMSON'S DIVAGATIONS. By Miss Thackeray. MRS. DYMOND. By Miss Thackeray. LLANALY REEFS. By Lady Verney, Author of ' Stone Edge ' &c. LETTICE LISLE. By Lady Verney. With 3 Illustrations. London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place. ILLUSTRATED EDITIONS OF POPULAR ^A^ORKS. Handsomely bound in eloth gilt, each volume containing Four Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each. THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON. By Anthony Troi.lope FRAMLEY PARSONAGE. By Anthony Trollope. THE CLAVERINGS. By Anthony Trollope. TRANSFORMATION : a Romance. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. DOMESTIC STORIES. By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' THE MOORS AND THE FENS. By Mrs. J. H. Riddell. WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. By Mrs. Oliphant. CARITA. By Mrs. Oliphant. FOR PERCIVAL. By Margaret Veley. NO NEW THING. By W. E. Norris. LOVE THE DEBT. By Richard Ashe King (' Basil'). WIVES AND DAUGHTERS. By Mrs. Gaskell. NORTH AND SOUTH. By Mrs. Gaskell. SYLVIA'S LOVERS. By Mrs. Gaskell. CRANFORD, and other Stories. By Mrs. Gaskell. MARY BARTON, and other Stories. By Mrs. Gaskell. RUTH ; THE GREY WOMAN, and other Stories. By Mrs. Gaskell. LIZZIE LEIGH ; A DARK NIGHT'S WORK, and other Stories. By Mrs. G.\skell. London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place. WORKS BY F. ANSTEY. POPULAR EDITION. Crown 8vo. 6s. CHEAP EDITION. Crown 8vo. limp red cloth, 2s. 6d. THE TALKING HORSE; AND OTHER TALES. From THE SATURDAY REVIEW.— 'A capital set of stories, thoroughly clever and witty, often pathetic, and always humorous.' From THE ATHENiEUM.— 'The grimmest of mortals, in his roost surly mood, could hardly resist the fun of " The Talking Horse." ' POPULAR EDITION. Crown Svo. 6s. CHEAP EDITION. Crown Svo. limp red cloth, 2s. 6d. THE GIANT'S ROBE. From THE PALL MALL GAZETTE. —'The main interest of the book, which is very strong indeed, begins when Vincent returns, when Harold CafTyn discovers the secret, when every page threatens to bring down doom on the head of the miserable Mark. Will he confess? Will he drown himself ? Will Vincent denounce him? Will CafTyn inform on him? Will his wife abandon him? — we ask eagerly as we read and cannot cease reading till the puzzle is solved in a series of exciting situations.' POPULAR EDITION. Crown Svo. 6^. CHEAP EDITION. Crown Svo. limp red cloth, 2s. 6d. THE PARIAH. From THE SATURDAY REVIEW.— ' In "The Pariah " we are more than ever struck by the bharp intuitive perception and the satirical balancing of judgment whieh makes the author's writings such extremely entertaining reading. There is not a du 1 page— we might say, not a dull sentence — in it. . . . The girls are delightfully drawn, especially the bewitching Margot and the childish Lettice. Nothing that polish and finish, cleverness, humour, wit, and sarcasm can give is left out.' CHEAP EDITION. Crown Svo. limp red cloth, 2s. 6d. VICE VERSA; OR, A LESSON TO FATHERS. FFOra THE SATURDAY REVIEW.— ' If ever there was a book made up from beginning to end of laughter, and yet not a comic book, or a "merry" book, or a book of jokes, or a book of pictures, or a jest book, or a tomfool book, but a perfectly sober and serious book, in the reading of which a sober man may laugh without shame from beginning to end, it is the book called "Vice Versa ; or, a Lesson to Fathers." . . . We close the book, recommending it very earnestly to all fathers in the first instance, and their sons, nephews, uncles, and male cousins next.' CHEAP EDITION. Crown Svo. limp red cloth, 2s. 6d. A FALLEN IDOL. From THE TIMES. —'Mr. Anstey's new story will delight the multitudinous public that laughed over "Vice Versa.". . . The boy who brings the accursed image to Champion's house, Mr. Bales, the artist's factotum, and above all Mr. Yarker, the ex-butler who has turned policeman, are figures whom it is as pleasant to meet as it is impossible to forget.' London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place. NOVELS BY THE AUTHOR OF ' MEHALAH.' Fcp. 8vo. Pictorial boards, 2s. each; or limp red cloth, 2s. 6d. each. MKHALAH : A STORY OF THE SALT MARSHES. ' The book is one of the most powerful that has, so far as we know, appeared for many years. It will remind many readers of Emily Bronte's wonderful story, "Wuthering Heiijhts," and indeed in some respects it is even more powerful.'— Scotsman. ' " Mehalah " is far above the ordinary level of novels. The writer possesses strength, and strength is one of the rarest qualities in modern fiction.' — Daily News. ' A bit of real romance : original, violent, powerlul, novel both in place and circum- stance, and peculiarly impressive.' — Truth. JOHN HERRING: A WEST OF ENGLAND ROMANCE. 'Among most novels of the day " John Herring" is a very considerable work indeed, and both deserves and will receive proportionate attention." — Pall M.\ll Gazette. ' Far, very far, above the level of ordinary novels.' — Academy. ' A powerful and interesting novel. The English is admirable ; there is great freshness and vigour in the descriptions of scenery and character, and in the narrative there is ahiindance of invention, and many of the situations are extremely dramatic. ... A book of unusual originality and power.' — Times. COURT ROYAL. ' " Court Royal " is among the few novels of our time that deserve, and will probably obtain, life beyond its day. Intellect, knowledge, fancy, and humour have gone to its making, and thought besides.' — Grafhic. 'The story holds the reader under a spell which is unbroken from first to last.' — MoKNiNG Post. ' It is difficult to say which is the most striking feature of this remarkable and welcome novel — the quaint humour, the consummate power, or the freshness.' — Vanity Faik. THE GAVEROCKS. ' Marked by the vigour of style, the freshness of invention, and the dramatic power which have gained this talented writer his reputation.'— Scotsman. ' A tale of vivid and well-sustained interest.'— Guardian. ' I he story is one of deep human interest, while the intensity of its local colouring enhances its intrinsic merit.'— Morning Post. RICHARD CABLE, THE LIGHTSHIPMAN. ' A novel essentially readable, and full of life and colour.'— Daily Telegraph. ' The story has a strong interest, which is likely to prove enduring. It is as good as anything this powerful writer has produced.'— Scotsman. London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place. NOVELS BY GEORGE GISSING. /■V/>. Si'o. Pictorial boards, Us. each ; or limp red cloth, Ss. 6d. each. DEMOS : a Story of Socialist Life in England. ' If a tale of Socialism does not find abundance of readers, it is not because the times are not ripe for it. This remarkable novel presents the great social problem in a striking garb. ..." Demos " does not aspire to vie with " Alton Locke," but it tells a story more practical, and of more brightness and variety.'— Times. ' A really ableand vigorous romance.'-AxHEN.ltUM. ' This is a novel of very considerable ability. ... It is evidently written by a man whi has a very intimate knowledge of the working classes, and not a little sympathy wiih them. . . . Nothing can be more skilful than the sketch of the artisan family round whose fortunes the story of the book revolves. The chief character is very powerfully drawn. . . . His mother, too, with her narrow, complaining, and almost dumb integrity . . . the weak, pretty daughter, and the worthless, blackguard son, are hardly less truthful studies. . . . The sketch of the one or two Socialist meetings which the author has occasion to describe, of the style of Socialist literature, and the conversation of Socialist agitators, shows an intimate knowledge of that field of action.'— Spectator. A LIFE'S MORNING. ■ Powerful and unique as all Mr. Gissing's former writings are, "A Life's Morning " is \i\i chef-d'oeuvre. . . . The story is most fascinating and most natural.' Whitehall Revifw. ' As a study of feminine nature, " A Life's Morning " is, perhaps, the most successful of all Mr. Gissing's works, and deserves to be fully as popular as its predecessors.' Pall Mall Gazette ' A story which is marked by imaginative insight, subtle delineation of character, epigrammatic force of style, and gleams of genuine humour.'— Standard. THE NETHER AVORLD. 'Terrible in its earnestness, in its "untouched" photography of the desperate strugg'es and bitter misery of the London poor ; never was word-painting more thoroughly and obviously true.' - World. ' Mr. Gissing is one of the few persons who can handle pitch without being defiled by it. While he runs Zola close as a realist, his thoughts and language are as pure as those of Miss Yonge herself — Standakd. ' A powerful and most interesting novel.' — Manchester Guardian. THYRZA. ' A very good story indeed. . . . In power and pathetic treatment the novel is above the average.'— Athen/eum. ' " Thyria" is a really exquisite figure ; as pathetic a creation as can well be imagined. ... In short, " Thyrza " is a book of unusual literary merit.' — Morning Post. NEW GRUB STREET. 'Mr. Gissing's writing is bright and strong, his humour is delightful, and his satire is easy and yei restrained.'— .Speaker. ■ Mr. Gissing has produced a very powerful book. . . . Full of clever touches on literary and social matters.'- Saturday Review. 'The book is decidedly forcible, and, to a great extent, the result of experience.' AlHEN.tUM. ' Mr. Gissing's new book is the best bit of work he has done since " Thyrza. " In none of his recent novels has there been such reality of feeling, such pathos, such careful vet broad analysis of character. Mr. Gissing's characters are real living men and women ; they are drawn with great skill, sympathy, and truth.'- Guardian. London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place. The 'MOLLY BAWN' SERIES of POPULAR NOVELS. Works by the Author of 'MOLLY BAWN,' 'GREEN PLEASURE AND GREY GRIEF,' &c. &o. In Pictorial Covers, fcp. Svo, 2s.; or, in limp red cloth, ft p. %vo. 2s, 6d. each. PHYLLIS : a Novel. ' A clever and interesting novel.' — Spectator. ' Very pleasant writing. —Queen. MOLLY BAWN. 'Really an attractive novel, idealising human life without departing from the truth, and depicting the love of a tender, feminine, yet high-spirited girl in a most touching manner. Full of wit, spirit, and gaiety. All women will envy and all men will fall in love with her. Higher praise we surely cannot give.' — Athen^UM, 'AIRY FAIRY LILIAN.' 'A delightful story, cast in the same mould as its predecessors. The characters are cleverly drawn, the dialogue is terse and pointed.'— Court Journal. MRS. GEOFFREY. 'A prettier or more readable story than " Mrs. Geoffrey" nobody need wish to meet with.' — Scotsman. ROSSMOYNE. ' Monica Beresford is a very pretty example of Irish naivete dissociated from shille- laghs ; and there is true humour in the conception of Kit, her sister.' — Academy. DORIS. ' "Doris" is a clever story of a marriage of convenience The dialogue is good, that of " Dicky Browne," a kind of licensed jester, being really bright and lively. The heroine is well drawn, and so is a terrible aunt of hers, whose encounters with the Marquis (himself a clever portrait) are diverting.' — Academy. GREEN PLEASURE AND GREY GRIEF. '"Green Pleasure and Grey Grief" is what many of its readers will be inclined to call a sweetly pretty story.'— Athen.'eum. PORTIA. ' " Portia, or by Passions Rocked," is of the category of novels to which may fairly be applied the epithet of " charming." '—Morning Post. BEAUTY'S DAUGHTERS. 'Another triumph. ... Of the success of the story there can hardly be any r'oubt.' Court Jouknal. FAITH AND UNFAITH. 'A singularly bright, vivacious, readable story.'— Ii i.ustrated London News. ' Distinctly superior to three-fourths of the fiction published.'— Academy. LADY BRANKSMERE. '. . . Sufficiently sensational to suit the most ardent admirers of fiction, and yet contains much that is worthy of admiration.' — Court JoUR^AL. LOYS, LORD BERRESFORD, and other Tales. ' A collection of stories which cannot fail to be popular. There is something good in all o( them, and one or two are especially racy and piqu.Tnt ' — academy. UNDER-CURRENTS. 'Altogether as enjoyable as one is accustomed to expect from the clever author of " Molly Bawn."'- Scotsman. London : SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place. :A Wij^ ■a 4 ■i UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA