LIE) RARY OF THE U N IVLR51TY or ILLINOIS 823 Y27b BROKEN TO HARNESS % $im2 of €nslm^ ^omtdk fife BY EDMUND YATES " Mit dem Gurtel, mit dem Schleier, Reisst der schoner Wahn entzwei." IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. L LONDON JOHN MAXWELL AND COMPANY 122 FLEET STREET MDCCCLXIV. [All rights reservedj] LONDON ROBSON AND SON, GREAT NOIITHERX PRIXTIXG WORKS. Pancras Road, N.W. r ^ ^S3 3(nscrikir TO THE MARQUIS CLANRICARDE, K.P. IX REMEMBKANCB OF CONSTANT KINDNESS. i\ ^ 4 PEEFACE As the name of the Author of this book may be more or less familiar to a certain portion of the reading public, it is right to say that, with the exception of an incomplete sketch published years ago in a defunct periodical, this is his first at- tempt at ^N^ovel-writing. It is a great pleasure to him to think that his first story should have appeared in a Maga- zine with Avliich he has been editorially connected since its commencement, and in which he hopes very shortly to break fresh ground. Kensington, November 1864. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/brokentoharnesss01yate CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAP. PAUE 1 I. Mr. Churchill's Ideas are Moxastic II. Down at Bissett III. Starting the Gasie . IT. The Commissioner's Views are Ma TRIMONIAL .... V. "There's Nothing half so sweet in Life" VI. The Commissioner's Shell explodes VII. Touching a Proposal VIII. Touching another Proposal IX. " A LITTLE PROUD, BUT FULL OF PiTY" X. At THE Tin-Tax Office, No. 120 XL With the Secretary XII. Where Mr. Pringle went to XIII. Mr. Prescott's Proceedings XIV. Miss Lexden on Matrimony XV. Mother and Son XVI. "For better, for worse'' . 15 42 50 79 lOG 128 143 153 1G7 18G 200 228 241 271 292 BROKEI^ TO HAMESS. CHAPTER I. MR. Churchill's ideas are monastic. The office of the Statesman daily journal was not popular with the neighbours, although its exist- ence unquestionably caused a diminution of rent in its immediate proximity. It was very difficult to find — which was an immense advantage to those connected with it, as no one had any right there but the affiliated ; and strangers burning to express their views, or to resent imaginary impu- tations cast upon them, had plenty of time to cool down while they wandered about the adjacent lanes in vain quest of their object. K you had business there, and were not thorouglily ac- quainted with the way, your best plan was to VOL. I. B Z BROKEN TO HARNESS. take a sandwich in your i:)Ocket, to prepare for an afternoon's campaign, and then to turn to the right out of Fleet Street, down any street leading to the river, and to wander about until you quite unexpectedly came upon your destination. Tliere you found it, a queer, dumj^y, black-looking old building, — like a warehouse that had been sat ujoon and compressed, — ^nestling down in a quaint little dreary square, surrounded by the halls of Worshipful Companies which had never been heard of save by their own Liverymen, and large churches with an average congregation of nme, standing mildewed and blue-mouldy, with damp voters'-notices peeling off their doors, and green streaks down the stuccoed heads of the angels and cherubim suj^porting the dripping arch over the porch, in little dank reeking churchyards, where the rank grass overtopped the broken tombstones, and stuck nodding out through tlie dilapidated railing. The windows were filthy with the stains of a thousand showers; the paint had blistered and peeled off the heavy old door, and romid the gaj)- MR. Churchill's ideas are monastic. 3 ing chasm of the letter-box ; and in the daytime the i^lace looked woebegone and deserted. No- body came there till about two in the afternoon, when three or four quiet-looking gentlemen would drop in one by one, and after remaining an hour or two, depart as they had come. But at night the old house woke up with a roar ; its windows blazed with light ; its old sides echoed to the creaking throes of a huge steam-engine ; its querulous bell was perpetually being tugged ; boys in paper caps and smeary faces and shirt- sleeves were perpetually issuing fi-om its portals, and returning, now with fluttering slips of paper, now with bibulous refreshment. Messengers from the Electric Telegraph Companies were there about every half-hour ; and cabs that had dashed uj) with a stout gentleman in spectacles dashed away with a slim gentleman in a white hat, re- turning with a little man in a red beard, and flying off with the stout gentleman again. Blinds were down all round the neighbourhood; porters of the Worshipftd Companies, sextons of the congre- gationless churches, agents for printing-ink and 4 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Cumberland black-lead, wood-engravers, box- block sellers, and the proprietors of the Never-say- die or Health-restoring Drops, who held the cor- ner premises, — were all sleeping the sleep of the just, or at least doing the best they could towards it, in spite of the reverberation of the steam- engine at the office of the Statesman daily journal. On a hot night in September Mr. Churcliill sat in a large room on the first-floor of the States- man office. On the desk before him stood a huge battered old despatch-box, overflowing ^^^tll papers — some in manuscript, neatly folded and docketed; others long printed slips, scored and marked all over with ink-corrections. Lnmedi- ately in front of him hung an almanack and a packet of half-sheets of note-paper, stnmg to- gether on a large hook. A huge waste-paper basket by his side was filled, while the floor was littered with envelopes of all sizes and colours, fragments cut fi'om newspapers, ink-splashes, and piles of books in paper j^arcels waiting for review. A solemn old clock, pointing to midnight, ticked gravely on the mantelpiece ; a small library of MR. Churchill's ideas are monastic. 5 crrim old books of reference, in solemn brown bindings, with the flaming cover of the Post- Office Directory like a star in the midst of them, was ranged against the wall ; three or four speak- ing tubes, with ivory mouthpieces, were curling roimd Mr. Churchill's feet; and Mr. Churchill himself was reading the last number of the Revue des Deux Moncles by the light of a shaded lamp, when a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and a cheery voice said, ^^ Still at the miU, Churchill? still at the mill?" " Ah, Harding, my dear feUow, I'm delighted to see you !" " I should think you were," said Harding, laughing; ^^for my presence here means a good deal to you, — bed, and rest, and country, eh? Well, how have you been? — not knocked up? You've done capitally, my boy! I've watched you carefully, and am more than content." (For Mr. Harding was the editor of the Statesman, and Churchill, one of his principal contributors, had been taking his place while he made holiday.) 6 BROKEN TO HARNESS. ^^ That's a relief," said CliurcliiU. '^'ve been rather nerv^ous about it; but I thought that Tooby and I between us liad managed to push the ship along somehow. Tooby' s a capital fellow !" " Yes, yes," said Mr. Harding, seating him- self; ^' Tooby is a capital fellow, and there's not a better ' sub' in London. But Tooby couldn't have written that article on the Castle-Hedinon. I hke my comforts, and to be able to buy occasional books and pictures, and to keep my horse, and my club, and — " " Well, but a fellow like you might pick up a woman with money I" said Harding. " That's the worst pick-up possible, — to have to be civil to your wife's trustees, or listen to re- proaches as to how ' poor papa's money' is being spent. No, no, no ! So long as my dear old mother lives, I shall have a decent home ; and afterwards — well, I shall go into chambers, I sup- pose, and settle down into a club-haunting old fogey." MR. Churchill's ideas are monastic. 9 " StufF, Frank ; clon't talk sucli rubbish. Af- fectation of cynicism and affectation of premature age are two of the most pernicious cants of the day. Yery likely now, at the watering-place to which you're going for your holiday, you'll meet some pretty girl who — " " Watering-place !" cried Frank, shouting with laughter; ^' I'm going to my old godfather's country place for some partridge-shooting; and as he's an old bachelor of very peculiar temper, there's not likely to be much womankind about." ^' Ho, ho! A comitry place, eh? and part- ridge-shooting? Hum, hum! We're coming out. Don't get your head turned with grand people, Frank." " Grand people !" echoed Churcliill. " Don't I tell you the man's my godfather? There will probably be half a dozen men staying in the house, whose sole care about me will be that I carry my gun properly, and don't hit them out in the stubble." " When do you go ?" " To-morrow, by the midday express. I've 10 BROKEN TO HARNESS. some matters to settle in tlie morning, and can't get clown before dinner-time." " Well, then, get to bed at once. I've got to say a few words to Tooby; and I'll see Marks when he comes up with the statement, and take care that all's straight. You've seen your o's\'n proofs? Very well, then; God bless you! and be off, and don't let us see your face for a month." They shook hands warmly; and as Chui*cliill left the room, Harding called after him, "Two things, Frank : look out for a nice wife, and don't get your head turned with what are caUed ' swells.' " Throughout London town there breathed no simpler-minded man than George Harding. At College, as in after-hfe, he had lived with a very smaU set, entirely composed of men of his own degree in the world ; and of any other he had the vaguest possible notion. His intellectual acquire- ments were great, and his reading was vast and catholic ; but of men and cities he had seen liter- ally nothing ; and as, except in his annual vaca- tion, when he could go down witli his family and potter about the quietest of watering-places, he 11 never went any wliere save from his home to the Statesman office, and from the Statesman office to liis home, he was not hkely to enlarge his know- ledge of life. Occasionally, on a Saturday night in the season, he would get the Opera-box from the musical critic, and would take Mrs. Harding to Her Majesty's ; but there his whole attention would be absorbed in contemj)lating the appearance and manners of the " swells," — ^the one word not to be found in the dictionary which he sometimes in- dulged in. Shghtly Eadical in his opinions was George Harding ; and that he was not much gra- tified by his observation of these specimens of the upper ten thousand, was to be traced in certain little pmigencies and acerbities in liis leading arti- cles after these Opera visits. He worshipped his calling, in his own honest, simple, steadfast way, and resented, quietly but sturdily, any attempts at what he considered patronage by those of higher social rank. Tlie leaders of his political part}^, recognisant of the good service done to them by Harding's pen, had, on several occasions, essayed to prove their gratitude by little set civilities : 12 BROKEN TO HARNESS. huge cards of invitation to Lady Helmsman's Saturday-evening reunions had found their way to the Statesman's dee2:)-mouthed letter-box ; car- riage-paid hampers of high-flavoured black game sped thither from the Highland shooting-box, where tlie Foreign Secretary Avas spending his hard-earned holiday ; earliest intimation of poli- tical changes, in " confidential" covers, were con- veyed there by Downing- Street messengers. But George Harding never appeared at Protocol House ; his name never was seen low down amongst those of the Foreign-Office clerks and outer selvage of fashion, chronicled with such urbanity by Mr. Henchman of the High-Life Gazette ; and no at- tention or flattery ever made him pander to a shuffle, or register a lie. He had a very high opinion of Churchill's talent and honour ; but he knew him to be fond of praise, and, above all, greatly wanting in discretion. Harding had seen so many men full of promise fall into the dreary vortex of drink and debt and pot-house dissipation, that he had hailed with delight the innate decency and gentlemanly feeling which had kept Frank MR. Churchill's ideas are monastic. 13 Cliurcliill out of sucli dirty orgies ; but now lie feared lest the disinfectant might prove even worse than the disease itself, and lest the aristocratic notions, which his friend undoubtedly possessed, might lead him into society where his manliness and proper pride might be swallowed up in the eflFulgency of his surroundings. So mused Greorge Harding, bending over the dingy old grate at the Statesman office, and gazing vacantly at the sha^-ings with which it was filled, while waiting for Mr. Marks, the head printer, to brino; him the ^^ statement," showino; the amomit required to fill the paper. Meanwhile Churchill, cigar in mouth, was striding through the deserted streets, rejoicing in the thought of his coming holi- day, and inwardly chuckling over his friend's warnings. At last he stoj^ped at a door in a dull respectable street leading out of Brmiswick Square, let himself in with a latch-key, drank a tumbler of soda-water, and glanced at the addresses of some letters in his little dining-room, exchanged his boots for slippers at the bottom of the staircase, and crept slowly up the stairs. As he arrived at 14 BROKEN TO HARNESS. the second floor, lie paused for a minute, and a voice said, " God bless you, Frank!" " God bless you, mother !" he replied ; " good night, dear ;" and passed into his room. Then he sat himself on the side of his bed, and began leisurely to undress himself, smiKng mean- while. " Bring back a wife, and beware of swells, eh? Tliat is the essence of Harding's advice. No, no, my darling old mother ; you and I get on too well tofi^ether to chano-e our lives. An amusinpj time a wife would have with me, — out half the night at the office, and she shivering in the dining-room waiting my return. Wife, by Jove ! Yes ; and thick fat chops, and sixteen-shilling trousers, and the knifeboard of the omnibus instead of the cob to ride on ! No ; I think not And as for swells — ^that old republican, Harding, thinks every man with a handle to his name is an enemy to Magna Charta. I should like to show him my old god- father walking into an idiotic peer of the realm !" And, very much tickled at the idea, Churchill put out liis candle and turned in. CHAPTER 11. DOWN AT BISSETT. At the very first sign of the season's breaking up, Sir Marmacluke Wentworth was in the habit of leaving his town-house in Curzon Street, and pro- ceeding to his country-seat of Bissett Grange. Gumble, his butler and body-servant, was the first person officially informed of the intended flight; but long before his master spoke to him, that far- seeing man had made up his mind, and arranged his plans accordingly. ^^ Flitherses gone to-day, eh !" he would say to himself, as, in the calm, cool even- ing, he lomiged against the jams of the street-door (Gumble was never seen in the area) and looked up to the opposite house. " Shutters up, and Flitherses hoff ! Some German bath or other, no doubt; elber-shakin' for the old man, and forrin' comits for the young ladies. Lord Cliarles lefF 16 BROKEN TO HARNESS. last week ; he'll be takin' his rubber at Spaw now as nateral as at the Club. The old Barrin has been sent away somewheres ; and I'll bet a pound in two days my guv'nor says 'HofF!'" And he would have won his bet. So soon as there was the slightest appearance of a move among the peo- ple of his circle; so soon as he found "shall have left town" given as an answer to an invite to one of his cosey little dinners ; before Goodwood afforded the pleasantest excuse for the laziest of racing and tlie happiest of lunching ; while flannel-clad gentle- men yet perspired copiously at Lord's, defending the wickets of Marylebone against the predatory incursions of "Perambulators" or "Eccentrics;" when Finsburyites were returning from their fort- night at Kamsgate, and while Dalstonians yet lin- gered on the pier at Southend, — old Marmaduke Wentworth would give his household brigade the order to retreat, and, at their head, Avoidd march down upon Bissett Grange. And he was right ; for there was not a nobler old house, nor prettier gromids, in the broad county of Sussex, where it stood. Contrast is the great DOWN AT BISSETT. 1 7 tiling, after all : tall men marry sliort women ; the most thick-set nursery-maids struggle a-tiptoe to keep step with the lengthiest members of the Foot- Guards ; Plimnims the poet, who is of the S yba- rite-roseleaf order, sighs for Miss Crupper the ^cuyere, who calls a horse an oss, and a donkey a hass ; and so you, if you had been staying at Brighton, and had gone on an excursion at half-a- cro^vn an hour into the inner country, would have fallen in love with Bissett Grange. For, weary of the perpetual hoarse murmur of the sea, now thmidering its rage in tremendous waves, now shrieking its lamentation in long hissing back-cur- rents; sick of the monotony of the "long-backed bushless downs," so cold and bare and wind-swept, echoing to the eternal plaint of the curlew, and shutting off the horizon with a dreary never-end- ing shoulder-blade of blank turf, — you, if you were lucky in your choice, and had a driver with a soul beyond the Steine and aspirations exceed- ing the Lewes Road, would have come upon, at a distance of some five miles from Brighton, a httle one-storied porter's lodge, nestling in ivy so deep VOL. I. C 18 BROKEN TO HARNESS. that the dear parasite had it in its embrace, chim- neys and all. Big, hea^y, and wooden were the lodge-gates ; none of your prett}', light, elegant Coalbrookdale innovations. Gates, in Sir Mar- maduke "Wentworth's idea, were things to keep impertinent prying people out ; and as such they could not be made too cumbrous or too opaque for his pleasure. Tliey were very high, as well as very heavy ; so, if you had come with your 'cute driver in your fly excursion, you would have seen nothing but the quaint twisted chimneys; and even for that view you must have momited imto the box. Save the friends of the owner, no one, in Marmaduke Wentworth's time, had ever passed the lodge, or rather, I should say, reached the house. Visitors to Brighton and Worthing, dying of ennui^ had besieged the lodge, and implored permission to walk in the grounds; artists had asked to be allowed to sketch tlie house ; a ^' gen- tleman engaged upon the press" had written to say that he was sure there must be a legend con- nected with some chamber, if he might ov^ be ])ermitted to explore the mansion; and one man, DOWN AT BISSETT. 19 a pliotographer, bribed the lodge-keeper's grand- daughter with a piece of elecampane, and, in the absence of the legitimate portress, passed the gate. He had proceeded about a couple of hmidred yards up the avenue, when he was met by Sir Marma- duke, who had just turned out for his leisurely afternoon ride. The sight of the itinerant pro- fessor with his travelling camera roused the old gentleman in an instant ; he set spurs to his cob, hurried off to the intruder, and tapped him smartly on the back with his whip. One instant's glance revealed to him the whole affair : it was not a tra- velling Punch, whom he would have sent into the kitchen ; it was not a man from the Missionary Society, whom he would have had ducked in the 23ond; it was — tant soit peu — an artist; and for art of any kind, however humble, old Marmaduke had a regard. So when the trembling man looked up, and, divided between a notion of " cheeking the swell," or being impudent, and running away, or being cowardly, hit upon a middle course, and, guarding his head, at which nothing had been aimed, exclaimed, " Now, then ! What are you 20 BROKEN TO HARNESS. at? Who's hurting you?" all the old gentleman did was to bend from his saddle, to seize the in- truder by the lobe of his ear, to turn him com- pletely round, and, pointing to the gate, to utter in a hissing whisper the phrase " Go away, man !" When the photographer attempted to explain, the ear-pressure was intensified, and the " Gro away, man !" uttered more loudly ; at the third repetition, the photographer wrung his ear from the old gentleman's fingers, and ran away abjectly. " Collodion and Clumpsoles ; or, the Homes of the British Aristocracy in the Camera : being Eeminiscences of a Peripatetic Photographer," therefore, contained no view of Bissett Grange ; which was to be regretted, as neither The Has- socks, the Rector's residence, nor Tlie Radishes, the seat of Sir Hipson Hawes, the lord of tlie manor, both of which figured extensively in the photographic publication, was to be compared with Marmadulve Wentworth's ancestral mansion. The elm-avenue extended from the lodge to the house, — ^nearly half a mile, — and through the trees you saw the broad expanse of the park, covered with DOWN AT BISSETT. 21 that beautiful soft turf which is in the highest perfection in Sussex, and which afforded pasture for hundreds of dappled deer, who would raise their heads at the sound of approaching footsteps or carriage-wheels, and, after peering forward earnestly with outstretched necks at the intrusion, would wheel round and start off at a peculiar sling trot, gradually merging into the most graceful of gallops. Immediately in front of the porch, and only divided from it by the carriage-sweep, was an en- ormous flower-bed, sloping towards the sides, and culminating in the centre, — ^the pride of the head- gardener's soul. Right and left of the house were two arches, exactly alike. Passing through that to the left, you came upon the stables and coach- houses, of which there is little to be said, save that they were old-fashioned, and what the helpers called " ill-conwenient ;" and that the fine London grooms who came down with their master's hacks and carriage-horses in the autumn — Sir Marma- duke was never at Bissett during the hunting sea- son — ^used to curse them freely as a set of tumble- 22 BROKEN TO HARNESS. clown old sliedsj fit only for jobs and fly-'osses. And yet the old quadrangle, environed by the stable-buildings, with their red-tiled roofs and their slate-coloured half-hatch doors, each duly bearino^ its horse-shoe and its hecatomb of mouse and stoat skeletons, was picturesque, more espe- cially of an evening, when the setting smi gleamed on the quaint old clock-turret, ivy-covered and swallow-haunted, and steeped in a rich crimson glow the pretty cottage of old Martin, erst head- groom, now a superannuated pensioner, — old Mar- tin, who was never so happy as when babbling of bygone days, and who " minded the time" when the stables were full of blood horses, and when Master Marmadul^e (the present proprietor) rode Saucy Sally OA-er all the raspers in the comity. Through the other arch you came upon the gardens of the Grange. Immediately before you lay a broad expanse of lawn, — such smootli, soft curf as is only met with in England, and only there in well-to-do places. Short, crisp, and vel- vety was the grass, kept with tlie greatest care, and rolled and mown with the most imdeviating DOWN AT BISSETT. 23 punctuality ; for Sir Marmadulve was proud of his lawn, and liked to sit out there in Ins liigli-backed rustic seat on the hot August evenings, placidly smoking his cigar, and occasionally raising his head to be fanned by the soft sea-breeze which came blowing over the neighbouring downs. He would as soon have thought of allowing a servant to take a liberty with liim as of permitting any one to drive a croquet-iron into that lawn, or to attempt to play any game on it. Between the house and the lawn ran a broad gravelled walk, passmg down which you came upon the orchard and upon the fig-garden, which was the glory of the county, and was enclosed with an old red- brick wall, which itself looked ripe and ruddy. To the right lay the kitchen-garden, — a fertile slope of land in the highest state of cultivation, dotted every here and there with huge lights and frames, and spread nets, and overgro^ii cucmn- bers, and bursting marrows ; for though Sir Mar- maduke cared but little for flowers, he was a great fruit-grower, and, next to seeing his pines and melons on his own table (where, glowing on tlie 24 BROKEN TO HARNESS. old ancestral Wentwortli plate, they looked like a study for Lance), liis great gratification was to bear away with them the prizes from the Horti- cultural Shows in the neighbourhood. Beyond the orchard was a large field, known as the Paddock, whither the croquet-players and the archers were relegated, and where the turf was almost as smooth as that of the sacred lawn itself Over all — house, lawn, orchard, kitchen-garden, and paddock, and far away across the surromiding downs — there was a delicious sense of calm and quiet ; a feeling wliich was heightened rather than lessened by the inhabitants of a rookery established in the tall elm-trees bordering the Paddock, and who, as they sailed over the gromids of the Grange, would express their approbation by one single solemn caw. Tlie house faced the avenue, and was a queer, odd, square block, by no means picturesque, but quaintly ugly, something like an old-fashioned child, whose decidedly curious features, out of all drawing and impossible to be admired, yet have something humorously lovable in their expression. DOWN AT BISSETT. 25 A staring red-brick house of Queen Anne's time, that ought to have been formal, and perhaps had been at some period or other, but which had under- gone so many changes — ^had had so many gables put on here, and windows let in there, and rooms added on wherever they were wanted — as to lose all trace of its original design, and to have become of a composite style of architecture which would have driven Mr. Kuskin mad. It was the only gentleman's seat for miles romid wliich was built of red brick, and not that gray stone which always looks weather-beaten and time-worn; instead of wliich, the Grange had a jolly, cheery, comic ex- pression, and when the sun gleamed on its little diamond-shaped, leaden-casemented windows, they seemed to twinkle like the eyes of a genial red- faced old gentleman at some good joke or pleasant dish. A comfortable old house in every sense of the word, with an enormous number of rooms, large airy spacious chambers, queer little nooks and snuggeries, long passages with pannelled par- titions dividing them from other passages, parti- tions with occasional square windows or round 2() BROKEN TO HARNESS. eyelet-lioles cut in them, wide straggling staircases witli broad steps and broad balustrades, which no boy had ever yet been known to pass without shd- ing down them on his stomach. A couple of queer turreted chambers, like the place where the yard- measure lives in old-fashioned work-boxes, and a set of attics, low-roofed, and rather worm-eaten and mouldy-smelling. These were not inhabited, for the servants had their own quarters in the western wing ; a bit of eccentric building, which had been thrown out long after the original struc- ture, and gave to the old mansion, from the back view, a comical lopsided appearance ; and when the rest of the house was filled, the bachelors were sent to what was known as the Barracks, or the Kennel, a series of jolly little rooms shut out from the resj)ectable portion of the building by a long passage, where they kept up their own fun till a very late hour of the night, where there was al- ways an overhanging smell of tobacco, and whence, in the early mornings, there came such a roaring and clanging of shower-baths, and such a somid of hissing and sluicing and splashing, that you might DOWN AT BISSETT. 27 have fancied yourself in the vicinity of an army of Tritons. Two o'clock on a liot afternoon at the end of September ; and, with the exception of a few sportsmen, who are now reclining under a liigh hedge and lighting pipes, after a succulent repast of game-pie, cold partridge, and bitter beer, all the party at the Grrange is assembled round the Imicheon-table in the dining-room. That is Mar- madulve Wentworth, the tall old man standing on the hearthrufr, with his back towards the empty fire-grate. His head is perfectly bald and sliining, and has but a fringe of crisp white hair; his features are what is called "aristocratic," well -shaped, and comely; his eyes are cold, clear, gray; liis lips slightly full, and his teeth sound and regular. He is in his invariable morning dress, — a blue coat with brass buttons, a buff waistcoat, and gray trousers with gaping dog's-eared pockets, into which liis hands are always plunged. Looking at liim now, you would scarcely recognise the roue of George the Fourth's time, the Poins to the wild Prince, the 28 BROKEN TO HARNESS. hero of a hundred intrigues and escapades. In heat and turmoil, in drinking, dicing, and danc- ing, Marmaduke Wentworth passed his early youth; and from this debauchery he was res- cued by the single passion of his life. The ob- ject of that j)assion — his cousin, a lovely girl, whose innocence won the dissipated roisterer from his evil ways, and gave him new notions and new hopes — died within three months of their engagement ; and fr'om that day Went- worth became another man. He went abroad, and for ten years led a solitary studious life; returning to England, he brought with him his bookworm tastes; and it was long before he emerged from the seclusion of Bissett Grange, which he had inherited, and returned once more to London life. Even then, he sought liis so- ciety in a very different set to that in which he had previously shone. George the Great was dead; sailor King William had followed him to the grave; and the new men fluttering romid the court of the new Queen, setting fa- shions and issuing social ordinances, had been DOWN AT BISSETT. 29 cradled children when Marmaduke Wentworth had copied Brummers cravats, or listened to Alvanley's tons mots. Even had he continued a " dandy," he would have been displeased with the "swells" to whom the dandies had given place; and now, changed as he was into a dis- appointed elderly gentleman, with a bitter tongue and an intolerant spirit, his misocial cynicism bored the new men, while their slangy flippancy disgusted him. So, in the phrase of the day, he " went in for a new excitement ;" and, though his name and his appearance were as well known in London as those of the Duke of WelHngton, there were but few people of his own status or time of life who were retained on an intimate footing. Some few old friends, who themselves had suffered heart-shipwreck, or seen their argosies of early feelings go down in sight of port, claimed companionship with the queru- lous, crotchety companion of their youth, and had their claims allowed. His odd, quaint savagery, his utter contempt for the recognised laws of politeness, his free speaking, and his general 30 BROKEN TO HARNESS. eccentricity, had a great charm for young peo- ple of both sexes; and if they had any thing in them to elevate them above the ordinary rmi of yea-and-nay young persons, they invariably found their advances responded to. Tlien there was a great attraction for young people in the society which they met at one of Marmaduke's dinners, — men whose names were before the world ; an occasional cabinet-minister sweetenx ing the severities of office with a little pleasant relaxation in company where he might take the mask from his face and the gag from his mouth ; authors of note ; rising artists ; occasionally an actor or two, — all these were to be found romid Wentworth's table. The old gentleman was in London from January to July. During that time he gave four dinner-parties a week (one of them, I regret to say, and generally the plea- santest, on a Smiday), and during the other three days dined out. He was a member of the True-Blue and the Minerva Clubs, but sel- dom went to either; he was admissible by the hall -porter of every theatre in London, and DOWN AT BISSETT. 31 sometimes strayed behind the scenes and took possession of the green-room hearthrug, whence he vented remarkably free and discriminating criticisms on the actors and actresses surround- ing him. He had one special butt, an old Ger- man baron of fabulous age, who was supposed to have been a page to Frederick the Great, who had been for thirty years in England, and had only acquired the very smallest knowledge of its language, and whose power of placidly enduring savage attacks was only equalled by the \agour of his appetite. The Baron was never brought down to Bissett ; but, as we have heard from Gumble, was sent ofp to some sea- side place to recruit . liis digestion ; whence he invariably turned up again in Curzon Street in January, with the same wig, the same dyed beard, the same broken English, and an appe- tite, if any thing, improved by his marine so- journ. There is a strange medley now collected at the Grange. Tliat tall girl, seated at the far end of the table, with her chin leaning on her 32 BROKEN TO HARNESS. hand, is Barbara Lexden. Three years ago, when, at nineteen, she was presented, she cre- ated a furore; and even now, though her first freshness is gone, she is even more beautiful — has rounded and ripened, and holds her own with the best in town. More Jis^iri^M^-looking than beautiful, though, is Barbara. Her face is a little too long for perfect oval; her nose is very slightly aquiline, with dehcately curved, thin, transparent nostrils; her forehead marked with two deep lines, from a curious trick of elevating her eyebrows when surprised, and shaded with broad thick masses of dark-brown hair, bound tightly round her head, taken off behind her ears, — small, and glistening like pink shells, — and terminating in a thick plaited clump; sleepy, greenish -gray eyes, with long drooping lashes; a tall, midulating, pear-shaped figure, always seen to best advantage in a tight- fitting dress, with a neat little collar and nun- like simple linen cuffs ; a swimming walk ; feet and anldes beyond compare ; and hands — ah, such hands! — ^not plump, slender, with long fin- DOWN AT BISSETT. 33 gers, and rosy filbert nails ; such hands as Ni- non de I'Enclos might have had, but such as, save on Barbara, I have only seen in wax, on black velvet, under a glass case, modelled from Lady Blessington's, and purchased at the Gore- House sale. Blue was her favourite colour, violet her favourite perfume, admiration the longing of her soul. She was never happy until every one with whom she was brought into contact had given in their submission to her. No matter of what age or in what condition of life, all must bow. Once, dm-ing a Comme- moration Week at Oxford, she completely turned various hoary heads of houses, and caused the wife of an eminent Church dignitary, after thirty years of happy marriage, to bedew her pillow with tears of bitter jealousy at seeing how completely the courteous old dean was fascinated by the lovely visitor; and she would laugh w^ith saucy triumph as she heard the blunt, outspoken admiration of working-men as she sat well forward in the carriage blocked up in St. James's Street on a Drawing-room day, or slowly VOL. I. D 34 BROKEN TO HARNESS. creeping along the line of veliicles wliicli were " settino; down" at the Horticultural - Gardens gates. Witli the exception of flirtation, in which she would have taken the highest honours, her accom- plishments were neither more nor less than those of most women of her position. She played bril- liantly, with a firm dashing touch, and sang, per- haps not artistically, but with an amount of feeling tlu'own into her deep contralto that did frightful execution ; her French was very good ; her German passable, grammatical, and well phrased, but lack- ing the real rough accent and guttural smack. At all events, she had made the most of Avhat schooling she had had, for it was desultory enough. Her father, the youngest son of a good family, ran away with the black-eyed, ruddy-cheeked daughter of the Herefordshire parson with whom he went to read durino- the Lono: Vacation ; was immediatelv disinherited by his father ; left the University', and by the influence of his family got into a Govern- ment office ; where, by his own exertions, he got into bad company, into debt, and into prison. On DOWN AT BISSETT. 35 his deathbed he commended his wife and daughter to the care of his elder sister, who had never mar- ried, but hved very comfortably on the property which ought to have been his. Miss Lexden came once to see her brother's widow and orphan in the lodgings which they had taken in Lambeth to be near the King's Bench Prison. But years of trouble had not changed the poor mother for the better, and her stately sister-in-law regarded her with horror. In truth, the colour had faded from her rosy cheeks, and the light died out of her black eyes long ago, and had left her a dowdy, silly, fussy little woman, with nothing to say. So Miss Lexden thought she could best fulfil her brother's charge with least trouble to herself by allowing the bereaved ones fifty pomids a year; and on this, and what she could make by working for the Berlin-wool and fancy-stationery shops, the w^idow supported herself and her child for some twelve years, when she died. Miss Lexden then took the child to the dull, stately old house in Gloucester Place, Portman Square; where, with the aid of a toady, the daily visit of a smug phy- 36 BROKEN TO HARNESS. siciaii, an airing in a roomy old carriage drawn by a couple of fat horses, a great deal of good eating and drinking, and a tolerable amount of society, slie managed to lead a jolly godless old life. She found her niece, then fourteen years old, less ignorant and more presentable than she had imagined; for Barbara had received from her mother a sound English education, and had, on the pea-and-joigeon principle, picked up a little French and the rudiments of music. She looked and moved like a lady, and moreover had an in- solence of manner, a de liaut en has treatment of nearly every body, which the old lady hailed as a true Lexden characteristic, and rejoiced over greatly. So Barbara w^as sent to Paris for three years, and came back at seventeen finished in edu- cation, ripened in beauty, and a thorough coquette at heart. Of course she had already had several affaires: several with the professors attached to the Champs-Elysees pension ; one with an Italian count, who bribed the ladiesVmaid to convey notes, and who was subsequently thrashed and in- structed in the savate by the Auvergnat porter of DOWN AT BISSETT. 37 the establishment; and one with an English gen- tleman coming over from Boulogne ; and her aunt used to encourage her to tell of these, and would laugh at them until the tears came into her eyes. At nineteen she was presented, made her coiqj^ and now for tvvo seasons had been a reigning belle. Offers she had had in plenty, — ^^^outhful peers with slender incomes ; middle-aged commoners, solemn, wealthy, and dull ; smug widowers, hoping to re- new the sweets of matrimony, and trusting to by- gone experience to keep clear of its bitters. But Barbara refused them all ; played with them, landed them, — giving them all the time the most pleasurable sensations of encouragement, as old Izaak used to tickle trout, — and then flung them back, bruised and gasping, into that muddy stream the world. She told her aunt she was playing for a high stake ; that she did not care for any of these men; that she did not think she ever should care for any one ; mider which circumstances she had better make the best bargain of herself, and go at a high price. Tliere are plenty of women like this. We rave against cruel parents and sordid 38 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Mammon-matches ; but very often the parents are merely passive in the matter. There are plenty of girls who have walnuts, or peach stones, or some- thing equally impressible, where their hearts should be, who have never experienced the smallest ghm- mer of love, and who look upon the possession of a carriage and an Opera-box, and admission into liigh society, as the acme of human enjoyment. Sitting next to Barbara is Fred Lyster, a slim dark man, with small regular features and a splen- did flowing black beard. He was educated at Addiscombe, and was out in India under Gough and Outran! ; did good service, was highly thought of, and was thoroughly happy ; when his old god- father died, and left him heir to a property of three thousand a year. He returned at once to England, and became the most idle, purposeless, dreamiest of men. He had tried every thing, and foimd it all hollow. He had travelled on the Continent, been on the turf, gambled in stocks and railways, kept a yacht, and was bored by each and all. He had thought of going into Parliament, and went for two nights into the Speaker's Gallery ; but did DOWN AT BISSETT. 39 not pursue the idea, because he found that "the fellows talked so much." His plaintive moans a^rainst life were sources of intense amusement to his friends; and when he discovered this — ^which he did at once, being a very long way from a fool — he was not in the least annoyed, but rather lent himself to the idea, and heightened his expressions o^ ennui and despondency. He liked to be with Sir Marmaduke ; for the old gentleman's brusque manners and 2:eneral intolerance afforded him real amusement, and he laid himself open to attack by always being more than ever drawling and inane when in his company. Tlie baronet, who had a quick perception of character, knew Lyster's real worth, and often talked to him seriously about having some purpose in life; and when he only got vague and dreamy replies, he w^ould burst out into a torrent of invective, in the middle of which Lyster would rmi, shrieking with laughter, from the room. Next to Captain Lyster sits Miss Lexden, Barbara's aunt ; a fat, placid-looking old lady, in a flaxen front, which, with a cap covered with 40 BROKEN TO HARNESS. ribbons and flowers, seemed skewered on to lier skull by a couj^le of large pins, the knobs of which presented themselves like bosses on her temj^les. She was a cousin of Sir Marmaduke's, and the elder sister of the old man's one love, so that there was a great link of confidence between them ; and she liked coming to Bissett, where the living was always so good, and where she met peo2:)le who amused her. Tliat jiretty girl talking to her is Miss Townshend, — a delicious creature in a comi- try-house, who can ride across comitry, and play croquet and billiards, and sing little French chan- sons, and dance, and who even has been known on occasions to drive a docrcart and smoke a cio;arette. To secure her, entails inviting her fiither, an in- tensely respectable, dreary old gentleman — ^that is he, in the starched check cravat and the high coat-collar ; a City magnate, who confines his reading to the City article, and has to be promptly extinguished when he attempts to talk about the "policy of Eooshia." He is endeavouring just now to strike up a conversation with his neighbour Mr. Vincent, the member for Wessex, and Chair- DOWN AT BISSETT. 41 mau of the Dinner-Committee of the House of Commons; but Mr. Vincent is deep in the dis- cussion of a cheese-omelette, and is telegraphing recommendation thereof to Mrs. Vincent, a merry, red-faced looking little woman, who, with her husband, passed her whole life in thinking about good eating. Sir Marmaduke's solicitor, Mr. Eussell, a quiet old gentleman, clad in profes- sional black, who was always trying to hide his soft wrinkled hands mider his ample coat-cuffs ; and Sir Marmaduke's factotum. Major Stone, otherwise Twenty Stone, a big, broad-chested, jo\'ial, bushy-whiskered, moneyless free-lance, — completed the party. CHAPTER III. STARTING THE GAME. " Halloa !" sudclenlj sliouted Sir Marmaduke from his vantage-ground on the rug. Every body looked uji. " Halloa I" sliouted the old gentleman again, l^lunging his hands over the Avrists in his trousers- pockets, and bringing to the surface a couple of letters. " By Jove ! I forgot to tell Mrs. Mason or any of them that more peoj^le were coming down ! Here, Stone — somebody — -just ring that bell, will you? Here are two men coming do^vn to-day — ^be here by dinner, they say ; and I for- got to order rooms and things for them !" " Who are they. Sir Marmaduke ?" asked Lyster languidly. ^' What the deuce is that to you, sir?" roared the old gentleman. " Friends of mine, sir ! STARTING THE GAME. 43 Tliat's enough, isn't it? Have you finished lunch?" " I haven't had any," said Lyster. " I never eat it. I hate lunch." " Great mistake that," said Mr. Vincent, wip- ing his mouth. '^ Ought always to eat whenever you can. 'Gad, for such an omelette as that I'd get up in the middle of the night." " Perhaps, Lyster," said Major Stone, coming back from ringing the bell, "you're of the opinion of the man who said tlig,t lunch was an insult to your breakfast and an injury to your dinner ?" " He was a confomided fool, whoever he was," broke in Sir Marmaduke. " I hate those fellows who talk epigrams. Halloa, Gumble, is that you ? Tell Mrs. Mason two gentlemen are coming down to stop. She must get rooms ready for them, and that sort of thing." " Yes, Sir Marmaduke," said Gmnble. " In the Barracks, Sir Marmaduke ?" " God bless my soul, sir ! how should 1 know?" said his master testily. ".What do I keep a housekeeper for, and a pack of lazy ser- 44 BROKEN TO HARNESS. vants, who do nothing but eat, if I'm to be worried about things like this ? Tell Mrs. Mason, sir ! Do as you're told !" And exit Gumble, whose admirable training and long experience only prevented him from bursting into a guffaw. " Though you refused Captain Lyster, I don't think you'll mind telling me who these gentlemen are, Sir Marmaduke ?" said Barbara, leaving the table, and advancing to the rug. " No, my dear ; I'll tell you any thing. Be- sides, they'll be here to-night. One is Mr. Beres- ford, and the other a learned professor. Tliere, I've throAvn them among you to worry their repu- tations before they arrive ; and now I'll be off to my study. And don't any of you come and bother me ; do you hear ? If you want any thing, ask Stone for it. Come, Russell." And, followed by the lawyer, the old gentle- man left the room, after patting Barbara's head with one hand, and shaking his clenched fist, in a serio-comic manner, at the rest of the company. " What very strange people my cousin does STARTING THE GAME. 45 get hold of I" said Miss Lexden, commencing tlie onslaught directly the door was closed. " Which Mr. Beresford is it, do you suppose ?" Tlie question was general, but Mr. Townshend answered it, by saying pompously, " Perhaps it's Mr. Beresford, one of the Di- rectors of the Bank of England, who — " " God forbid !" broke in Lyster suddenly. " Amen to that sweet prayer," said Barbara, in a low voice. Then louder: "Oh, dear, let's hope it's not an old gentleman from the City." " ]^o, no ; don't fear," said Major Stone, laughing. " You all know him. It's Charley Beresford, from the Tin-Tax Office." "What! the Commissioner?" exclaimed little Miss Townshend, clapping her hands. " Oh, I am so glad ! He is such fmi !" " Oh, every body knows Mr. Beresford," said Vincent ; " capital judge of cooking ; on the com- mittee of the Beauclerk." " I'm afraid I'm nobody, then," said old Miss Lexden ; " what age is he ?" " Oh, same age as every body else," drawled 46 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Lyster. '' I find every body's the same age, — seven-and-twenty. Nobody ever goes beyond that." " You know Mr. Beresford, aimtj" said Bar- bara. '^ He's a favourite horror of yours. You recollect him at Hawley last year ?" " Oh, the odious man who carried on so shamefully with that rich woman, — the grocer's widow !" said the old lady. " "Well, wasn't it a grocer? — merchant, then, if you like, — some- thing to do with the City and the West Indies, I know. Oh, a dreadful joerson !" " Charley Beresford's not a bad fellow, though," said Lyster. "Who did Sir Mar- maduke say the other man was? Professor something." " Perhaps Major Stone knows him," chimed in Mrs. Townshend. " Who's the Professor that's coming do^^ii, Stone ?" asked Lyster. " J don't know. I only know two professors : Jackman the conjuror, — Jacquinto he calls him- self, — and Holloway the ointment-man ; and it's STARTING THE GAME. 47 neither of them. Tliis is some scientific or Hte- rary great gnn that Sir Marmachike was intro- duced to lately." ** Oh, dear!" said Barbara plaintively, "what a dreadful idea ! Probably an old gentleman, with gold spectacles and a bald head, covered all over with the dust of the British Museum, and carrying dead beetles and things in his poc- kets !" " A professor !" said Miss Townshend ; " we had one at Gimp House — a French one ! I'm sure he'll take snuff and have silk pocket-hand- kerchiefs." " And choke at his meals," added Barbara. " Tliis is too horrible." " I trust he won't come from any low neigh- bourhood," said Mrs. Vincent ; " the small-pox is very bad in some districts in London." " The deuce ! I hope he won't bring it down here," drawled Lyster. " There's not the slightest fear of infection, if you've been vaccinated," said Mr. Townshend. "Oh, but I haven't," replied Lyster. "I 48 BROKEN TO HARNESS. wouldn't be — at least without cliloroform ; it hurts one so." " What nonsense, Captain Lyster I" laughed Barbara. " Why, I was vaccmated, and it didn't hurt me the least." '' Did it hurt as much as sitting for your pho- tograph?" asked the Captain, rising. "Because I'll never sit for my photograph again, except under chloroform." " Well, small-pox or not, you'll see the old gentleman at dinner," said Stone ; " and you mustn't chaff him, mind, Lyster ; for he's a fa- vourite of Sir Marmaduke's." And so the luncheon-party broke up. Old Miss Lexden and Miss Townshend drove out in a pony-phaeton, wdth the intention of falling in with the shooting-party; Mrs. Vincent retired to her room, to allow the 2:)rocess of digestion to take place during her afternoon nap; Mr. Vin- cent walked leisurely across the fields to the neifijhbourinoj villa o^e, and had an interview with a fisherman's wife, who had a new method of dressing mackerel; Mr. To-vvnshend took out a STARTING THE GAME. 49 pamphlet on the Bank Charter, and, having placed it before him, went straight oif to sleep ; Major Stone momited his sure-footed cob and rode romid the farm, looking after broken fences, and dropping hints as to the expediency of all being ready with the Michaelmas rent; and Barbara and Captain Lyster wandered into the Paddock, with the intention of playing croquet. But they had played only very few strokes, when Lyster, leaning on his mallet, looked across at his companion, and said gravely, "I assure you. Miss Lexden, I pity you from the bottom of my soul." As she stood there, her complexion heightened by the exercise, the little round hat admirably suiting the classic shape of her head, and the neatest little foot tapping the mallet, she didn't look much to be pitied ; and she tossed her head rather disdainfully, as she asked, " Pity me. Captain Lyster! and why?" " Because you are so horribly bored here ! I've been such a terrible sufferer from ennui my- self, that I know every expression on those who VOL. I. E 50 BROKEN TO HARNESS. have it ; and you're very far advanced indeed. 1 know what it is that beats you, and I can't help you." "And what is it, pray?" " You know Avhat Cleopatra says in the Dream of Fair Women : ' I have no men to govern in this wood !' Pardon me ; I'm a singular person ; not clever, you know, but always saying what I think, and that sort of thing; and you're dying for a flirtation." " Sm'ely t/ou have no cause to complain. I've never tried to make you my ' Hercules, my Ro- man Antony,' Captain Lyster." " No ; you've been good enough to spare me. You've known me too long, and think of me, rightly enough perhaps, as the ' dull, cold-blooded Caesar ;' and there's no one here that's at all avail- able except Stone, and his birth with Sir Marma- duke is like a college-fellowship — he'd have to resiojn all income if he married. It's an awful position for you ! Oh, by Jove, I forgot the two men coming ! I'm afraid Charley Beresford's no go ; but you might make great rmming with the Professor." STARTING THE GAME. 51 " Que (Vlionneur P'' said Barbara, laughing at his serious face. '' Tliat is a compliment, espe- cially after our notions of what he will be like ;" and then, after a minute's reflection, she added, with a proud gesture, " It would be a new field, at all events, and not a bad triumph, to w^in a steady sage from his books and — " "Vivien over again, by Jove!" said Lyster, in the nearest approach he had ever made to a shout; " Vivien divested of all impropriety ; only look out that Merlin does not get you into the charm. They've no end of talk, these clever fel- lows. I laiew a professor at Addiscombe — deuced ugly bird too — ^who ran off* with an earl's daughter, all through his gab — I beg pardon, his tongue." " Gave aux corheaux ! I flatter myself I can hold my own with the old crows," said Barbara ; " however, this is mere nonsense. No more cro- quet, thank you. Captain Lyster. I must go in and reflect on your words of wisdom." And dropping him a little curtsey of mock humility, she moved off" towards the house. " I'd lay long odds she follows up the idea," Jrtn^RSinr of Illinois 52 BROKEN TO HARNESS. said Ljster to himself, as he sat down on the twisted roots of an old elm and lit a cheroot. " She's a fine creature," he added, looking after her; "something in the Cheetah line, — fine and swervy and supple, and as clever as — as old boots. How awfullv old I'm o;rowinc^ ! I should have gone mad after such a girl as that once ; and now — she doesn't cause me the slightest emotion. There's that little Townshend, now, — ah, that's quite another matter !" Had Barbara reallv any notion of foUowino- out Lyster's sportive notion, and of playing Yivien to an aged Merlin ? of winning from his goddess Study a man whose whole life had been passed at her shrine, and of hghting with as much fire as yet remained to him e}'es dimmed with midnight researches? I know not. But I do knoAv that she spent more time that evening over her toilet than she had done during her stay at the Grange, and that she never looked lovelier than in her rich blue dinner-dress, trimmed with black lace, and with a piece of velvet passing through her hair, and coquettishly fastened at one side by a single splen- STARTING THE GAME. 53 did turquoise. Perhaj^s some tliouglit of her con- versation with Lyster flitted across her brain ; for she smiled saucily as she stepped down the wide old staircase, and she had hardly composed her countenance by the time she had passed into the drawing-room, where the party was assembled. Tlie room was lighted only by the flickering blaze of a wood-fire (for the evenings were already chilly), and she could only indistinctly make out that the gentleman whom Sir Marmaduke introduced as " Professor Churchill," and who was to take her in to dinner, was tall, had no spectacles, and was apparently not so old as she had anticipated. But when she looked at him in the full light of the dining-room, she nearly uttered an exclamation of surprise when she saw, as the embodiment of her intended Merhn, a man of six feet in height, about thirty years of age, with short wa\y brown hair, hazel eyes, a crisp dark beard, and a genial, good-humoured, sensible expression. All this she took in in covert glances; and so astonished was she, that after a few commonplaces she could not resist saying, 54 BROKEN TO HARNESS. ^'Ancl are you really a professor, Mr. Chur- chill?" He laughed heartily — a clear, ringing, jolly laugh — as he replied, " Well, I am, — at least I stand so honoured on the books of old Leipzig University, and our good host here always will insist on dubbing me with my full title. But I don't generally sport it. I always think of danc- ing, or calisthenics, or deportment, — Turveydrop, you know, — in connexion with the professorship. I can't help noticing that you look astonished, Miss Lexden ; I trust I haven't rudely put to flight any preconceived notions of yours as to my dignity?" " No — at least — well, I will franldy own my notions were different." ^' There, you see, I had the advantage; with the exception of flatly contradicting the late Mr. Campbell in his assertion about distance lending enchantment, &c., my ideas of you are thoroughly realised. But — I had seen you before." " You had !" said Barbara, feeling a pleasurable glow i)ass over her cheek at something in his tone. STAKTING THE GAIVIE. 55 " Oil, yes ; several times. The first time ten years ago, wlieii I saw you in company with your father—" "My father! Where?" interrupted Barbara. ** Where? oh, at an hotel, — Bmxlon's Hotel. You won't remember it, of course." (Barbara never knew why Major Stone, who was sitting near them, grinned broadly when Mr. Churchill said this.) " Yovi were a little child then. And recently I have seen you at the Opera, and ridden past you in the Row." At this jmictm'e Sir Marmaduke called out to Churchill from the other end of the table, and the conversation became general. Barbara watched Mr. Chm'chill as he took a leading part in it, his earnest face lit up, and all listening attentively to Ms remarks. What a clever, sensible face it was ! And he went to the Opera, and rode in the Park ! What about Vivien and Merlin now ? CHAPTER IV. THE commissioner's VIEWS ARE MATRIMONIAL. Mr. Charles Beresford, Junior Commissioner of the Tin-Tax Office, who was expected down at Bissett, did not leave London, as he had intended, on the day which witnessed Mr. ChurchiU's arrival at that hospitable mansion. His portmanteau and gmi-case had been taken by his servant to the Club, where he was to call for them on his way to the station ; and he had arranged with one of his brother-commissioners to undertake his work of placing his initials in the corner of Aarious docu- ments submitted to him. He had stayed in town longer than his Avont; and as he looked out into the dreary quadrangle of Rutland House, in a block of which the Tin-Tax Office was situate, and gazed upon the blazing flags, and the dull commission- naires sitting on their bench outside the principal 57 entrance and winking in the heat, and upon the open windows opposite, — ^whereat two clerks were concocting an effervescent drink in a tumbler, and stirring it round with a paper-knife, — he cursed tlie dulness, and expressed his delight that he was about to rusticate for a lengthened period. Nobody heard this speech; or if, indeed, the words fell upon the ear of the soft-shod messenger who at that moment entered the room, he Avas far too dexterous and too old an official to let his face betray it. He glided softly to Mr. Beresford's elbow, as that gentleman still remained at the window, vacantly watching the powder-mixing clerks, and murmured, " Letter, sir." " Put it down," said Beresford, without turn- ing round. " Official, eh?" " No, sir, private. Brought just now, by a groom. No answer, sir." " Give it here," said Beresford, stretching out his hand. '' All, no answer ! That'll do, Stubbs." And Stubbs went his way to a glass-case, in which, in the company of four other messengers 58 BROKEN TO HARNESS. and twenty bells, his official days were j:>assed, and gave Hmself up to bemoaning his stupidity in having taken liis fortnight's leave of absence in the j^ast wet July instead of the present sultry season. Mr. Beresford looked at the address of the letter, and fi'owned slightly. It was a small note, pink paper, with a couchant dog and an utterly illegible monogram on the seal, and the super- scription was written in a long scrawh' hand. There was an odour of patchouli, too, about it which roused Beresford's ire, and he muttered as he opened it, " Confounded stuff! Who on earth is she copying now, w^ith her scents and crests and humbug ? I thought she'd more sense than that !" And he ran his eye over the note. It was very short. " Dear Charley, — What has become of you? Why do you never come near The Den? It is nearly three wxeks since you were here. I'm off to Scarborough on Tuesday; a lot of my pupils are there and want me, so I can carry on my little game of money-making, get some fi*esh air, and THE commissioner's VIEWS MATRIMONIAL. 59 perhaps pick up some fresli nags to sell before the limiting season, all ' under vun hat,' as Tom Orme fasechous — facesh (I don't know how to S2:)ell it) — says. Come up and dine to-night at seven. Tliere are two or three good fellows coming, and I want to talk to you and to look at your old pliiz again, and see how much older you've grown during your absence, and how much halcler ; for, you know, you're growing halcl, Charley, and that will be awful hard lines to such a swell as you. Seven sharp, mind. " Always yours, " K. M. "P.S. Charley, if you don't come, I shall tliink you've gro\\T.i pi^oud ; and it'll be a great shame, and I shall never speak to you again. " K. M." Now lest, after a perusal of this letter, any one should think ill of its writer, I take leave to an- nomice at once that Kate Mellon was a virtuous woman ; pure in heart, though any thing but simple ; without fear, but not without as much reproach as could possibly be heaped upon her by 60 BROKEN TO HARNESS. all of her own sex wlio envied her good looks, her high spirits, and her success. There are, I take it, plenty of novels in which one can read the doings, either openly described or broadly liinted at, of the daughters of Shame under many a pretty alias ; and it is because one of these ali- ases describes the calling of which Kate Mellon was the most successful follower, that I am so desirous of clearing her good name, and immedi- ately vindicating her position with my readers. Kate Mellon was a horsebreaker, a hond-fide horsebreaker ; one who curbed colts, and "took it out of" kickers and rearers, and taught wild Irish horses and four-year-olds fi-esh from Yorkshire spinneys to curvet and cai)er prettily in the Park. She taught riding, too ; and half the Amazons in the Row owed their tightness of seat and lightness of hand to her judicious training. She hunted occasionally Avith the Queen's liomids and with the Pytchley, and no one rode straighter or with more nonchalance than she. Give her a lead, that was all she wanted; and when she got it, as she in- variably did from the boldest horseman in the THE commissioner's VIEWS MATRIMONIAL. 61 field, slie would settle herself in lier saddle, left hand well down, right hand jauntily on her hi]), and fly over timher, water, no matter what, like a bird. In social life her great pride Avas that there *'was no nonsense" about her; she was not more civil to the great ladies who sent their horses to her establishment to be broke, and who would occasionally come up and inspect the process, than she was to the stable-helpers' wives and children, who all worship2:)ed her for her ojDen-handed gene- rosity. Tommy Orme, who was popularly sup- posed to be a hundred and fifty years old, but who lived with the youth of the Household Brigade and the Foreign Office and the coryphees^ and who knew every body remarkable in any one wa}', ncA'er was tired of telling how Kate, teaching the Dowager Lady Wylminster to drive a pair of spirited dmi ponies, had, in the grand lady's idea, intrenched upon her prerogatiA^e, and was told that she was a presuming person, and desired to remember her place. " Person, indeed!" said Kate ; " person your- self, ma'am! My place isn't by you after that, 62 BROKEN TO HARNESS. and now get the duns liome the best way you can ;" witli which she sprang from the low phae- ton, struck ofF across the fields, and left the wretched representative of aristocracy "with a couple of plunging brutes that soon spilt the old woman into the hedge, broke the trap all to pieces, and rushed away home with the splinter-bar at their heels — give you my word !" as Tommy used to narrate it. Her manner with men was perfectly frank and open, equally devoid of reticence or coquetry. She called them all by their Clu'istian names if they were commoners, by their titles if they were lords. She answered at once when addressed as " Kitty," or " Old Lady," or " Stunner ;" by all of which appellations she was known. She would lay her whip lightly across the shoulders of any particular friend as a token of recognition at the meet ; Avould smoke a cigarette on her way home after the kill ; and always carried sherry and sand- wiches in a silver combination of flask and box. Her grammar was shaky, and her aspirate occasionally misj^laced ; she never read any thing but BclVs Life THE commissioner's VIEWS MATRIMONIAL. 63 and books on farriery, and she laughed a loud, ringing, resonant shout; but her speech was always free from bad words, and no man ever tried a double entendre or a blasphemy twice in her presence. Living the odd sti'ange life she did, defiant of all society's prejudices, it was yet strange that even London slander had left her unassailed. They did say that she was very much taken by Bob Mayo's sabre-scar when he returned from the Crimea, and that Barker, the steeple-chase rider, half gentleman, half jock, was engaged to her; but nothing came of either of these tsvo reports. Early in her London career, very soon after she came to town, and when men were first beginning to inquire who was the dash- ing horsewoman who rode such splendid cattle with such pluck and skill, De Blague, the Queen's messenger, assumed to know all about her, and at Limmer's one night threw out certain hints by no means uncomplimentary to himself, and eked out with many nods and winks ; but two days after that, as De Blague, with two other Foreign-Office men, was leaning over the rails in tlie Kow, Miss 64 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Mellon rode up, and, denouncing liim as a " brag- ging hound," slashed him with her by no means light riding-whip severely oyer the head and shoulders. After that day no one cared to say mucli against Kate Mellon. Who was she, and where did she come from? that no one positiyely knew. When The Den at Ealing (she so christened it; it was called Mp'tle Farm before) w^as to let, the neighbours thought the landlord would stand out of his rent for many years. Tlie house was a Kttle, long, one-storied building, cut up into small rooms ; old, dilapidated, and damp. Tlie stables were rotting with decay; the barns untiled and tumbling doA^ii; the twenty or thirty acres of land attached were swampy and unproductiye. Tlie place stood un- tenanted for half a yeai\ Then, one morning, an old gentleman arrived in a four-wheeled cab, went all oyer the premises, had an interview with the proprietor, announced himself as Mr. Powker, of the firm of Powker and Beak, of Lincoln's Inn, and within a fortnight the lease was assigned to Miss Kate Mellon, spinster. Tlie house was pa- perecl and painted, and put in order ; tlie stables were entirely altered and renovated, and fitted with enamel mangers, and tesselated pavements, and bronze devices for holding the pillar-reins, and all the newest equine upholstery; some of the barns were converted into carriage-houses, and one of the largest into a tan-strewn riding- school; the land was thoroughly drained and laid out in paddocks, where there were tan-rides and all kinds of jumps, and an artificial brook, and every thing for a horse's proper tuition. Miss Mellon did not receive visits from the neighbour- ing gentry, principally lawyers and merchants, who went regularly to business, and always stared hard at her when their wives were not with them ; nor did she attend the parish-church; but she gave largely to all the parochial charities, and in the winter had a private soup-kitchen of her own. I believe that occasionally gin was dispensed in small glasses to the soup-recipients ; but all was done under the superintendence of Freeman, the staid stud-groom, who had followed her from Yorkshire, A\here she said *^her people" lived. VOL. I. F 66 BROKEN TO HARNESS. But slie never said any thing more about them ; and you would as soon have got a comic song out of an oyster as a word from Freeman. And she prospered wonderfully. She had to make large additions to the stables, and to build rooms for an increased force of grooms ; and even then there were always half a score of horses waiting on her list for admission, either for training or cure. She made money rapidly, and kept it: no better woman of business ever breathed ; in a big ledger she scrawled her own accounts, and, as she boasted, could always tell to a farthing "how she stood." With all this she was generous and hospitable ; paid her grooms good wages, and gave frequent dinner-parties to her friends, — dinner-parties which scandalised her solemnly pompous neighbom's, who would look aghast at the flashing lamps of the car- riages dashing up the little carriage-drive to fetch away the company at the small hours, or would listen from beneath their virtuous bedclotlies to the shouts of mirth and snatches of melody which came booming over the hushed fields. One of these dinner-parties — that to which she ^ \ THE commissioner's VIEWS MATRIMONIAL. 67 had invited Beresford — is just over. The French windows in the long, low dining-room are open ; the table is covered with the remains of des- sert, and some of the guests have already lighted cigars. Kate Mellon heads her table still; she never leaves the room to the gentlemen, — '^ It's slow," she says ; "women alone fight or bore ;" so she remains. You can catch a good glimpse of her now under that shaded swinging moderator-lamp ; a little woman, with a closely-knit figure, long violet eyes, and red-gold hair, taken off over her ears, twisted in a thick lump at the back of her head, and secm-ed with a pink coral comb of horse- shoe shape. She is dressed in white spotted mus- lin, fastened at the throat and waist with coral brooch and clasps. Her nose is a little too thick for beauty ; her lips full ; her mouth large, with strong white teeth ; her hands are white, but large and sinewy ; and the [tones of her voice are sharp and clear. She is shouting with laughter at a song which a jolly-looking yomig man, sitting at the little cottage-piano at the end of the room, has just finished ; and her laugh makes the old rafters ring again. 68 BROKEN TO HARNESS. " I always yell at that song, Tom," she says. " I havn't heard it since last winter, the day that * Punch' Croker dined here, and we gave him an olive to taste for the first time." " He's tremendous fun, is Pmich," said the singer. ^* Why didn't he dine here to-day? Is he out of town ?" " He's got a moor with Penkridge," said Beresford, who was sitting next the hostess. " By Jove, how bored Penkridge will be before he's done with him !" " Pmicli has not got much to say for himself," said a tall man, in a dark beard. " I've had him down to dine with me when I've been on guard at the Bank, and, 'pon my soul, he's never said a word the whole night !" " He was at Baden with us last year," said Beresford ; " and when we used to sit and smoke cm* weeds after dinner in front of the Kursaal, lie used to bore us so with staring at us and saying nothing, that we used to pay him to go away. Subscribe five fi'ancs, or thalers — according to our means, you know — and send him to play at the tables to get rid of him." THE commissioner's VIEWS MATRIMONIAL. 69 " He's not a bad fellow, though, Punch Croker," said Kate. "And what I like in him is, he never lets out that he don't know every thing !" " No, that's just it !" said the tall guardsman. " Just after the Derby, I was confoundedly seedy, and my doctor told me I wanted more ozone." "What's that, Jack?" asked the man at the piano. " Well, it's some air or stuff that you don't get by sitting u]) all night, and lying in bed till tlu'ee. From the doctor's I went to the Eag, and fomid Meabm*n there ; and Ave'd just agreed to dine to- gether, when Punch Croker came in. I told Meaburn to hold on, and we'd get a rise out of Pmich. He asked us if we were going to dine, and we said yes, and that he might dine too, if he hked. And I told him I'd got some ozone, and asked him his opinion, as a sort of fellow who knew those things, how it should be cooked. He thought for one moment, and then said, perfectly quietly, ' Well, if you have it before the cheese, it should be broiled.' Never let on that he didn't 70 BROKEN TO HARNESS. kiiow what it was ; never changed a muscle of his face, — ^give you my word !" They all laughed at this, and then the tall guardsman said, " It's a great bore, though, to get a reputation for stupidity-. It's as bad as being supposed to be fmmy. People are always expecting you to say stupid things, and sometimes it's deuced hard to do." " Poor old Charleville !" said Beresford ; " we all sympathise with you, old fellow, though no one can imagine you ever found any diffi- culty in being stupid. Comes natural, don't it, old boy?" Captain Charleville didn't seem to relish this remark, and was about to reply angrily, when Tom Burton, the man who had been singing, struck in hastily with, " Well, it's better to be or to seem stupid, than to be stupid and have the credit of being clever. Now there's Northaw, only said one decent thing in his life ; and because that has been told about, fellows say that he's a deuced clever fellow, and that there's more in him than you'd think." THE commissioner's VIEWS MATRIMONIAL. 71 " What was the one good thing he did say ?" asked Kate. " Well, it was one day when he Avas out Avith the Queen's last season. Stradwicke Avas there, and Pattan, and Bellairs, and a lot of men ; and NorthaAv was in a horrid bad temper, — ^liad got up too soon, or something, and Avas as rusty as Old Boots ; so while he was fretting and fuming about, and blackguarding the Aveather, and his stirrup- leathers, and every thing else, Tom Winch rode up to him. You know Tom Winch, son of great contractor, timber-man, builds bridges, and that sort of thing. ' Morning, my lord !' says Tom Winch. ' Morning,' says JSTorthaAv, as sulky as a bear. ' What do you think of my ucaa' horse, my lord ?' says Tom Winch. ' Ugly brute,' says l^orthaw, looking up ; ^ ugly, wooden-legged brute ; looks as if he'd been made at liome.^'' Burton rose dm-ing the laugh that folloAA^ed his story, and rang the bell. " I must be off," he said ; " I'a^c rmig to liaA^e the phaeton round, Kitty. Charleville, you'll come AA^ith me ? I can find room for you, Beresford." 72 BROKEN TO HARNESS. ^' Xo ; thanks J " said Beresford ; " I rode down. Oil, tell them to bring my horse round too/' he added to the servant. " Wait five minutes, Charley," said Kate Mellon, in an midertone ; "let us have a quiet talk after they're gone. I've got something to say to you." " Well, good night, Kate ; good night, old lady. If you i^ick up any tiling good in York- shire, let's know, there's a Stmmer! I've pro- mised to mount my sister next season, and she sha'n't ride any thing you don't warrant. Good night, Beresford ; good night, old lad}^ ;" and with hearty hand-shakes to Kate, and nods to Beres- ford, Captain Charle\alle and Tom Bm'ton took themselves off. "Now, Charley," said Kate, leaning forrvard on the table while Beresford lit a fresh ciirar and o threw himself back in liis chair, — "now, Charley, tell us all about it." "About what?" asked Beresford, rolling the leaf of his cigar romid with his finger. "That is good, by Jove ! You say you want to talk to me, THE commissioner's VIEWS MATRIMONIAL. 73 and you begin by asking me to tell you all about it!" " I mean about yourself. You're horribly low, and dull, and slow, and wretched. You've scarcely spoken all the evening, and you ate no dinner, and you drank a great deal of wine." " You're a pretty hostess, Kitty ! You've checked off my dinner like the keeper of a table-cVMte.^'' " Well, you know you might drink the cellar dry, if you liked. But you're all out of sorts, Charley ; tell me all about it, I say !" " You certainly are a strange sj^ecimen, Stun- ner," said Beresford, still calmly occupied with his cigar-leaf; "but there's a wonderful deal of good in you, and I don't mind telling you what I wouldn't say to any one else. I'm done up, Kitty ; run the wrong side of the post ; distanced, old lady. I've been liit frightfully hard all this year ; my book for the Leger looks awful ; I owe pots of money, and I am very nearly done." " My poor Charley !" said the girl, bending forward, with deep interest in her face. " That 74 BROKEN TO HARNESS. certainly is a blue look-out," she continued, — for however earnest was her purpose, she could not but express herself in her slang metaphor. " Is there nothing to fall back upon ?" " Nothing ; no resource, save one — and that I'm going to look after at once — marriage !" " Marriage !" " Yes ; if I could pick up a woman with money, I'd settle down into a regidar quiet humdrum life. I'd cut the turf, and ride a bishop's cob, and give good dinners, and go to chm^ch, and be regularly respectable, by Jove ! I should make a good hus- band, too ; I think I should ; only — the worst of it is, that these women with money, by some dis- pensation of nature, are generally so frightfully hideous." " Yes," said the girl, who had pushed her hands through her hair, and then clenched them tightly in front of her, and who was looking at him with staring, earnest eyes. " I can't fancy you married, Charley ; that's quite a new view of matters ; and, as you say, tlie rich women ai'e not 75 generally pretty. You can't have every thing, Chai'ley?" " No," said Beresford, gloomily. " I know that ; and it would be deuced hard lines to have to take a Gorgon about with you, and to have to glare at a plain-headed woman sitting opposite you for the rest of your life. But need must — what am I to do ?" " Charley," said the girl, suddenly tilting her chair on to its front legs, and drumming with her right hand upon the table ; " look here. You can't have every thing, you know, and it's better to malve the running over open gromid, no matter how heavy, than to dash at a thick hedge where there may be water and Lord knows what on the other side. Don't luu-ry it so, Charley ; you'll get pounded without knowing it, and then there'll be nothing to pull you through. You can't expect every thing in a wife, you know, Charley. If you got money, you couldn't look for rank, you know, eh?" " Why, how you do talk about it, old lady !" said Beresford, flicking the ash off his cigar. 76 BKOKEN TO HARNESS. " No ; I'm not exacting. I wouldn't care about her pedigree, so long as she was well weighted." " Tliat's right; of course not, Cliarley ! I should think you'd find some one, Charley; not grand, you know, but good and honest, and all that. Not very beautiful either, perha2:)s, but not ugly, you know ; and one who'd love you, Charley, and be true to you, and take care of you, and make you a good wife." "Yes, I know, and all that sort of tiling; but where is she to come from ?" " You might find such a one, Charley, where you never looked for it, perhaps ; one who could bring you a little fortune, all honest money, and who could tell you of her past life, wliich you never dreamed of, and need not be ashamed of. Tliere might be such a one, Chai-ley !" She had sKd from her chair to the gromid, and knelt, with her hands on his Imees, looking eagerly into his face. Her eyes gleamed with excitement ; she had pushed her hair back from her forehead, and her lips were parted in eager anticipation of Ms words. Tliey came at length, very slowly. At THE commissioner's VIEWS MATRIMONIAL. 77 first lie turned pale, and caught his breath for an instant ; then gently lifted her hands, and mut- tered between his teeth, " It's impossible, Kate ; it can't be !" " Impossible !" " It can't be, I tell you. What would — there, you don't understand these tilings, and I can't ex- plain. It's impossible ! I was a fool to start the subject. Now I must go. Good by, cliild ; write me a line from Scarborough; they'll forward it from the office. Won't you say good by ?" He gripped her cold, passive hand, and two minutes afterwards she heard the sound of his departing horse's feet on the carriage-drive. For a while Kate Mellon stood motionless, then stamped her foot violently, and sank into a chair, covering her face with her hands, tln'ough which the tears w^elled slowly. Rousing herself at length, she hurried to a writing-table, pulled out a gaudily-decorated papier-mdcM blotting-book, and commenced scrawding a letter. She wrote hm-riedly, passionately, until she had covered the sheet, running her gold pon-holder tlu'ough the 78 BROKEN TO HARNESS. tangled mass of hair at the back of her head, and twisting a stick of sealing-wax with her teeth the while. The letter finished, she skimmed through it hastily, put it in an envelope, and directed it to " F. Churchill, Esq., Statesman Office, E.G." V CHAPTER V. " there's nothing half so sweet in life." Four clays had sKpped awaj since ChurcliiU's first arrival at Bissett Grange, and lie had hegun to acknowledge to himself that they had passed more pleasantly than any previous time in his recollec- tion. Tlie mere fact of getting out of business was a great rehef to him; he revelled in the knowledge that he had nothing to do; and, in odd times and seasons, — as he lay in bed of nights, for instance, — he would chuckle at the thought that the coming morrow had for him no work and no responsibihties in store; and when he went up to dress himself for dinner, he would settle down into an easy-chair, or hang out of the open window, and delight in the prospect of a good dinner and delightful society, of music and conversation, from which no horrid clock-shnking 80 BROKEN TO HARNESS. would tear him away, and send him forth to dreary rooms and brain-racking until the small hours of the morning. Society, music, and con- versation ! It is true that he enjoyed them all ; and yet, when he came to analyse his happiness, he w^as fain to admit that they all meant Barbara Lexden. As in a glass darkly, that tall majestic figm'e moved through every thought, and sinuA ously wound itself romid every impulse of his heart. At first he laughed at his own weakness, and ti'ied to exorcise the spirit, to whose spells he found himself succumbing, by rough usage and hard exercise. There is probably nothing more serviceable in getting rid of a sharp attack of what is commonly known as " spooniness" — when it is accidental, be it remembered, not innate — than tlie eager pm\suit of some healthy sport. Men try wine and cards; both of which are instantaneous but fleeting remedies, and which leave them in a state of reaction, when they are doubly vulnerable ; but shooting or hunting, properly pursued, are thoroughly engrossing while they last, and when thev are over necessitate an immediate recourse to " there's nothing half so sweet in life. " 81 slumber from the fatigue wliicli tliey have induced. In the morning, even should opportunity offer, the " spooney" stage is at its lowest ebb ; it is rarely possible to work oneself up to the proper pitch of silliness immediately after breakfast, and then some further sporting expedition is started, which takes one out of harm's way. But in Churchill's case even this remedy failed ; he was not much of a sportsman ; not that he shot badly, but that he was perpetually distrait^ and when reminded of his delinquencies by a sharp, " Your bird, sir !" from one of his companions, would fire so quickly, and with so much effect, as to mollify the speaker, and lead him to believe that it was shortsightedness, and not being a " Cockney" — that worst of impu- tations amongst sportsmen — that led the stranger to miss marking the rise of the covey. And yet Churchill displayed no lack of keen vision in mak- ing out the exact whereabouts of a striped petti- coat and a pair of high-heeled Balmoral boots which crossed a stile a Kttle in advance of the ser- vants bringing the luncheon ; but these once seen, and their wearer once talked to, sport was over VOL. I. G 82 BROKEN TO HARNESS. with him for the day, and he strolled back with Miss Lexden, at a convenient distance behind Miss Townshend and Captain Lvster, who led the way. " You are soon tired of your sport, Mr. Chur- chill," said Barbara; " I should have thought that you would have followed ardently any pursuit on which you entered." \ " You do me a great deal too much honour, Miss Lexden," repHed Churchill, laughing ; " my pm'suits are of a very desultory natui*e, and in all of them I observe Talle^Tand's caution, — Point de zUer " And you carry that out in every thing?" " Li most things. Mine is a very easy-going, uneventftd, unexcitable life ; I \\\e, thoroughly quietly; da capo — all over again ; and it is seldom that any thing breaks in upon the routine of my humdrum existence. ' ' " Then," said Barbara, looking saucily up at him from under her hat — ""then you do not follow the advice which your favom-ite Tal- leyrand gave to the ambassadors whom he " there's nothing half so sweet in life." 83 was despatcliing, tenez bonne table, et soignez les femmes,^'' Cliurcliill looked up, and for an instant caught her glance ; then he laughed lightly, and said, " Well, not exactly; though the dinners at the club, even the modest joint and the table-beer, are not by any means to be despised ; and as for the rest of it, not being a diplomatist. Miss Lexden, I have no occasion to play the agreeable to any one save in my own house, and, being a bachelor, the only woman I have to see to as properly soignee is my old mother, and I do like her to have the best of every thing." " Your mother lives with you ?" " Yes, and will, so far as I can see, until the end of the chapter." '^ She — ^you must be very fond of her !" said Barbara, as by a sudden impulse, looking up at his kindling eyes and earnest face. " I am very proud of her," he replied; ^^ she is more like my sister than my mother; enters into all my hopes and fears, shares all my as2:)ira- tions, and consoles me in all my doubts." 84 BROKEN TO HARNESS. "More like your wife, then," said Barbara, with a sh'glit sneer. " You ha^'e in her a rare combination of virtues." "No," said Churchill; "not rare, I am dis- posed to think. I don't suppose that, in your class, — where maternity means nothing in par- ticular to sons, and merely chaperonage, or the part of buffer, to ward off paternal anger for bills ^ incurred, to daughters, — such characters flourish ; but in mine they are common enough." — ("A little touch of old Harding's Radicalism in that speech, by Jove !" thought he to himself) " I don't exactly follow your reference to my class as distinct fi-om your own. I suppose we mix amongst pretty much the same people, though as individuals we have not met before. But," added Barbara, with a smile, " now that that great occurrence has taken place, I don't think we need enter into lengthy disquisitions as to the charms and duties of maternity ; indeed, we will not, for I shall ask you to observe the only conditions wliich I require from my friends." " Aiid they are — ?" asked Churchill. " there's nothing half so sweet in life. " 85 " QiCon execute 7nes ordres, as Louis Napoleon said Avlien asked what should be done on the Second of December. So long as my commands are obeyed, I am amiability itself." "And suppose they were disobeyed?" asked Churchill again. " Then — but I won't tell you what would hap- pen! I don't think you'll ever have the chance of knowing ; do you think you shall ? Not that I like amiable people generally — do you? Your blue-eyed girls, with colourless hair like blotting- paper, and — but I forgot I was talking to an author. I suppose you're making fun of aU I say?" " On the contrary," said Churchill, strugghng to keep his gravity, and producing a small memo- randmn-book, "I purpose making a note of that description for use on a future occasion. There is a spiteful simplicity in that pln-ase about ' blotting- paper hair' which is really worth embalming in a leader." " Now I know you're laughing, and I hate to be laughed at — ." 86 BROKEN TO HARNESS. "By no means; I subscribe the roll. I am now one of the dmes damn^esy sworn to obey the spell of the sorceress ; and the spell is — ?" " !N^othing. Ne^'er mind. You will know easily enough when it is once uttered. Now they're coming back to us, and I'ye lost my gloye. Haye you seen it ? How yery absurd !" As she spoke, they came up with Lyster and^ Miss Townshend, who were waiting for them at a gate leading into the Grange lands. " How slowly you walk, Miss Lexden !" said Lyster; "Miss Townshend thought you neyer would come up with us." Miss Townshend, with much curl-tossinir and laughter, declared she had neyer said any thing of the kind. " Quite otherwise," replied Barbara ; " from the earnest manner in which }'ou were carryinoj on the conyersation, there could be no doubt that it was you who were going a-head." " I? — I giye you my word I was merely talk- ing of scenery, and telling Miss To^^^lshend how much I should like to show her Rome." 9 " there's nothing half so sweet in life." 87 " And promising, wlien there, to enter into the spirit of the proverb, and do as the Romans — eh, Captain Lyster?" "Oh, ah, — je^l I see what you mean. That's not so bad, eh, Mr. Churchill? You might use that in some of your thingummies, eh ? Though I don't know that there's much difference between Rome and any other place, after all. It's rather like London, I think." " Is it?" said Churchill. " I confess my short sojourn there gave me a very different idea." " Wen, I don't know; it's mouldier and more tumble-do\vn, certainly, but there are some parts of it that are uncommonly like the unfinished streets in the new part of Belgravia. And people walk about, and eat and drink, and flirt, you know, just as they do in town. There's a Colosseum at Rome, too, as well as in London, only the one in Rome isn't in such good repair." This was said in perfect good faith ; and the others shouted with laughter at it, in the midst of which they came to a stile, joining upon the Pad- dock, and here they parted into couples again, S8 BKOKEN TO HABNESS. only this time Churchill and Barbara took the lead. " I think she's made another cowp," said Lyster, looking at them, as they immediately fell into earnest conversation. '^ She certainly is wonder- ful, — never misses fire !" " If I were Barbara, I should be careful about any flirtation with Mr. Churchill. They're dread- fid peo2:>le, these poets, you know, — at least so I've always heard ; and if you give them any encou- ragement, and then won't marry them, they cry out, and abuse you terribly in books and news- papers." " That would be awful!" said Lyster ; " as bad as having your letters read out in a breach-of-pro- mise case, by Jove ! Never could understand how fellows wrote such spoony letters to women, — never could fancy how they thought of all the things they said." And yet I think, if Captain Lyster had been rigorously cross-examined, he must needs have confessed that he himself had never, throughout the whole course of his previous Life, gone tlu'ough " there's nothing half so sweet in life." 89 so mucli actual thinking as since lie knew Miss Townshend. There was, perhaps, no species of flirtation in which he was not an adept, for he had sufficient brains to do what he called the " talkee- talkee ;" while his natural idleness enabled him to carry on a silent solitude a deiix^ and to make great play with an occasional elevation of the eye- brow or touch of the hand. He had run through a thorough course of garrison hacks, and had seen all the best produce of the export Indian market ; he had met the beauties of the season at London balls and in country houses, and his Kstlessness and languor had hitherto carried him through scot-free. But now he was certainly "fetched," as his friends would call it, and began to feel an interest in Miss Townshend which he had never felt for any other person. There had been a two days' flirtation between liim and Barbara Lexden ; but they were so utterly unsuited, that, at the end of that time, they, as it were, showed their hands to each other, and then, with a laugh, threw up their cards. The flirtation was never renewed ; but a curious, strange friendship, — exhibited in 90 BROKEN TO HARNESS. the conversation about the coming professor, — and always half raillery on both sides, existed between them. But " this little Townshend girl," as he thought of her in his dreamy reveries, was quite another matter; she was so jolly and good-tem- pered, and so approachable, and never gave her- self any airs, and never wanted talking to or that sort of thing, but could amuse herself always, as chirpy as a bird, by Jove ! And these attributes had an immense amomit of weight with taciturn Fred Lyster, who, moreover, had recently dis- covered a bald spot about the size of a sixpence at the top of liis back-parting, and who immedi- ately perceived imminent age, determined on mar- riage, and even thought of making his will. And little Miss Townshend walks by liis side, and prat- tles away, and laughs, saucily tossing her cmds in the air, and is as merry as possible ; save when, stealing an occasional glance from under her hat, she detects her companion's eyes very earnestly fixed upon her, and then a serious expression will settle on her face for an instant, and something like a sigh escape her. " there's nothing half so sweet in life." 91 We are a strange race ! Here are two couples engaged in the same pursuit, and yet how different is the process! While Lyster is strolling idly by Miss Townshend's side, and listening to her little nonsense, Churchill and Barbara are stepping a- head, thorouglily engrossed in their conversation. He is talking now, telling her of a German adven- ture of his ; how, with some other students, he made the descent of the Ehine on one of the timber-rafts; how they came to grief just below the Lorely, and were all nearly drowned. He tells this with great animation and with many gestures, acting out his story, as is his wont; and throughout all he has a sensation of pleasure as he catches ghmj)ses of her uptm'ned earnest face, lighting up at the special bits of the narra- tive, always eager and attentive. His earnestness seems infectious. She has dropped all her society drawl, all her society tricks and byplay, and shows more of the real woman than she has for many a day. Tliey talk of Germany and its literature, of Goethe and Schiller and Heine ; and he tells her some of those stories of Hoffinann wliich are such 92 BROKEN TO HARNESS. special favourites witli Bilrschen. Tims they pass on to our home poets ; and here Barbara is the talker, Churchill listening and occasionally com- menting. Barbara has read much, and talks well. It is an utter mistake to suppose that women now- adays have what we have been accustomed, as a term of reproach, to call " missish" taste in books or art. Five minutes' survey of that room which Barbara called her own in her aunt's house in Gloucester Place would have served to dispel any such idea. On the Avails were proofs of Leonardo's "Last Supper" and Landseer's "Shoeing the Horse ;" a print of Delaroche's " Execution of Lady Jane Grey;" a large framed photograph of Gerome's "Death of Ca3sar;" an old-fashioned pencil-sketch of Barbara's father, taken in the old days by D'Orsay long before he ever thought of turning that pencil to actual use ; and a coloured photograph — a recent acquisition — of a girl sitting over a wood-fire in a dreamy attitude, burning her love-letters, called " L' Auto da Fe." On the bookshelves you would have found Milton, Thomas a-Kempis, David Copperjieldj Tlie Christmas Carol, " there's nothing half so sweet in life." 93 a mucli-used Tennyson, Keats, George Herbert's Poems, Quarles' Emhlerasj The Chinstian Year^ Carlyle's French Revolution^ Dante, Schiller, Faust, Tuj^per (of course ! " and it is merely envy that makes you laugh at him," she always said). The Neiccomes, and a quarto Shakespeare. !N'o French novels, I am glad to say ; but a fat little Beranger, and a yellow-covered Alfred de Musset are on the mantel-piece, while a brass-cross-bearing red- edged Prayer-Book lies on the table by the bed. Barbara's books were not show-books ; they all bore more or less the signs of use ; but she had read them in a desultory manner, and had never thoroughly appreciated the pleasure to be derived from them. She had never lived in a reading set ; for when old Miss Lexden had mastered the police intelligence and the fashionable news fr'om the Post, her intellectual exercises were at an end for tlie day ; and her friends were very much of the same calibre. So now for the first time Barbara heard literature talked of by one who had hitherto made it his worship, and who spoke of it with mingled love and reverence — spoke without lee- 94 BROKEN TO HARNESS. turing, leading liis companion into lier fair share of the talk, mingling apt quotation Avith caustic comment or enthusiastic eulogy, until they fomid themselves, to Barbara's surprise, at the hall-door. I am glad that it is my province as historian to discom'se to my readers of the thoughts, im- pulses, and motives influencing the character)* ^in this story, else it would be difficult for me to convey so much of their inner life as I wish to be known, and which yet would not crop out in the com^se of the action. In ^vritino; a full- flavoured romance of the sensational order, it is not, perhaps, very difficult to imbue your readers with a proper notion of your characters' character. The gentleman who hires two masked assassins to waylay his brother at the foot of the bridge has evidently no undue veneration for the Sixth Com- mandment; while the marchioness who, after having only once seen the yomig artist in black velvet, gives him the gold key leading to her secret apartments, and makes an assignation with him at midnight, is palpably not the style of person whom you would prefer as governess for yom' daughters. " there's nothing half so sweet in life." 95 But in a commonplace story of every-day life, touching upon such ordinary topics as walks and dinners and butchers' meat, marrying and giving in marriage, running into debt, and riding horses in Rotten Row, — where (at least, so far as my ex- perience serves) you find no such marked outhnes of character, you must bring to your aid all that quality of work which in the sister art is known by the title pre-Raphaelitic, and show virtue in the cut of a coat and vice in the adjustment of a cravat. Moreover, we pen-and-ink workers have, in such cases, an advantage over our brethren of the pencil, inasmuch as we can take our readers by the button-hole, and lead them out of the main current of the story, showing them our heroes and heroines in deshahille, and, through the medium of that window which Yulcan wished had been fixed in the human breast — and which really is there, for the novelist's inspection — making them ac- quainted with the inmost thoughts and feelings of the puppets moving before them. When Barbara went to her room that night and surrendered herself to Parker and the hair- 96 BROKEN TO HARNESS. brushes, that pattern of laclies'-maids thought that she had never seen her mistress so preoccupied since Karl von Knitzler, an aUacM of the Austrian Embassy, — who ran for a whole season in the ruck of the Lexden's admirers, and at last thought he had strength for the first flight, — had received his coup de grace. In her wonderment Parker g^ve two or tlu-ee hardish tugs at the hair which she was manipulating, but received no reproof; for the inside of that little head was so busy as to render it almost insensible to the outside friction. Bar- bara was thinking of Mr. Chm'chill — as yet she had not even thought of him by his Clu'istiaii name, scarcely perhaps knew it — and of the strange interest which he seemed to have aroused in her. Tlie tones of his voice yet seemed ringing in her ears; she remembered his warm, earnest mamier when speaking from himself, and the light way in which he fell into her tone of jesting badinage. Tlien, with something like a jar, she recollected his suppressed sneer at the difference in their " class," and her foot tapped angrily on the floor as the recollection rose in her mind. ]\Iino;led * ' there's nothing half so sweet in life. " 97 strangely witli tliese were reminiscences of his comely liead, white, shapely hands, strong figm^e, and well-made boots ; of the way in which he sat and walked; of — and then, with a start wliich nearly hurled one of the brushes out of Parker's hand, she gathered herself together as she felt tlie whole ti'uth rush upon her, and knew that she was thinking too much of the man, and determined that she would so think no more. Who was he, hving away in some obscure region in London, among a set of people whom no one knew, leading a life which would not be tolerated by any of Jier friends, to engross her thoughts? Between them rolled a gulf, wide and impassable, on the brink of which they might indeed stand for a few minutes interchanging casual nothings in the course of life's jom'uey, but which rendered closer contact impossible. And yet — ^but Barbara determined there should be no "and yet;" and with this de- termination full upon her, she dismissed Parker and fell asleep. And Churcliill — ^what of him? Alas, regai-d- less of his doom, that httle victim played ! When VOL. I. H 98 BROKEN TO HARNESS. old Marmaduke gave the signal for retiring, Cliurcliill would not, on this night, follow the other men into the smoking-room. Tlie politics, the ribaldry, the scandal, the horsev-doggy talk, would be all more intolerable than ever ; he wanted to be alone, to go through that process, so familiar to him on all difficult occasions, of " thinkii^ it out ;" so he told Gumble to take a bottle of claret to his room, and, arrived there, he lit his old meerschaum, and leant out of the window gazing over the distant moon-lit park. But this time the "thinkincr it out" failed dismally: amid the white smoke-wreaths cmding before him rose a tall, slisrht irraceful fio^m'e : in his ear yet lino^ered the somid of a clear low voice ; his hand vet retained the thrill which ran through him as she touched it in wishing him " good night." He thought of lier as he had never thought of woman before, and he gloried in tlie thought: he was no love-sick boy, to waste in fond despair, and sicken in his longing; he was a strong, healthy man, with a faultless digestion, an earnest will, a clear conscience, and a heart thinking no guile. There was the differ- " there's nothing half so sweet in life." 99 ence in the rank, certainly — and in connexion with this reflection a grim smile crossed his face as he remembered Harding, and his caution about * ' swells' ' — but what of that ? Did not good educa- tion, and a life that would bear scrutiny, lift a man to any rank? and would not she — and then he drew from his pocket a dainty, pearl-gray glove (Jouvin's two-buttoned, letter B), and pressed it to his lips. It ivas silly, ladies and gentlemen, I admit; but then, you know, it never happened to any of us; and though "the court, the camp, the grove" suffer, we have the pleasure of think- ing that the senate, the bar, the commerce of England, and the pubhc press, always escape scot- free. Breakfast at Bissett Grange lasted from nine — at the strikino; of which hour old Sir Marmaduke entered the room, and immediately rang the bell for a huge smoking bowl of oatmeal porridge, his invariable matutinal meal — until t^velve ; by which time the laziest of the guests had generally progressed from Yorkshire-pie, through bacon, 100 BROKEN TO HARNESS. eggs, and Finnan haddies, down to toast and marmalade, and were sufficiently refected. Bai'- bara was always one of the last; she was spe- cially late on the morning after the talk just described ; and on her arrival in the breakfast- room found only Mr. and Mrs. Vincent, who always lingered fondly over their meals, ^nd who, so long as the cloth remained on the table, sat pecking and nibbling, like a couple of old sparrows, at the dishes within reach of them ; Captain Lyster, who between his sips of coffee was dipping into BelVs Life; and Sir Marmaduke himself, who had returned from a brisk walk romid the grounds and the stables and the farm, and was deep in the columns of the Times. But, to her astonishment, the plac^ at table next hers had evidently not yet been occupied. The solid white breakfast-set was un- used, the knives and forks were misoiled ; and yet Mr. Churchill, who had hithei-to occupied that place, had usually finished his meal and departed before Barbara arrived. Tliis morn- ing, however, was clearly an exception ; he ^' there's nothing half so sweet in life." 101 had not yet breakfasted, for by his plate lay three unopened letters addressed to him. Bar- bara noticed this — noticed moreover that the top letter, in a long shiny pink envelope, was addressed in a scrawly, mimistakably female hand, and had been redirected in a larger, bolder writing. As she seated herself, with her eyes, it must be confessed, on this dainty missive, the door opened, and Churchill entered. After a general salutation, he was beginning a half-laughing apology for his lateness as he sat down, when his eye lit on the pink envelope. He changed colour slightly ; then, before com- mencing his breakfast, took up his letters and placed them in the breast-pocket of his shoot- ing-coat. " This is horrible, Miss Lexden," he said, " bringing these dreadful hours into the country ; here — where you should enjoy the breezy call of incense-breathing morn, the cock's shi'ill cla- rion, and all the rest of it — to come down to your breakfast just when the bucolic mind is pondering on the immediate advent of its dinner." 102 BROKEN TO HARNESS. " Be good enough to include youi'self in this sweeping censure, Mr. Churchill," said Barbara. "I was down before you; but I accepted my position, nor, however late I might have been, should I have attempted — " " I congratulate you, sir," interrupted Mr. Vincent, dallying with a lump of marmalade on a wedge of toast, — "I congratulate you, Mr. Churchill, on a prudence which but few men of your age possess." '' You are very good, but I scarcely follow you." " I saw you — I saw you put away your let- ters until after breakfast. A great stroke that! Men generally are so eager to get at their let- ters, that they plunge into them at once, before meals, little thinking that the contents may have horrible influence on their digestion." '^ I am sorry to say that I was influenced by no such sanitary precautions. My correspondence will keep; and I have yet to learn that to read letters in the presence of ladies is — " " Pray, make no apologies, as far as I am ^' there's nothing half so sweet in life. " 103 concerned," said Barbara, with a curl of her Hp and an expansion of nostril; ^^if you have any wish to read your doubtless important corres- pondence — " ^^ I have no such wish. Miss Lexden. Litera scripta inanet ; which, being interpreted, means, my letters will keep. And now, Mr. Vincent, I'll trouble you for a skilfiil help of that game-pie." Chm'chiU remained firm ; he was still at break- fast, and his letters remained unopened in liis pocket, when Barbai'a left the room to prepare for a drive with Miss Townshend. As they re- entered the avenue after a two hours' turn romid the Downs, they met Captain Lyster in a dog- cart. " I have been over to Brighton," he explained ; "drove Churchill to the station. He got some news this morning, and is obliged to run up to town for a day or two. But he's coming back, Miss Lexden." " Is he, indeed !" said Barbara. " What splendid intelligence ! I should think. Captain Lyster, that, since the annomicement of the fall 104 BROKEN TO HARNESS. of Sebastopol, England has scarcely heard such glorious news as that Mr. Churchill is coming back to Bissett." And, with a clear, ringing laugh, she pulled the ponies short up at the hall-door, jumped from the carriage, and passed to her room. " She don't like his going, all the same,^— give you my word," said Lyster, simply, to Miss Townshend. And she did not. She coupled his sudden departure with the receipt of that pink enve- lope and the address in the feminine scrawl. Who was the writer of that letter ? What could the business be to take him away so hastily? With her head leaning on her hand, she sits before her dressing-table pondering these things. It certainly tvas a woman's wi'iting. Is tliis quiet, sedate, self-possessed man a flirt? Does he carry on a correspondence with — And if he does, what is it to her? She is nothincr to him — and yet — who ca7i it be ? It was a woman's hand ! She wonders where he is at that moment ; she would like to see him just for an instant. If she could have had her wish, she would have seen him by liimself in a railway-carriage, an unheeded Times lying across his knee, and in his hand a little ]Dearl-gray kid-glove. CHAPTER VI. THE commissioner's SHELL EXPLODES. X When the party assembled for dinner on the day of Mr. ChurchiU's hm-ried departure from the Grange, they found they had an addition in the person of Mr. Commissioner Beresford, who ar- rived late in the afternoon, and did not make his aj^pearance imtil dinner-time. A man of middle height and dapper figure, always fault- lessly dressed; slightly bald, but with his light- colom'ed hair well arrano^ed over his laro-e fore- head ; with deep-smik, small, stony-gray eyes, a nose with the nostrils scarcely sufficiently covered, and a large mouth, with long white teeth. He had small white — dead-white — hands, with filbert nails, and very small feet. Tliere was in the normal and ordinary expression of his face some- thing som' and mordant, which, so far as his THE commissioner's SHELL EXPLODES. 107 eyes were concerned, occasionally faded out in conversation, giving place to a quaint, comic look; but the mouth never changed; it was al- ways fox-like, cruel, and bad. There was no better-known man in London; high and low, rich and poor, gentle and simple, all had heard of Charley Beresford. Citizen of the world, where was he out of place ? When there was a tight wedge on the staircase of Protocol House on the Saturday nights when Lady Helmstone received ; when at a foot-pace the fashionable world endured hours of martyrdom in procession to the sln-ine which, once reached, was passed in an instant, according as sole trophy the reminiscence of a bow, — Mr. Beresford was to be seen leaning over the stoutest of dowagers, and looking fresh and undrooping even when pressed upon by the pur- siest of diplomatists. When the noble souls of the Body Guards were dismayed within the huge carcasses wliich contained them because it was whispered that the 180th Hussars intended to wear white hats on their drag to the Derby, and to deck their persons and their horses with blue 108 BROKEN TO HARNESS. rosettes — both whicli insioniia liad hitherto been o distinctive of the Body Guards — it was Charley Beresford who was apj)hed to on the emergency ; and who, on the Derby morning, turned the tables completely by bringing the Body Guards fi-om Limmer's sti'aw-thatched and amber-rosetted to a man. The 180th and their blue were nowhere ; and "Goit, yaller!" and " Bra}-^'o, Dmistable !" were the cries all down the road. When Mr. Peter Plethoric, the humorous comedian of the Nonpareil Theatre, wanted some special patronage for his benefit, " Charley, dear boy !" was liis connecting-link with that aristocracy whose suf- frages he sought. He went into every phase of society : he had an amit the widow of a cabinet minister, who lived in Eaton Square ; and an micle a bishoj), who lived in Seamore Place ; and he dined with them regularly two or tlu'ee times in the season, lighting his cigar within a few yards of the house, and quietly sti'olling down to the Argyll Kooms, or to the green-room of the theatre, or to the parlom* of a sporting-public to get the latest odds on a forthcoming fight. He THE commissioner's SHELL EXPLODES. 109 tui'iied up liis coat-collar of late when he visited these last-named places, and the pugilistic land- lords had orders never to pronounce his name, but to call liim ^'Guv'nor;" it would not do for an official high in her Majesty's service to be recognised in such quarters. Before his aristo- cratic friends obtained for liim liis commissioner- ship, liis name was one of the most common cm'- rent amongst the Fancy ; but since then he had eschewed actual presence at the ring, as he had blue bird's-eye handkerchiefs, cigars in the day- light, and nodding acquaintance with broughams in the park, "llfaut se ranger^'''' he used to say; " it would never do for those yomig fellows down at the Office to think that I was or ever had been a fast lot; and those confomided Radical papers, they made row enough about the appointment, and they'll always be on the look-out to catch me tripping." He little knew that his fame had pre- ceded him to the Tin-Tax Office ; that all the old clerks were prepared to receive him with some- thing between fear and disgust, all the young ones with unmingled admiration ; that daily bul- 110 BROKEN TO HARNESS. letins of liis dress and manners were circulated amongst the juniors, and that those Avho could afford it dressed at him to a man. He was four-and-thirty when he got his ap- pointmentj and he had held it about t^vo years. Tliere was even betting that the promotion would "go in the office;" that Mr. Simnel, the secre- tary, a very clever man, would get it; that the vacancy would not be fiUed up ; and various other rumom's. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer felt that Mr. Simnel had been going a little too much ahead lately, acting on his own responsi- bility ; and as the widow of the cabinet minister (who OAvned a borough in Devonshire) and tlie bishop concm-rently attacked the Premier, that nobleman gave way, and Charles Beresford ex- changed the dreariness of Bruges, in which dull Belgian city of refuge he had been for some months located, for a seat in the board-room at Butland House. His uncle and amit, tlu'ough their respective solicitors, bought up his outstand- ing debts, and settled them at a comparatively low rate (his Oxford ticks had been settled years ago THE commissioner's SHELL EXPLODES. Ill out of his mother's income) ; and he came into a thousand a year, paid quarterly, free and unen- cumbered. A tliousand a year, in fom- cheques on the Bank of England in January, April, July, and October, ought to be a sufficiency for an un- married man ; but with Charles Beresford, as with a good many of us, the mere fact of the possession of money gave rise to a wild desire for rushing into unlimited expense. To belong to three clubs — the Beauclerk in Pall Mall, aristocratic and ex- clusive ; the Minerva (proposed thereat by the bishop), literary and solemn ; the Haresfoot, late and theatrical; — to have capital rooms in South Audley Street ; to keep a mail-phaeton and pair, with a saddle-horse and a hunter dm-ing the sea- son ; to give and join in Greenwich and Kicli- mond dinners ; to be generous in the matter of kid-gloves and jewelry; to have a taste (and to gratify it) in choice wines ; to make a yearly ex- cursion to Baden, and when there to worship extensively at the shrine of M. Benazet ; to be a connoisseur in art, and a buyer of proofs before letters, and statuary, and tapestry, and antiques ; 112 BEOKEN TO HARNESS. to be miserable without the possession of an Opera-stall ; all these vagaries, though pleasant, are undeniably expensive ; and at the end of his second year of office Charles Beresford found that he had spent every farthing of his income, and owed, in addition, between tlu'ee aiid four thou- sand pomids. V He could not compound with his creditors ; he dared not go through the Court, for " those ras- cally papers" would then have been doA\^i on him at once, and his official appointment might have been sacrificed. The Government just then had two or tln'ee black sheep, about whom people had talked, among their subordinates; and Beresford might have been the Jonah, sacrificed to allay tlie storm of virtuous public indignation. Besides, though his great soul might have been won over to include in his schedule Messrs. Sams and Mit- chell, Mr. Stecknadel, the tailor of Conduit Street, and Hocks, with whom his horses stood at liveiy, he could not inscribe the names of the LTevocable Insurance Company, to whom for tlie money bor- rowed he had given the names of tvvo substantial 113 friends as sureties ; or of Mr. Parkinson, solicitor, of Tliavies Inn, who "did Ms paper," but required another sie^nature on the back. So Mr, Charles Beresford was forced to confess himself " done up," " cornered," and " tree'd ;" and only saw one way out of his difficulties — a good marriage. There was no reason why his final chance should not succeed, for he was a very pleasant, agreeable fellow when he chose ; had a capital tenor voice, and sang French and German songs with spark- ling effect and irreproachable accent; acted well in charade ; talked all sorts of styles, — could be earnest, profound, sentimental, flippant, literary, or ribald, as occasion presented ; waltzed with a glid- ing, long, swinging step, which was the envy of all the men who saw him ; was sufficiently good- looking, and had something like a position to offer. Behold him, then, seated at Sir Marmaduke's table next to Miss Townshend, and with Barbara Lexden immediately opposite to him. He has been rattling on pleasantly enough during dinner, but has never forgotten the object of his life ; he VOL. I. I 114 BROKEN TO HARNESS. is aware that Barbara for him is not an available ( partly with position certainly, but without money, and with extravagant notions; but he has some recollection of having heard that Mr. Townshend was sometliing approaching to a millionnaire, and he determined to satisfy himself upon the point without delay. < " Not at all," he says, referring to something that has gone before; ^^not at all. It's all very well for you, Sir Marmaduke, whose lines have been cast in pleasant places, to talk so ; but for us jx)or fellows who have to work for om' living, tliis rest is something delightful." " Work for your living !" growls out the old gentleman. "A pack of lazy placemen. Egad! the fellow talks as though stone-breaking were his occupation, and he'd just straightened his back for five minutes. Work for your living! Do you call sticking your initial to the corner of a lot of figures that you've never read, work? Do you call scrawling your signature at the bottom of some nonsensical document, to prove that you're the ^ obedient, humble servant' of some idiot whom THE commissioner's SHELL EXPLODES. 115 you've never seen, work? Do you call reading the—" " N"ow stop, Sir Marmacluke," said Beresford, laughing ; " I bar you there. You mustn't repeat that rococo old rubbish about readino^ the news- paper and poking the fire as the sole work in a Government office. Tliat is slander." " I am bound to say," said Mr. Townshend pompously, " that when, in my capacity either as one of the directors of the East-India Company, or Prime Warden of the Bottle Blowers' Com- pany, I have ever had occasion to transact busi- ness with any of the Government establishments, I have always found myself well treated." "I am delighted to hear such testimony from you J sir," said Beresford, with some ap- parent deference, and inwardly thinking that the two positions named looked healthy as re- gards money. " God bless my soul !" bawled Sir Marmaduke. Here's a man drives up in a big carriage, with a powdered-headed jackass to let down the steps, and then he ' testifies' that he gets a messenger to take 116 BROKEN TO HARNESS. in his name and that he isn't insulted by the clerks. I wish with all my heart, Townshend, that you were a poor man with a patent to bring out, or a grievance to complain of, or an inquiry to make, and you'd devilish soon see the reception you'd get." ^^ I hear," said Mr. Vincent, with a mind to turn the conversation, "that a new system of re- freshment-supply has recently been inti'oduced into some of our public departments. I have a nephew in the Draffc-and-Docket Office, whom I called upon about one o'clock the other day, and I found him engaged upon some very excellent cotelettes a la Soubise, which he told me were pre- pared in the establishment. Tliat appears to me a most admirable arrangement." " Very admirable," growled Sir Marmaduke, " for the public, who are paying the young ruffians for eating their Frenchified rubbish. By heavens ! a clerk at ninety pounds a year, and a made-dish for lunch !" "Quite right, Mr. Townshend," said Stone; " they feed stunningly now, and don't drink badly 117 eitlier. By the way, Beresford, I'm agent for Goupil's house at Bordeaux, and I coiUd put in a capital cheap claret into your place, just the thing for your fellows in the hot weather. Tlie tenders are out now, and a word from you would serve me." " But sm-ely," said Barbara, laughing, " if, as Sir Marmaduke says, you don't work now, Mr. Beresford, you'll be less inclined than ever after M. Goupil's claret." " Sir Marmaduke is an infidel. Miss Lexden," said Charley. " Send in your tender, Stone, and Goupil's Medoc shall be a fresh incentive to the virtuous Civil Servants !" " Let him rave, my dear !" said Sir Marma- duke ; ''let him rave, as your idol Mr. Tennyson says. What he calls work, I call make-believe hmnbug. What I call work, is what my godson — ^what's his name — Churchill (what the deuce has he gone away for ?) does, night after night, grind- ing his headpiece — that sort of tiling." " What Churchill is that, sir?" asked Charley. " Mr. Churcliill is a literary man, I believe," 118 BROKEN TO HARNESS. said Miss Townshend ; " wonderfully clever — writes, you know, and all that." " Oh, Frank Churcliill ! I know him," replied Beresford. " Has he been doA\ai here ?" " Yes ; he only left this morning." " He seems a very good sort of fellow," Jiaid Lyster generously, for he didn't quite like the tone of Beresford's voice, and did not at all like the manner in which the Commissioner Avas pay- ing quiet attention to Miss Townshend. " He's made himself a general favom'ite in a very short time." ^'Yes, that he has," said Miss Townshend; " he's very clever, and not at all conceited, and — oh! he's so nice." Barbara said nothing. ^' I had a few Avords Avith him about the money-article yesterday," said Mr. ToAA^ishend; '' but I must say his A'iews were scarcely so de- fined as I could have Avished." Beresford had listened attentively to these re- marks. He thought he perceived a certain ten- dresse in Miss ToA\'nshend's manner of speaking 119 of Chureliill, which did not at all accord with his present views. So he said, " No, Mr. Townshend ; that's not Churchiirs peculiar line. He's a poor man, though, as you say, Miss Townshend, a clever one. And he has some ohject in working hard, for he's going to be married." "To be married ?" exclaimed Miss Towns- hend, looking across at Barbara. "To be married ?" exclaimed Barbara, flush- ing scarlet. The next instant she turned deadly cold, and could have bitten her tongue out for having spoken. " Well, well !" said old Miss Lexden, who up to this time had been engaged in a confidential cuhnary chat with Mrs. Vincent ; " that's always the way. Poor thing ! I pity the yomig woman. These sort of persons always stay out all night, and ill-treat their wives, and all that kind of thing." "Dear, dear!" said Mrs. Vincent; "leg-of- mutton Tn^nage and batter-pudding, perhaps ; no soup or fish. Dear, dear ! what miwholesome things these love-marriages are !" 120 BROKEN TO HARNESS. V " But nobody said that it is a love match," said Miss Towiishend. " Perhaps the lady is an heiress, whom Mr. Churchill has captivated by his talent." " Yes," growled Sir Marmaduke, with a sar- donic grin ; ^^ an heiress who has been struck with his articles on the Reformatory question, or has become completely dazzled by the lucidity of his views on the Maynooth Grant. A leader- writer in a daily newspaper is just the romantic youth that lieiresses fall in love with." " NoAv do be quiet. Sir Marmaduke, with your horrid sarcasm, and let us hear what the lady is like. Do tell us, Mr. Beresford," said Miss Townshend. " Oh, I have no idea of her personal appear- ance," replied Beresford. '' Every body says she's very nice, and that the marriage is coming off at once — that's all I know." " Your curiosity will soon be gratified, witli a very little trouble," interrupted Lyster. " You can ask Mr. Churchill himself — ^lie's comino: back to-morrow." THE commissioner's SHELL EXPLODES. 121 " Comine: back?" exclaimed Beresford. " Yes, to-morrow," replied Lyster, and added, between Lis teeth, " your little plot will soon be spoilt, my boy." Shortly afterwards, wdien the ladies left the table, Barbara did not accompany the rest, but went straight to her own room. Tliere she seated herself at the open window, which looked out upon the lawn and upon the high dowiis beyond, over wliich the yellow-faced moon was rising in solemn beauty. And Barbara nestled into the great easy-chair, which she had pulled fonvard, and rested her chin on her hand, and looked upon the grand picture of varied light and shade with eyes that saw nothing of the beauty, and wdth a heart that comprehended it not. Down in the hollow lay a little farm, gray and cold and stony, as are such buildings in Sussex, and containing at that time a sleeping, snoring family; for the farmer, a thrifty man, had to be up betimes, and candlehght might as well be spared, and hard-working folk must rest. He did not think much about the moon, 122 BROKEN TO HARNESS. this Sussex farmer, nor did his hinds, two of whom were then snoring in the red-tiled bam just on the shoulder of yon hill ; but the glo- rious lamp of night was as much in their thoughts as she was in those of Barbara Lex^ den, w^ho had copied out " Tlie moon is up, by Heaven ! a lovely eve," from Childe Harold, and knew Alfred de Musset's wild lines on the same subject by heart, and had gone in for the ro- mantic business about it, and done some very effective bits of flirtation, in which the goddess Luna was made good use of But the moon was nothing now to Barbara, whose mind was fiill of a far more w^orldly object, and whose foot was tapping impatiently on the floor. Going to be married? Tlien it was all accounted for — that letter with the feminine griffe^ which he had pocketed immediately and read apart, and his hurried departure for town. Going to be married! What business had he, then, to come down there, and talk and act as though no en- gagement fettered him — to talk, indeed, as though no notion of matrimony had ever crossed his THE commissioner's SHELL EXPLODES. 123 mind? Could he — ? No; that was impossible. He could not have been playing with her — making a fool of her ? What Avas that he had said about difference of class in marriage ? Ay, that settled the question ; the fiancee was pro- bably some dowdy woman, who could make a pie, and mend his clothes, and keep their maid- of-all-work in order. Well, the man was no- thing to her — but she hoped he might be happy. It was getting very dull at Bissett, and she should suggest their departure to her aunt. Tliey had invitations for several nice houses ; and General Mainwanng's was not far off, and Boyce Combe was there, and Harvey Grenville ; so that she should be sm'e of j)lenty of fun. She had not seen Boyce Combe since the last Woolwich ball, and then he had been so hor- ribly absurd, and had talked such ridiculous nonsense. He was so amusing. Major Combe; and — and then Major Combe's handsome, va- cuous, simpering comitenance, which for a mo- ment had risen in Barbara's mind, faded again, and in its place there came a genial, clever, / 124 BROKEN TO HARNESS. ^ .sensible face, with merry eyes and langhing mouth, and Major Combe's " ridiculous non- sense" seemed wretched balderdash as contrasted with Frank Churchill's pleasant talk. A knock at the door, following wliich promptly little Miss Townshend glides into the room. A nice little girl, as I have remarked; a charming little being, bright and winning, but not the sort of person for a companion when one is in that state so well described as " out of sorts." "Who, I wonder, is pleasant company for us in a real or fancied trouble? Certainly not the enthusiastic gusher who flings his or herself upon our necks, and insists upon sharing our sorrow, — which is a thorough impossibihty. Certainly not the pseudo- moralist who tells us that all is for the best, and quotes Scriptm'e, and suggests that, though we have had to retire from Palace Gardens and live in Bedford Row, there are many outcasts then sleeping on the steps of Wliitechapel Clim'ch; and that, though om* darling's life may be trem- bling in the balance, there are fever-com-ts and pestilence-alleys, in no house of which "there is THE commissioner's SHELL EXPLODES. 125 not one dead." Certainly not the lively friend who thinks that ^^ rallying" is the best coiu\se for bindino; the broken heart and settino^ at rest the perturbed spirit, and who according^ indulges in one perpetual effervescence of mild sarcasm and feeble teasing. Miss Townshend belonged to this latter class ; and entered the room with a little skip and a long slide, which brought her to Barbara's side. "Oh, ho! and so we're annoyed, are we, and won't come among our friends ? We sit and sulk by ourselves, do we ?" " I cannot possibly imagine what you mean, Alice," said Barbara coldly. " Take care, please ; you're standing on my dress." " Oh, of com-se not, poor darling, she can't imagine ! But, without any joking, Barbara, it is too bad." "What is too bad, Alice?" asked Barbara, without moving a muscle. She had a tremendous power over her face, and, when she chose, looked as impassible as the Sphynx, " staring straight on with calm eternal eyes." \ 126 BROKEN TO HARNESS. ' " Now don't be silly, Barbara dear," exclaimed Miss Towiishend, who was getting rather annoyed because her friend had not gone off into hysterics. "You know well enough what I mean; and it is a shame, a horrible shame ! Who would have thought that that learned clever man could have been such an incorrigible flu*t? There now," put- ting up her hands, "you laiow perfectly well who I mean. And he did carry on with you in the most shameful manner — and Sfoing* to be married all the time ! Not that I'm sm^e you're not rightly served, Barbara. It's just the sort of thing you've been doing all your life, you know ; but, stiU, one doesn't expect it in a man, does one, deai'. I wonder — " " / wonder when you'll have common sense, Alice. It's time, if what you told me this morn- ing be tnie." "0 Barbara darling! Barbara! don't re- mind mc of it Oh, how miserable you've made me ! And you — ^you don't care one pin, when you Imow I'm so wretched." And putting her hand- kercliief to her eyes, little Miss Townshend hurried out of the room. THE commissioner's SHELL EXPLODES. 127 And what of the girl who " didn't care one pin" ? who had just been rallied upon having been made a fool of by a man — a man, moreover, for whom every hour of her life proved to her that she cared? Pride, love, vexation, doubt, — all these had influence on that tln:obbing heart; and she flung herself on her bed in a flood of tears. CHAPTER VII. TOUCHrKG A PROPOSAL. When Captain Lyster rose on tlie following morn- ing, he had made up his mind to the commission of a very serious deed. A long course of reflection as he lay awake in the watches of the night, and the discovery, real or imaginary, of a fm-ther dimi- nution of hair on the cro^^ai of his head, had deter- mined him upon asking Miss To^\^lshend to become his wife without any forther delay. Tliere was something in her fresh, cheery, pleasant manner that specially appealed to this blase cynic ; she was so milike the women he had been accustomed to mix with in society, who were generally weak imi- tations of Barbara Lexden, or opinionless misses, wdio held *^yea" and "nay" to be the sole ingre- dients necessary in their conversation ; in fact, this chattering girl, who said every thing uppermost in TOUCHING A PROPOSAL. 129 'her mind, who had capital spirits perennially flow- ing, and who was natural without being either arrogant or "miss-ish," had completely enslaved him. He might have pottered on in silent admira- tion for some time longer, but that he had been greatly annoyed by Beresford's manner to Miss Townshend on the preceding evening; there w^as something in the Commissioner's easy familiarity, both dm'ino; dinner and afterwards, which sig-nallv raised Lyster's wTath. He had towards Beresford that singular feeling, that compound of distrust, detestation, contempt, and fear, which we expe- rience instinctively for any rival ; and his love for this girl was far too serious a matter to permit any tampering with liis plans. A good fellow, Fred Lyster; a kind-hearted, straightforward, honour- able man, with very little guile ; lazy, to a certain extent selfish, and considerably spoilt ; but with an innate sense of right carrying liim through many difliculties, and with a stout heart and a clear brain to support him under any trials. He loved tliis girl, and he wanted to laiow whether his love was retui'ned. To get at this VOL. L K 130 BROKEN TO HARNESS. information he saw but one way — a proposal. I have before said that he knew every trick and turn of flirtation ; but this was something of far deeper import than a flirtation; means ^^'hich he had previously used to ascertain '' how he stood" with the temporary object of his affections, and which had elicited the satisfactory glance, liand- pressm'e, or word, he would have now deemed degrading both to himself and to her. His re- gard for her had been growing tlu'oughout the past season, and was rapidly culminating. He had watched her attentively, and studied all her movements, with a satisfactory result. He felt that she was a little fast, certainly ; but that fastness he was convinced residted from the mere overflow of animal spirits, and not from any desire to please in men's eyes by affecta- tion of men's ways. That she was an heiress, he didn't care one bit about — he had plenty for both ; and if she came to him, any thing that she had shoidd be settled on herself But how to ask her? All, how long did that pair of hair-brushes remain suspended over his head, TOUCHING A PROPOSAL. 131 wliile lie gazed vacantly into the dressing-glass before him as tliis question rose in his mind ! How often did he fling himself on the ottoman, nursing his foot and biting his lip in a per- plexity of doubt! He could not go down on his knees, and offer his hand and heart, as they did on the stage; he could not Avrite to her, either formally or spasmodically — ^lie had a whole- some horror of committing himself on paper ; lie could not arrive at the knowledge he required tlu'ough any third person ; in fact (here the hair- brushes went to work again), there w^as no vray but to take advantage of an opportmiity, and propose. He must know his position, too, at once. He could not bear to see that fellow Beresford hanging about her as he had been the previous night. He'd do it that very day. His whole frame, which had been pleasantly cooled by his shower-bath, tingled again at the mere thought; and a faint empty feeling, some- tliing like that which he experienced when in- sulted in the Engineers' mess-room at Salem by Poker Cassidy, came over him. Would he get 132 BROKEN TO HARNESS. as well out of this as out of tliat encounter? Tlien he held his own ; and Cassidy, neatly dril- led by a pistol-bullet through his ankle, limps with a crutch to this day. But this was a very different matter. It was a dull breakfast that moniing. Bar- bara sent down intelligence of a headache, and remained in her room ; Miss Townshend had red rims to her j^retty eyes, had no smile for any one, looked miserable, and sat silent; her papa had donned his very stiffest check cravat, and was, if possible, more pompous than usual ; Sir Marmadulve had had his porridge early, had gone out, and not returned ; old Miss Lexden always breakfasted in bed ; and Mr. and Mrs. Yincent were utterly upset by a burnt omelette, about which they conveyed dismay to each other by eye-]jrow telegraph across the table. Only Major Stone was himself; and he bustled about, and made tea, and passed dishes, and joked and ral- lied in a way that ought to have been of service, but which signally failed. When Mr. Beresford entered the room, which was not until nearly all TOUCHING A PROPOSAL. 133 the others had finished their meal, he seemed for a few moments staggered by the gravity of the assemblage; but gliding into a vacant seat by Miss Townshend's side, he soon recovered liis spirits, and commenced a conversation in his ac- customed bantering tone. His neighbom- seemed to brighten at once, and responded in her usual cheery manner, greatly to the disgust of poor Fred Lyster, sitting opposite, who, over his cold partridge, was still hard at work on the same problem wliicli had occupied him when over his hair-brushes, and who knew as little how to attain Ms end as ever. He was glad when he heard Beresford say that business would re- quire him to ride into Brighton before hmcheon, and that he must afterwards go romid to the stables and see whether liis hack was all right after her jom'ney down. His joy toned down a little when Miss Townshend asked if said hack had ever carried a lady, but rose again when Beresford declared that he should be sorry to see any female fi'iend of liis on Guhiare's back. "It isn't that she's vicious," he explained; 134 BROKEN TO HARNESS. "there's not an ounce of vice in lier. But there are so many things she can't bear — dirty chil- dren, and puddles, and stone-heaps in the road ; and when she sees any of these she stands bolt upright for two minutes on her hind-legs, and then starts off with her head betuxen her fore- legs, and nearly pulls your arms out of their sockets." So Miss Townshend declared, with much laughter, and with many shoulder-sln-ugs and exclamations of fright, that she could never think ofmountino; " anv tinner so dreadful;" and Lyster, to his immense delight, saw Beresford leave the room, light a big cigar on the steps, and clear off in the direction of the stables. Stone had already departed on his various er- rands ; Mrs. Vincent had fetched a cookery-book from the library, and with her husband had re- tired to study it in the embrasm-e of the win- dow ; and Miss Townshend, left the last at table, was playing with a fragment of toast. Lyster knew her habits — knew that she was in the habit of skimmintj the Post to learn the whereabouts TOUCHING A PROPOSAL. 135 of her friends ; and accordingly retreated quietly to the libraiy. Such a pleasant room, this ! Not a bit of the wall to be seen for the dark oak book-shelves, which, crammed with books, extended from floor to ceiling on every side. A capital collection of books, in sober calf bindings (Sir Marmaduke once said that brilliant bindings and glazed book- cases always reminded him of a man with his hair parted down the middle, and could not understand what Barbara meant by asking him if Mrs. Nickleby had been a Wentworth) : theo- logy, politics, books of reference, poetry, drama, and history, all regularly ranged and properly catalogued. Fiction had a very moderate com- partment allotted to it ; but the round table in the middle of the room, and the ottoman at the far end, were liberally strewn with volumes bear- ing the omnipresent yellow ticket of Mudie. Im- mediately in front of the big bow- window, which was shaded by a sun-blind, and through which }'ou gazed over a lovely expanse of down, stood a huge writing-table, on which was an inkstand 136 BROKEN TO HARNESS. that might have held half a pint, a large blotting- pad, an oxjdised-silver owl with ruby eyes erect on a paper-weight, and a bundle of quill pens, half split \\])y and all very much bitten at the tops; for Sir Marmaduke, who was the principal occujDant of the cane writing-chair, was apt to get very energetic in his correspondence. Here, too, the old gentleman indulged in the one lite- rary occupation of his life — certain translations of Horace, which he altered and polished year after year, intending some time or other to show them to an old college friend, and then have a gorgeous edition printed on toned paper for i:>rivate circulation. Here, in a huge iron safe, were kept big ledgers, and account-books of rents, rates, and expenditm-e on the estate, which gave three days' solemn investigation every quarter to Sir Marmaduke and Major Stone ; Avhereat there was much head-rubbing, many appealing looks to the ceiling, and much secret checking of fingers under the table, and reference to a ready-reck- oner on the part of both gentlemen. And here, in a secret drawer of the writing-table, lav a little TOUCHING A PROPOSAL. 137 packet, which the old man would take out occa- sionally, would 02)en, and sit gazing for half an hour together at the contents. They were not much, — a faded blue ribbon, once worn, with a little locket attached to it, romid the throat of his old love at the Bath Assemblies, where he first met her ; a curl of hair, cut from her head after death ; and an ivory miniature, by Stmnp, of a dark girl, with big brown eyes, and her hair banded tight to her forehead, and gathered into a large bow at the top of the head. After an inspection of this drawer the old gentleman would walk to the looking-glass, and glaring at his own reflection therein, would shake his head in a very solemn manner ; he would be very mild and quiet, and, as Gumble noticed, would drink an extra bottle of claret during the evening. When Lyster entered the room, he was annoyed to see that it was occupied. Old Mr. Russell, the lawyer, was at the writing-table ; and Mr. Towns- hend was seated in an easy-chair close by, listen- ing to the narration of some thick parchment deed which the lawyer was going tlu'ough. Their 138 BROKEN TO HARNESS. business was apparently at an end, tliougli: for Mr. Townsliencl said, "Tlien it's satisfactory, Mr. Kussell?" to which the old gentleman, with nothing but his finger-tips visible below his cuffs, replied, " I think we may assume so;" and both gentlemen rose and left the room. Being in a higlily nervous state, Lyster did not like these proceedings a bit. He wondered what that portentous-looking parch- ment was about — whether it had any reference to old Townshend's testamentary disposition ; whether it had any thing to do with Miss To^^aishend. He thought he rather hated that old Russell, though he had not much idea why. His time was comino- on now; he wondered how much longer before Miss Townshend would fetch the Post. Here it was, on the round table, with the other papers. He took one up and looked at it; but the type all ran together before his eyes, so he laid it down again, and walked up to the mantelshelf, and glared at the big black clock in the middle, and pulled the spear through the perforated fist of the bronze Diana on the top, and pushed it backwards and forwards; and then walking to the writing-table, lit a Vesta- TOUCHING A PROPOSAL. 139 match and blew it out. He plunged his hands into liis pockets, and looked down at his boots, ap- parently intently scrutinising their make, in reality not seeing them in the least; then he took up a hare's-foot-handled paper-knife and tapped his teeth with it, tln-ew it doAvn, and commenced a Polar-bear-like promenade of the room. Tlie clock ticked solemnly on, and Captain Lyster was still pacing up and down, when the door opened and Miss Townshend entered. She seemed sm-prised to see any one in the room, and declared that she would not remain a minute, and that she would take the greatest care not to disturb tlie Captain, who, she said with a smile, was e\'idently, from his perturbed expression, engaged upon the composition of an epic poem or other intense literary effort. At tliis remark the Captain grinned feebly, and besought the young lady not to mind his eccentricities, as he was full of them, though he Avas bomid to confess he had never been mad enough to contemplate writing a poem. And then Miss Townshend smiled again, and seated herself at the round table, and taking up the Post 140 BROKEN TO HARNESS. turned to tlie "Fashionable Intelligence," and was at once engrossed in tlie study of who was where, and at what country seats "select circles" were being "hospitably entertained." Lyster went to the \^Titing-table, and began ornamenting the blot- ting pad with many spirited sketches, w^ondering all the time whether he should get any better chance for his contemplated annomicement, or whether he should plunge into it at once. At last he thought he had an opportmiity. Miss Towns- hend suddenly exclaimed, " Captain Lyster, here's news for you! You recollect Mary Con- sidine? Yes, I should think you did. Those private theatricals at the Fenton's, where you and she — oh, I haven't forgotten it. Well, there's something about her here; listen: ^AYe under- stand that a matrimonial alliance will shortly take place between the Honom-able Mary Con- sidine, youngest daughter of Lord Torraghmore, and Major Burt, of the Life Guai'ds.' That's Harry Bm-t, the straw - colom-ed one, isn't it ? Poor Captain Lyster ! doomed to wear the wil- low." TOUCHING A PROPOSAL. 141 The chance, the chance at last ! " Surely, Miss Townshend," he commenced, "3'ou cannot imagine that I ever seriously enter- tained any regard for Miss Considine. A A'ery pleasant young lady, fidl of spirits, and highly amusing, but not possessing the qualities which one would look for in a AA^fe. And you — can you imagine that in a house where you were — vvdiere I was in the habit of seeing you — . Done, by Jove!" The last sentence, uttered under his breath, was evoked by the opening of the door, and the entrance of Mr. Townshend, who looked more like the Ace of Clubs than ever when he saw the couple in apparently close conversation. He at once ap- proached his daughter, and asked her if she had " written that letter?" She said, with some ti'emu- lousness, "No." Mr. Townshend then raised his voice, and said he must beg — and with him "beg" sounded marvellously like "insist" — ^that she would do it at once. So the yomig lady, albeit with tears in her eyes, went dutifully off to obey her father's behests; the old gentleman sat down to the Times, 142 BROKEN TO HARNESS. while Lyster glared at liim from behind a book, and wondered whether one could possibly call a man to account for interrupting one's conversation with his daughter. CHAPTER YIII. TOUGHING ANOTHER PROPOSAL. Mr. Beresford meanwhile had strolled round to the stables, ascertained that, with the excep- tion of the loss of a little hair from her off-hock, Gulnare seemed none the worse for her journey (horses never travel by rail without a something), ordered his groom to bring her round in half an hom-'s time, and made a cursory inspection of the other horses while finishing his cigar. At the time appointed he momited and rode away into Brighton, starting at first over the Downs in a brisk canter, but gradually subsid- ing into a checked walk, which ill suited Gul- nare' s fiery disposition, and made her rider break the current of his thoughts by several behests of " Steady now !" " Quiet, old lady ;" and such like. Indeed, Mr. Beresford had quite enough 144 BROKEN TO HARNESS. subject-matter for reflection. He, too, had been turning over in liis mincl the expediency of pro- posing to Miss Townshend, and had ahnost de- cided uj^on its being the right thing to do. Tlie objection which he had urged in his discussion with Kate Mellon, that money and ughness generally went together, would not hold good here. Miss Townshend was prett}' and pre- sentable ; she was not clever, certainly ; but so lonor as she was able to talk about Shakes- peare and the musical glasses, that was all which the world would require of her in the way of conversation, and that sort of jargon would be easily picked up. She knew passably suiHcient of the accomplishments of society, and was, as times went, in a very good set. Her people belonged to the plutocracy; but Beresford liked that rather tlian otlierwise, recollecting how far pleasanter than the sham state and stai'veling magnificence of some of his ai'istocratic friends Avere the town-houses and comitry places of City magnates and merchant princes, where eveiy tiling, from the sleek porter in the hall to the TOUCHING ANOTHER PROPOSAL. 145 new and massive salt-spoons on the tabic, spoke of weiJth. To ascertain whether his ventui'e was a safe one was the object of Beresford's visit to Brighton. He had known so many musln'oom magnates, who, after a couple of seasons of full- blown pride, had collapsed and tumbled into the mud from which they sprung, that he took no man's monetary position on hearsay. He had met Mr. Townshend at capital houses, and had seen his name in many apparently excellent City ventm-es ; but, then, had he not met at the Duke of Banffshire's Mr. Poyntz, the great railway contractor, who two months afterwards smashed for a million and a half? and did not half the peerage welcome as a friend and re- spect as a banker the great Mr. Shoddy, who was at that moment engaged in oakum-picking in expiation of his fraudulent practices ? Tliere must be no mistake on this head; it would be a pretty thing if he, Charles Beresford, were not merely to find himself after a year or two with a penniless wife upon his hands, but were also to have the world talking about his mesalliance, VOL. I. L 146 BROKEN TO HARNESS. As to tlie idea of rejection, that had scarcely entered his head. He was generally liked by women, and thought Miss Townshend no excep- tion to the rule. Her father perhaps might look for money, and then he should have to square him as best he could. But Beresford argued to liimself : these noiiveaux nches generally look for position ; and if they cannot get rank for their girls, they like a good official connexion. Did not Fetter marry the daughter of old Dunkel, the West-India merchant (by the by she was a little woolly, though), simply through his being Se- cretary to the Lakes and Fisheries Department ? And a Commissioner at the Tin - Tax ranked higher than that. Walbrook delighted to talk of " my son-in-law's connexion Avitli the Govern- ment;" and Dowgate Hill rejoiced in seeing a fourth -rate Cabinet Minister or occasional Se- cretaries of Foreign Legations, much beribboned, at his dauo-hter's drums. As to whether he cared for the girl, it scarcely entered into his mind to inquire ; they would get on well enough ; he would let her have her own way, so long as TOUCHING ANOTHER PROPOSAL. 147 she did not interfere with him ; he should keep up his hunting, but cut play of every kind ; and if he got at all bored, why then he would go into Parliament. Fortunately, he thought, he was not like most men : he could get married without its interfering with any body ; there was no " establishment" to break up ; no inhabitant of a Brompton villa to tear her hair and use strong language mitil a liberal settlement was made; no jealous girls to upbraid and — As the thought of Kate Mellon and the recollection of his last interview with her flashed into Beres- ford's mind, he started involmitarily, and touched the mare with his spur. Gulnare jmnped into the air, and started off hke an arrow. By the time he pulled her up, he was at the top of St. James's Street, Brighton; and as he leisurely rode down the hill, he revolved in liis mind the means of arriving at an immediate knowledge of his in- tended father-in-law's stabihty. He was not long in arriving at his determina- tion. Of all the men he knew, Simnel, the se- cretary at the Tin-Tax Office, was the most know- 148 BROKEN TO HARNESS. iiig; and he and Beresford were on the most intimate terms. Had Beresford been in town, he would have consuhed Simnel personally about this marriage business; as it was, he thought that the secretary was the likeliest man to get for him the information he required. This in- formation must be had at once ; as, once satis- fied, he would not give another evening's chance to Lyster or that man Chm'chill, in whose wheel he had put so neat a spoke, but would commence immediately to clear the course on which he hoped to win. So he tm^ned into the Old Steine, and leisurely • dismounting at the door of the telegraph-office, resigned Gulnare into the hands of a passing boy, to whom he was so intent on giving instructions as to walking her gently up and down, that he did not observe "that man Churchill" pass him in an open fly, the driver of which must have been stimulated by the pro- spect of a large reward, as his horse was pro- ceeding at a i)ace very rarely inidertaken by Brighton fly-cattle. But perfectly ignorant of the propinquity of the gentleman with whose TOUCHING ANOTHER PROPOSAL. 149 family history lie had recently manifested so in- timate an acquaintance, Mr. Beresford entered the telegraph-office, and taking up one of the printed slips, wrote the following message : " C. B.J Briglitoiij to Rohei^t Simjiel, Tin- Tax Office, Rutland House, London. " Non olet pecunia. Whether a round game with Townshend of Queensbury Gardens would re- pay the necessary illumination. Reply ; figm'es, if possible." The clerk counted the words and grinned. When Beresford, after saying that he would call for the answer, paid and walked out, the clerk carried the paper into the inner room where the manipulator was busy with his ever-chcking nee- dles, and read the message out to him, grinning again ; whereupon they both expressed opinion that it was a " rum start," and another of those *' games" which supplied the interesting youths employed by the Electric Telegraph Company with so many topics of conversation* Mr. Beresford put up his horse at a livery- stable, and then walked down towards the sea to 150 BROKEN TO HARNESS. while away the time until the answer should arrive. He knew Brighton thorouglily. He was a regular visitor from Satm'day till Tuesday during Novem- ber and December, when he stayed at the Bedford, and generally dined at the ca^ah'}- mess ; but he had never seen the place in its autumnal aspect. Tliose who only know Brighton in the winter would scarcely recognise her in September, when she has more the aspect of Bamsgate or Margate. Li place of the dashing carriages, flys at half-a-cro\^ni an hom' crawl up and down the King's Boad, the horses, perfectly accustomed to the dreary job, ambhng along at their own sleepy pace ; tlie riding- rriasters are still to the fore, but for pupils, instead of the brilliant ecuyeres^ they have heavy, clumsy o-irls in hired habits and hideous hats. All the officers of the cavahy regiment -who can get leave, take it ; and those who cannot, devote themselves to tobacco in the solitude of their barrack-rooms. The Esplanade is tlu'onged with fat people from the metropolitan subm'bs, gorgeous Hebrews with their families fr'om the Minories, and lawyers' clerks with a week's holiday. Tlie beach is covered TOUCHING. ANOTHER PROPOSAL. 151 with children stone-digging and feet-wetting ; witli girls who have just bathed, with their hair down their backs, and girls who are waiting for nia- cliines; with men selling shell-toys, and women imploring purchase of crochet-dolls ; with liilarious men throwing sticks for their dogs to swim after ; with contemplative men reading books, and gazing off them vacantly across the sea ; with drowsy men, supine, with their hats shading their faces from the sun. Tlie whole place is changed ; the rich hotel and shopkeepers have gone inland (Tun- bridge Wells is a favom'ite place of theirs) for re- laxation, and their substitutes, goaded into madness by the unchanging blue sky and burning brick pavement, are bearish and morose; men wear plaid shooting-coats of vivid patterns in the after- noon, and women, in flapping hats with draggled feathers, promenade in the Pavilion ; BrilFs swim- ming-bath shuts up for painting and decoration ; and there are people seen walking on the Chain Pier. In this abnormal state of affairs Mr. Beresford fomid himself any thing but happy. He went to 152 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Mutton's and had some soup, and to Folthoi-p's and read the paj^ers ; he strolled down the King's Road, and inspected the evolutions of various young ladies who were disporting in the waves, and indulging the passers-by with the gambols of Bloomsbmy-super-Mare. Tlien he put his legs up on a bench on the Esplanade, and smoked a cigar, and stared at the passers-by ; and then, after the lapse of a couple of hours, he walked back to the telegraph-office, where he found a reply waiting for him. It was from Mr. Simnel, and merely said : " Olet. Tlu'ee stars in Leadenhall Street and Director of L. B. & S. C. meanino; ten thou. Plated heavily. If with good hand, play game." CHAPTER IX. " A LITTLE PROUD, BUT FULL OF PITY."* Although only twenty-four hours absent from Bissett, Frank Churchill during that short period had undergone more mental conflict than is often suffered by many men in a com'se of years. He had had full time for reflection, and had availed himself of it to the utmost. While within the charmed cir- cle he was necessarily under fascination ; but now, although the witch was any thing but exorcised, lie felt sufficiently himself to collect his thoughts, and he saw the absolute necessity of coming to some fixed determination as to his future conduct before he returned. Often before had he had occa- sion to weigh matters almost as important as tliis, though of course of a diflPerent character ; and he * Ben Jonson. 154 BROKEN TO HARNESS. was not the man to Ijlink one jot of tlie attendant difficulties, or to over-persuade himself as to the feasibility of his designs simply because he wished them carried out. He was in love with this girl, then; he supposed that must be granted? at all events, by analysis and comparison, that was easily ascertained. Though, as the w^orld goes, his life had been tolerably pure, he had in his student- days, and in the time immediately subsequent, had his amourettes and flirtations like the rest; but when he remembered what had been his feelings for Gretchen, the fat and fair daughter of Anton Schiitz, the beery saddler ; for Ernestine, the sen- timental heiress of the Graf von Triebenfeld ; for Eugenie and OHinpe, vestals of the Quai'tier Latin ; or for any of the half-hmidred yomig ladies with whom dm-ing the earlier portion of his London career he had gone thi'ough the usual bouquet-sending, cotillon-dancing, Botanical-Fete- meeting flirtation, — he recognised at once that this was a very different matter. Breakers ahead and all romid ! As for Barbara, he felt conscious of no vanity in avowing to himself his perception of "a little proud, but full of pity." 155 having excited her interest, but Avhether sufficiently to induce her to listen to an offer he could not imagine. Possibly, probably, she looked to making a brilliant marriage : her beauty and accomphsh- ments were her capital, and should be turned to good purpose ; and yet, as this idea passed through his mind, he had an instinctive feehng that Bar- bara's proud spirit would revolt from any such match, however much it might be pressed on her by her relations. Her relations ! ay, even granting the girl's acquiescence, there would be one of the grand som'ces of difficulty : old Miss Lexden, rich, selfish, and narrow-minded, would doubtless ojv pose such a marriage in every possible way ; and how Avould Sir Marmaduke look upon liim, having come an invited and a Avelcome guest, and then brought this discord into the family ? And even suppose it arranged somehow, she consenting and her friends satisfied, what was to be done with his mother, with whom and in whose house he then resided ? how and where was the rest of her hfe to be passed ? He coidd not live far from the office, where, thrice a week always, and occasionally 156 BROKEN TO HARNESS. more frequently, he was engaged till past mid- night; and how would the brilliant beauty of the West be able to exist in the dreary fastnesses of Great Adullam Street, or the arid desert of Tig- lath-Pileser Square ? And then the narrow income — competence for one, a bare sufficiency for two ! His horse must be given up, but that he would not so much mind ; his Club (the Retrenchment) must be kept on, for business purposes, though he should of course never spend any money there ; and he must take to sixteen-shilling trousers, and that sort of thing : all easy enough. But for her ? — no brougham (and fancy those tiny high-heeled hottines over the villanous Mesopotamian pave- ment!), only an occasional Opera-box obtained from the Statesman (situation high, smTomidings queer, claqueurs and amis des artistes), two or three balls in the season, and perhaps one dinner-party at home, with the inevitable side-dishes and attendant carpet-beater. Ay, and worse beyond ! — children born and reared in that dingy atmosphere, fui'ther expenditure to be met, perhaps sickness to be strug- gled through, and all the household gods dependent ^^A LITTLE PROUD, BUT FULL OF PITY." 157 dn him, — on the soundness of his health and the clearness of his brain, which failing, what had they to look to ? Aie de me / that last thought settled the question. Let it fade out, pleasant dream that it was ; or rather let him crush it for ever I It was impossible, and so let it pass. Down go the Spanish castles, away melt the aerial estates ; Duty's foot kicks away Alnaschar's basket, and tliere is the hard, dry, unsympathetic, work-a-day world before him ! He will go back to Bissett, but only for a day, just to get his traps together and to make some plausible excuse, and then will start off. Tliis first week of his holiday has been any thing but rest, and rest he requires. He will go to Scar- borough — no ! not there, for reasons ; but to some watering-place, and pitcli pebbles into the sea and lie fallow until he is compelled to retm-n to work. Yes, that is the right course — he determines on it finally as the train nears the Brighton station; hopes must be crushed, and Duty must be obeyed. Duty has won the day for once — and where is the pearl-gray glove now ? At his lips, of course ! Frank Chiu-chill has resolved upon doing his duty, 158 BROKEN TO HARNESS. and J like the drunkard in the old story, is "treat- ing resolution." Anxiety to test his newly-formed determination must be strong, for he ordered the flyman to drive as hard as he could to Bissett ; but, cooling a little, dismissed the man at the lodge-gates, and strolled through the avenue towards the house. The leaves yet held their ow^i ; scarcely the slightest autumnal tint had fallen on them ; and the grand old avenue looked magnificent. The weather was splendid ; the sun shone brightly, while the air was clear and bracing ; deer bounded in the bushwood ; and as Churchill stood rejoicing in the lovely view, a cart, laden with game, and driven by little Joe Lubbock, the head-keeper's boy, emerged from the Home Copse, and made a pleasant feature in the land- scape. All around told of wealth and peace and English comfort; and as Chm'chill surveyed the scene, he felt (as he had often felt) how great were the enjoyments of those born to such heritage, and (as he had never felt) how well-disposed he should be for the sake of those enjoyments to undertake the necessary responsibilities. His Eadicalism was " A LITTLE PROUD J BUT FULL OF PITY." 159 of the very mildest nature ; the free and indepen- dent electors of Brighton or of Sonthwark would have scorned the feebleness of his ideas as to the requirements of the people ; he had no wish to alter the laws of primogeniture, nor to see the fm-niture designed by Gillow or Holland emblazoned with the " swart mechanic's bloody thumbs ;" — indeed, it must be confessed that he thought the " swai't mechanic," when out of his place and wrong- headed through false leading, a very objectionable person. But he was in love, and wanted money and position to enable him to forward his suit; and as the thouo;lit of some who had both and did good with neither flitted across him, he stamped impatiently on the gravel, and the fair view and all the sweet excellence of natm-e faded out before his eyes. He walked hurriedly on for a few paces, and then betliought him that somewhere close in the neighbourhood was the gate leading to the fir- plantation in which he had recently walked with Barbara on their retiu-n from the shooting-j^ai'ty. He had the whole afternoon to do notliing in, and 160 BROKEN TO HARNESS. it would be pleasant to renew tlie remembrance of that bappy jesting talk. Memory, be tbougbt ratber bitterly, was a luxury wbich it did not require either rank or riches to enjoy. He stiaick across the dry crisp turf, and arrived at the gate ; it opened on a short gravelled walk, with low palings on either side, terminating in a rustic stile, on the other side of wliich lay the fir-plantation. As Churchill entered the path he saw a figm-e seated on the stile at the other end, and in an instant knew it to be Barbara Lexden. Her head was bent, and she was leaning forward, idly tracing figures on the tm-f with the point of her parasol. Churchill advanced with a strange fluttering of his usually regular-beating heart ; but she did not ap- pear to hear his footstep mitil he was close behind her, when she suddenly turned round, and their eyes met. It was a trying time for both, but Bar- bara was the first to speak. "So soon back, Mi\ Clmrcliill? We— that is, Sir Marmaduke was led to believe that you would not retm'u until the end of the week." " Fortmiately, Miss Lexden, my business in " A LITTLE PROUD, BUT FULL OF PITY." IGl towii was soon finished" (" Question of settle- ment witli tlie lawyer, or naming the day with the lady," thought Barbara), " and I got back as quickly as I could. How lovely this place looks ! Perhaps it seems doubly beautiful after twenty-fom- hours in London ; but it appears to me even fresher, calmer, and more peaceful than when I left it." " Tliat, I suspect, is yom- poetic imagination, Mr. Chm-cliill. You were praising Dryden the other night, and can now quote him to your own purposes. You know he says : * Winds murmured through the leaves his short delay, And fountains o'er their pebbles chid his stay ; But, with his presence cheered, they cease to mourn, And walks seem fresher green at his return.' " '' Aptly quoted, though the lines were ad- dressed to a lady, and for ' his' read ' yom\' I don't think that even the fomitains in Trafalgar Square would be weak enough to ' chide my stay.' But, apropos of poetic imagination, I am afraid I disturbed you from some deep reverie." " You never were more mistaken," said Bar- VOL. L M 162 BROKEN TO HARNESS. bara, with a short laugh. " I — I came out on a much more unromantic expedition. I lost a glove a day or two ago, and — and fancied I might have dropped it somewhere here." '' Is this it ?" asked Churchill suddenly, taking from his pocket a morocco-leather case, and pro- ducing from it the much-prized pearl-gray. " Yes," said Barbara, glancing quickly at him from under her drooping eyelids ; " that is it. How very fortunate !" " I picked it up," said Chm-chill, '^ as we re- tm'ned from the shooting-party the other day, and intended restoring it sooner, but forgot it I am glad to be able to do so now." He handed her the glove, looked her straight in the face, and walked on silently by her side. " We have had a new arrival here since you left," said Barbara, after a pause, swinging the glove slowly to and fi'o ; "a Mr. Beresford. You know him?" "Beresford? Oh, of the Tin-Tax Office! I have met him." " You are on intimate terms ?" " A LITTLE PROUD, BUT FULL OF PITY." 163 " I — I liave not that honour. Mr. Beresford moves in a different set to mine." " Tliat question of ' sets' seems to be one of paramount importance with you, Mr. Churchill. How frequently you harp upon it!" "It is a question which we must necessarily bear in mind, Miss Lexden," said Chm'chill, with emj)hasis ; then smiling, added, — " Suum cuifjue, which is Latin, and miintelligible ; ' the cobbler and his last,' which is English and vernacular. But why did you ask?" " Simply because he seems amusing, and likely to be popular here. I am sorry we shall not have the opportmiity of profiting by his high spirits, as aunt and I will probably be leaving on Tliursday." One quick glance told her that this shot, if intended for mischief, had signally failed. With perfect calmness Churchill replied, " And I also must manage to survive the loss of Mr. Beresford's conversation, as I go to- morrow." " To-morrow !" exclaimed Barbara ; then, in 164 BROKEN TO HARNESS. her ordinary tone, " Ah, to be sure, you have of course so much to do." " Well," said Churchill, smiling, " for a month I hope to do little beyond mooning on the beach and throwing pebbles into the sea." '^ Yes," said Barbara quickly; '' that is, I be- lieve, the usual thing mider the circumstances. And the place ? the Isle of Wight, or Devon- shire, of course?" '^ Under the circumstances !" he echoed. " I beg yom' pardon. Miss Lexden, but I fear we are at cross purposes. Under what circumstances ?" (" He braves it out to the last," thought Bar- bara ; " who would have thought that he could have stooped to a shuffle, or degrade the woman he was engaged to, by tacitly ignoring the fact ?") Tlien she said, curling her lip, and tossing the glove with a slightly contemptuous gestm'e, '' Good news travels fast, Mr. Churchill. Tlie fact of your forthcoming marriage is known at Bissett." '' My forthcoming marriage? It's a joke, Miss Lexden ?" "a little proud, but full of pity." 165 " We have heard it as a fact." " Aiicl you believed it?" said Churchill, turn- ing white, while his lip trembled visibly as he spoke. "Why should I not?" After a pause, and in a low voice, " Tlien you are not going to be married ?" " Married, no ! Miss Lexden, you must now listen patiently to what I should otherwise have kept secret, knowing the folly I have been guilty of. If ever I marry, Barbara Lexden will be my wife !" She started, and seemed about to speak. " One moment more," said he. " You know how completely I miderstand the difference in om' position ?" (An impatient gestm-e from Bar- bara.) " My sensitiveness, pride — call it what you win — ^would have kept me silent. Now I have spoken, and — Barbara — ^you must not keep me in suspense. Could it ever be possible?" Perfectly colomdess, she leant against the stile, but said nothing. " Miss Lexden, you must end this doubt." 166 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Silently she placed the little glove in his hand. " Barbara ! my Barbara !" and she was folded to his heart. CHAPTER X. AT THE TIN-TAX OFFICE, No. 120. The Tin-Tax Office, as I have before had occasion to remark, is situated in a wing of Rutland House ; that noble building so well known to most Enghsh- men, whence are issued those concise documents relating to mipaid arrears of public imposts, and where the mulcting of the nation is carried on. Tlie Tin-Tax is by no means a bad office, as times go ; though it is rather looked down upon by the men in the Check and Counter-Check Department, and the Navigation Board, who have offices in the same building. It used to be a great point of humour with the wits of twenty years since to say that the appointments in the Tin-tax Office w^ere given to sons of the faithfiil butlers of patriotic peers, and to those eager constituents for whose placing-out in life the Members for Irish boroughs 168 BROKEN TO HARNESS. are always petitioning with energy and perse- verance worthy of the horse-leech's daughters. And, indeed, the manners and customs of some of the middle-aged clerks bear testimony to the truth of this report. They were good enough fellows in their day — blundered on at their offices from ten till fom* ; dined cheaply at Short's, or Berthol- lini's, or the Cock ; Avent half-price to the Adelphi ; occasionally supped at the Coal-Hole or the Cider Cellars ; and went home to theii* garrets in Isling- ton with the perfect idea that they were roystering dogs, and that the Avorld did not contain many men Avho had drained pleasure's goblet more thoroughly to the dregs than themselves. . Most of them married betimes — occasionally the landlady of their lodgings; more frequently the pallid daughter of some fellow-clerk, after a flirtation begun over a round game or "a httle music;" most fr'equently some buxom lass met at seaside boarding-house, or in the old paternal home, where they^[spent their J leave of absence. But we have changed all that; and junior clerks of the present day are thoroughly and entirely different from AT THE TIN-TAX OFFICE, NO. 120. 169 their predecessors : tlie establisliment of the Civil- Service Commission, and the ordination of promo- tion by merit, have sent quite a different class of men into the public service, and the subordinate appointments of the Tin-Tax Office are held hj men who have taken their degrees at Oxford ; who can turn ^^ Vilikins and his Dinah" into Greek iambics; who can tell you where Montenegro is, and what it wants; who have thorouglily mastered the Sclileswig-Holstein question; who are well up in the theory of thermo-dynamics ; and who dip into Jean Paul Richter for a little light reading; — all excellent accomplishments, and thoroughly use- ful in the Tin-Tax Office. It is half-past twelve on a fine Satm'day morn- ing in the begimiing of October, and the six occu- pants of room No. 120 are all assembled, and all at work ; that is to say, four of them are writing, one is looking vacantly out of the window, and one is reading the Thnes. No. 120 is at the top of the building; a pleasant room when you reach it, looking on to the river, but up four ffights of steep stone stairs. No. 120 has always its regular 170 BROKEN TO HARNESS. number of occupants; for when tlie chief clerk learns that a young gentleman has an undue num- ber of friends calling upon him during official hours, he causes the popular man to be removed to No. 120, and after two trials of the stairs the visitors prefer meeting their friend in the evening at some less Alpine retreat. So also, when a young gentleman is in the habit of being per- petually waited upon by duns, he makes interest to get moved into No. 120, and finds that his creditors simultaneously urge their demands not in person, but through the medium of the Post-office. Tlie head of the room is Mr. Kinchenton, that tall man with the romided shoulders, and grizzled head ever bent over his desk. Hard work has bowed Mr. Kinchenton's back and silvered his hair ; for he has been in the Tin-Tax Office since he was sixteen years old, and though promoted under the old system of seniority and length of ser^^ce, no one could ever say that he had not fairly won every step he got. Before he was sixteen, he was the hope and pride — the prize scholar — of the Heck- mondike Grammar- School, his father being head- AT THE TIN-TAX OFFICE, NO. 120. 171 keeper to Lord Heckmondike, who placed the boy on the foundation of the school, and, finding him apt and studious, obtained for him his appointment from the Government of the day. No Adelphi at half-price, no Cider Cellars or Coal-Hole, for yomig Kinchenton, who had a little bedroom in a little terrace close by Kennington Common, where he was to be fomid every night, book in hand, and happy as a prince. A poor little bedroom enough ! — a wretched little bedroom, with a white-dimity- covered tester-bed, two rush-bottomed chairs, a painted chest of drawers, a rickety washhand- stand, and a maddening square of looking-glass hanffino; ao-ainst the wall. But to that garret came Sanclio Panza and the gaunt Don his master ; came Gil Bias, and the beggar with his arquebuse, and the Archbishop of Grenada; came cringing Tartuffe, and preposterous Sganarelle ; came wan- dering Rasselas and sage Imlac ; came Ferdinand Comit Fathom, swearing Tom Pipes, and decorous Mr. Blifil. There the hardworking clerk laughed over Falstaffs lovemaking and Malvolio's disgrace, or wept over Sterne's dead ass and Le Fe^Te's 172 BROKEN TO HARNESS. regained sword; while liis comrades Mace and Flukes were ruining each other at billiards, and Potter and Piper were hiccuping noisy applause to indecent sono^s. When Mr. Kinchenton was forty years old, his income had reached the bewildering amount of four hmidred a year, and he thought he might indulge in the luxmy of a wife; so he took to himself a pretty little soft-eyed girl, the daughter of an old gentleman who was a traveller in the straw-bonnet line, and who, when he was not driving about in a very high four-wheeled ti'ap which did its best to look like a mail-phaeton and signally failed in the attempt, lived in the little terrace next door to Kinchenton's lodginors. Aft^r his daughter's marriage, the old gentleman, wdio was a widower, gave up travelling, retired upon his savings, and went to live with his son-in-law in a little house which Kinchenton had taken in Camden Town, where the birth of a son crowned Kinchen- ton's happiness. His adoration of this child was his weakest point: he was always narrating its wonderful deeds to every body ; and the men in the AT THE TIN-TAX OFFICE, NO. 120. 173 office, with whom the little fellow was really a favoui'ite, knew they could always get late attend- ance overlooked or half-holiday granted if they asked after little" Percy, and sent him some trifling present. It is well for the junior clerks of No. 120 that Mr. Kinchenton is the head of the room ; for the next in seniority, Mr. Dibb, is by no means a pleasant person. Harsh, stifP, sectarian bigotry lurks in his coarse, close-cropped black hair, and in the plaited folds of his huge white neck-cloth ; he invariably wears a black dress-coat, waistcoat, and trousers, creaking boots, and damp cloth gloves. He is always ailing, and invariably changing his medical system : now vamiting the virtues of blue- l^ill, now swearing by homoeopathy ; he has been rubbed and cracked and shampooed and galvan- ised; and once he tried hydropathy, but came back in a week from Malvern no better, and ap- parently no cleaner, than before his visit to Dr. Gully. He was one of the first-fruits of the noble system of promotion by merit, having been trans- ferred to Rutland House from some provincial 174 BROKEN TO HARNESS. strongliold of the Tin-Tax Office, and report said that he had originally been a schoolmaster in Bil- ston. He was hated by nearly all his juniors, but respected by the heads for his conscientiousness and power of work ; and he was located in No. 120 to neutralise, to some extent, Mr. Kinchen- ton's excess of good nature. The rank and file of No. 120 consisted of Mr. Prescott and Mr. Pringle, junior clerks ; Mr. Bopj^y, an old gentleman with a bald head and a double eye-glass, who had ai'- rived, through dint of long service, at a good income, who was utterly useless, and who had no characteristic save his intense dread of his wife ; and Mr. Crump, who had been for twenty years an extra clerk, and who, owing to an invincible stutter, had never been able to interest any one sufficiently to procure him an appointment. "Devilish hot!" said Mr. Pringle, a short, good-humoured-looking yomig man, laying down his Times and opening his waistcoat ; " devilish hot I Crump, there's a good fellow, open the door." Mr. Crump looked up fi*om his work, and said AT THE TIN-TAX OFFICE, NO. 120. 175 appealiiigly, " I've got a st — a st — st — " lie would have said " stiff neck;" but long before lie could reach the word, Pringle interrupted him — " Strong hand ; you've got a strong hand, I know, and the door sticks; that's why I asked you. Boppy, my boy, I've not yet had time to ask you how you are." " Well, I'm well in health, thank you, Mr. Pringle," said Mr. Boppy, depositing his pen on the desk, and rubbing his bald forehead; ^^ but I'm rather worried in my mind." "What troubles my Boppy? Has the Bank reduced its rate of discount, so that my Boppy's ingots are not worth quite so much per cent as they were yesterday ; or is it love that is sending him to grief? Has my Boppy been sporting with Amaryllis in the shady side of Brompton Row, and has Mrs. B. fomid it out ? Oh, Bop !" " Nonsense, Mr. Pringle ! I — " " I must say that such remarks as those," in- terrupted Mr. Dibb, " appear to me to be very bad jokes." " Very likely, Mr. Dibb," retorted Pringle ; " but that's because you're the quintessence of 176 BROKEN TO HARNESS. humour yourself. We can't all hope to make our- selves as thoroughly genial and pleasant as you — can we, Crump ?" '^ I d — declme to s — to s — to say — " ^^ To say ditto to Dibb ! Of course : you're my friend, and I knew you'd never desert me. Now, Bopj)y, you were about to say something when you were interrupted in that gentlemanly manner by our fi'iend J. Miller ; what was it?" " Oh, I was merely thinking that I'd try and take that dog home this afternoon, and I'm rather doubtftil as to how my wife will receive it. You see, I bought him a week ago, and Simmons, the hall- porter here, has kept him for me in the coal-cellar since then. He's a white Pomeranian dog, and the coal-ceUar don't suit him somehow ; but I daren't take him to Putney mitil I'd somewhat prepared Mrs. B.'s mind. So last night I read her several anecdotes of dogs, where they were all faithful and friendly and clean, you know ; and this after- noon I shall take Spitz home, and — and say you gave him to me, I think, Mr. Pringle, if youVe no objection." AT THE TIN-TAX OFFICE, NO. 120. 177 " Certainly, if you like it, I don't mind; any tiling you please, Boppy, my boy. Dogs as many as you like, and things of that sort ; only, if Mrs. B. ever finds white-kid gloves, or locks of hair, or patchouli-scented pink notes, don't say they come from me — you miderstand? By the way, that reminds me. Prescott ! p'st ! Prescott !" A tall, good-looking man of two or three- and-twenty, who was leaning his head on one hand and staring out of the window, tm'ned round and said dreamily, " What ?" " What an amusing companion you are !" said Mr. Pringle ; " what a charming remark that was when you last spoke, an hour and twenty minutes ago ! What was it ?" " Don't be an idiot, Pringle !" " No, it wasn't that ; to be told to avoid an impossibility would have struck me as novel. Never mind ; I was going to ask who that was I saw you speaking to at the King's Cross Terminus yesterdav." " At King's Cross?" said Prescott, colom-ing; " oh, that was a friend of mine, a clergyman." VOL. I. N 178 BROKEN TO HARNESS. " Ah !" said Pringle, quietly, " I thought so. He had on a blue bonnet and a black -lace shawl. Neat foot he's got; those parsons are always so particular about their stockings !" " Don't be an ass, George !" growled Prescott, in an undertone. ^^All right, old boy!" said Pringle, in the same key. " Forgot we weren't alone. Nobody heard, I think; but I'll soon change the subject ;" and he commenced whistling It Bacio, loud and slmll. " Mr. Pringle ! Mr. Pringle !" screamed Mr. Dibb. Mr. Pringle held up his hand as if deprecating interruption until he had come to the end of the bar, when he said, with mock politeness, " Sir to you!" '^ How often have I begged you, sir, not to whistle dm-ing official hom'S ? It is impossible for me to write my minutes while you're wliist- ling." " Write yom- minutes !" said Mr. Pringle. *^ Sir, we have the authority of A. Temiyson, AT THE TIN-TAX OFFICE, NO. 120. 179 Esquire, the Poet of tlie Age, if my honourable friend in tlie Isle of Wight will so permit me to call him, for saying that ' Lightlier move the minutes fledged with music' Tliough that even my whistling could make your minutes move lightly, with due respect to Alfred, I doubt." "Mi\ Kinchenton," cried Mr. Dibb, now a dirty white with rage, " I must request you, as head of this room, to call upon Mr. Pringle not to forget himself." " My dear sir," said Pringle, "there's no one I think of so much." " George," said Mr. Kinchenton quietly, " pray be quiet !" " Certainly, Padre ; I'm dumb ! Tliank Hea- ven and the Early Closing Association, to-day's a half holiday, and we cut it at two." " All, to be sure !" said Kinchenton, anxious to atone for even the slight show of authority which his previous words might have suggested ; " there are grand doings this afternoon at the Eyres', at Hampstead. I'm going to take my 180 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Percy there. Athletic sports, rmiiimg, leaping, and all the rest of it." " Ha ! ha !" said Pringle ; " at the Eyres', eh? ' The merry brown Eyres come leaping,' as Kingsley has it. What a pity they haven't asked me !" ^'You're going, Prescott, I suppose?" asked Kinchenton. ^^ The Ewes are friends ofyoui's — you're going to their fete ?" " I ! no, Padre," was the reply ; '' Pm not going." " Oh, he's very bad !" said Pringle, in a whis- per. " He's got it awfully, but he'll get better. * Now he has turned himself wholly to love and follows a damsel, Caring no more for honour, or glory, or Pallas Athen6.' Kingsley again — ^liem !" " I wonder, Mr. Pringle," said Mr. Dibb, ^^ that you do not attempt to form some more per- manent style of reading than the mere poetry, scraps of which you are always quoting. For my AT THE TIN-TAX OFFICE, NO. 120. 181 own part, I consider poetry the flimsiest kind of writing: extant." ^' I'm sm'prised at that, now," said Pringle placidly. " I should have thought that you would have been a great appreciator of the gloomy and Byronic verse. To understand that properly, you must have lost all digestive power ; and you know, Mr. Dibb, that yom- li^'er is horribly out of order." A general laugh followed this remark, in which even Mr. Kinchenton joined, and at which Mr. Dibb looked more savae^e than ever. Li the midst of it the clock struck two, and at the last somid Mr.» Crump closed his blotting-book, put on his hat, and vanished, saying " G — good" as he passed tlu-ough the door ; two minutes afterwards, frag- ments of the word '^ d — day" were heard reverbe- rating in the passage. Simultaneously Mr. Boppy struck work and went to look after his dog, Mr. Dibb stalked off without a word, and Mr. Prescott took off his coat to wash his hands previous to de- parture. When he emerged from the washing cupboard, he found Pringle waiting for him : both the young men shook hands with their^chief, sent 182 BROKEN TO HARNESS. their loves to Mrs. Kinchenton and the boy, and turned out into the Strand. They had not gone far when Pringle asked his companion whither he was bound. Prescott was too absorbed to hear the question, but, on its re- petition, muttered something about an ^' engage- ment out Kensington way." " Ah !" said Pringle, with the nearest approach to a sigh, ^^ride a cock horse, eh? the old game ! Look here, Jim, old fellow. I'm not clever, you know, but I know how many blue beans make five; and I'm not strait-laced or pious or any thing of that sort, but I'm very fond of you, and I tell you this won't do !" " What won't do ?" asked Prescott, with a flaming face. " Why, this Kate Mellon business, Jim. It's on hot and strong, I know. You'^-e been down in the mouth all the time she was away ; you met her at the station yesterday, and probably you're going up to her place to day. Now you know, Jim, I've seen more of life than you, and I tell you this is all wrong." AT THE TIN-TAX OFFICE, NO. 120. 183 "Why, you don't imagine that there's any thing—?" " I don't imagine any thing at all. I haven't got any imagination, I think. I'm the most matter-of-fact beggar that ever walked; but I know you're confomidedly spooney and hard hit, and in a wrong quarter. Now, Jim, pull yourself together, old man, and cut it," " I can't, George," groaned Prescott, raising his hat and tossino; the hair back from his fore- head ; " I can't. You don't know how I love that woman, old fellow. I'd die for her ; I'd go out and be shot at once, if it would save her a pang. I hate any one to come near her, and I'm always thinking of her, and longing to be with her." " I felt just Hke that once for a female tobacco- nist in Briggate, at Leeds," said Mr. Pringle after a pause. '^ Deuced nice girl she was too, and what thundering bad cigars she sold ! I'm very glad I didn't die for her, though. I got my ap- pointment just in time, and came up to town with- out asking her to fly with me to distant climes. She wouldn't have known what ^ climes' meant, I 184 BROKEN TO HARNESS. think. Now, look here, Jim; you'd better do something of the same sort. Apply for sick-leave (Glauber will give you a certificate), and go home and have some shooting, and stay with your people, and you'll come back cured. Only cut it at once. Don't go there to-day ; come with me. I've got a little business to do that won't take half an hour, and then I'm going to spar with Bob Travers, and you shall see me polish him off with a new ^ Men- doza tip' that I learnt last night. Now, you'll come, won't you, Jim ?" '' Not to-day, George. I know you're right in every word you say ; and yet I can't give it up yet — at all events to-day. I must see her, I've got something special to say to her, and the time's getting on. Good-by, old fellow; I know you mean well ; and I'll come out all right yet. God bless you, old boy ! Hi ! Hansom !" and Mr. Prescott jumped into a cab, mui'mm'ed an in- audible address to the driver, and was whirled away. Mr. Pringle remained on the kerb-stone, shak- ing his head and looking after the departing Han- AT THE TIN-TAX OFFICE, NO. 120. 185 som. " James Prescott is in for it," said lie to himself, " is decidedly in for it. So, by the way, is George Pringle. If I don't pay Wilkins that twenty pounds to-night, I shall be Comity- Courted, as safe as houses. I never have put my hand to any bill before ; but needs must, I suppose. So I'll just step up and see old Scadgers." And Mr. Pringle struck across the Strand, in a northerly direction. CHAPTER XL WITH THE SECRETARY. If J instead of ascending the broad staircase imme- diately on entering the Tin-Tax Office, you were to proceed straight forward, you would come to the messengers' lobby, which is the outpost, pro- tecting the penetralia where the Commissioners and the Secretary are enshrined. Tlie principal duty of these messengers, besides answering bells and carrying about official papers, was to pro- tect the august personages just referred to from being intruded upon by "the public;" and as one learnt from his Scriptiu'e History that tlie term " Gentiles" meant " all nations except tlie Jews," so, after a very little official experience, one became aware that " the public" meant every body Avho did not hold an appointment in the Tin-Tax Office. Tlie duties incumbent upon cer- WITH THE SECRETARY. 187 tain emissaries of the Office, in regard to the collection of revenue, made the head - quarters at Rutland House a grand resort of the " pub- lic," who generally came here with very belli- gerent intentions, and who either referred to printed docmnents in their hands and wished to see Mr. Simnel the Secretary (whose name appeared attached to the documents), or occa- sionally even demanded an interview with the Chief Commissioner, the great Sir Hickory Mad- dox, himself. It is needless to say that these wishes were never gratified : the messengers of the Tin-Tax Office were men to whom, in the discharge of his favourite accomplishment, Ana- nias could not have held a candle; men with impertm'bable faces and ready tongues, who took the "public's" measure in an instant, and sent him to whatsoever clerk they thought would most readily dispose of his grievance. " I wish to see the Chief Commissioner," would exclaim a Briton, red in face, dripping m head, and bm'sting with indignation. To him calm, ma- jestic Mr. Potts, the chief messenger, a fat man 188 BROKEN TO HARNESS. with a big forehead, a large stomach, flat feet in low shoes, and a general butlerish appear- ance — "Sir 'Ickry is with the Chanclr of Sche- quer, sir, on most important bisness." " Tlie Secretary, then. " " Tlie Seckittarj have gone with Sir 'Iclay, sir; — what is your bisness, sir?" "Why, I've been overcharged — " "Ah, thought so, sir ! Rebate on prop'ty dooty. Walker, show the gentleman to number 15," — and away down the loud-resomiding passages, or up the mountainous stairs, would the unfor- tmiate " public" be hurried. Tlie superior rooms lay up a little j)assage to the right of the messengers' lobby, and were three in number. First came the Board-room, a large and solemn salmon-coloured apartment, where the Commissioners sat when for despatch of business assembled. A big, dull-faced clock ticked on the mantelshelf; solemn green maps of distant countries, from year's end to year's end undisturbed, cm'led themselves romid in dusty layers on the walls ; and a large red-leather sofa, on which Mr. Beresford, in the absence of the WITH THE SECRETARY. 189 other Commissioners, and after a hard night's waltzing, had enjoyed hours of pleasant repose, filled up a recess. In the centre of the room stood a hea\y wi'iting-table, with pads of blot- ting-paper, pools of black ink, and bmidles of quill-pens distributed at regular intervals. At the head of this table always stood a red-leather arm-chair, and this arm-chair always on busi- ness occasions contained the sacred person of the Chief Commissioner, Su* Hickory Maddox. A little man, Sir Hickory, with a parchment face, a blue eye like a bit out of a cliina plate, stiff gray hair brushed into a point on the top of his head, and formal httle gray whiskers : always dressed in a little black frock-coat, and little gray waistcoat and trousers ; wearing too a hea\y gold-set cornelian seal, and a cumbrous old-fashioned watch-key, just projecting from his fob, — ^buoys to show whereabouts his thick gold cln-onometer was smik, in some unknown depths. A kind-hearted, fussy, hard-working man, whose family had been for generations in tlie pubhc service, who had himself worked for 190 BROKEN TO HARNESS. years in the Draft and Docket Office, had risen and distinguished himself there, and had finally been rewarded with the Chief-Commissionership of the Tin-Tax, and with being created a K.C.B. His official position he esteemed one of the most enviable in the kingdom; he thought of nothing but official matters; and when, being of a hos- pitable turn, he had solemn dinners at his house in Wimpole Street, all the guests were magnates of other offices or — for he was a kind chief in that respect — juniors of the Tin-Tax. And in- variably, just as the cloth was drawn, the butler would appear at his master's elbow, bearing a salver, on which lay an enormous red -leather official despatch -pouch. Tlie little man would smile feebly at his guests, would shrug his shoul- ders, and saying, " Our labom-s follow us even here," would unlock the pouch, glance at its contents (probably the Globe, and private note), and relocking it, say, " Lay it on the library- table, Benson. I must go into the matter be- fore I sleep. However, nunc vino iiellite curasf Port, sherry, madeira, and claret !" WITH THE SECRETARY. 191 Between Sir Hickory Madclox the senior, and Mr. Beresford the junior, there were two other Commissioners. One was the Honourable Morris Peck, who had been a Gentleman Usher at Com-t, — at whose name years ago young ladies used to blush, and matrons to gather themselves together in brood-hen fashion for the protection of their chicks, — a roysterer at Crockford's, a friend of Pea-Grreen Payne and the Golden Hall and that lot, — a " devil of a fellow, sir !" but wh. was now merely a hook-nosed old gentleman in a high coat-collar and a curly-brimmed hat ; wear- ing false teeth, dyed hair, and blacked eyebrows ; who always slept peacefuQy until his signatui-e was required, when he gave it in a very shaky schoolboy scrawl. Tlie other was Mr. Miles O'Scardon, an L'ish gentleman of ancient family but limited means, who had represented Bally- liogue in Parliament for years, and who had ob- tained his appointment for the fidelity with which he had always obeyed tlie summons of the minis- terial whip. Beyond the Board-room lay the sanctum of tlie Cliief-Commissioner's private se- 192 BROKEN TO HARNESS. cretaryj a young man always chosen for his good looks, his good clothes, and his gentlemanly bear- ing, who was envied by his brother jmiiors, but who had to answer Sir Hickory's bell, and was consequently taunted by the epithet ^^Jeames." And beyond that, though miconnected with it, lay the Secretary's room. A large, light, airy room, far away from the noise and bustle, and looking on to the river. Romid the walls are huge oak-presses, filled with tied-up bmidles of confidential papers, secret reports of the out -door agents of the Tin -Tax Office, Avhich, if published, Avould have astonished the world by throwing quite a new light on the in- comes of several of its idols. Maps were there too, and framed tables of statistics, and the Sta- tioners' Almanac ; and over the mantelpiece hung a proof-before-letters engraving of the portrait of "Sir Hickory Maddox, after Grant, with an exact likeness of that great official's favom'ite inkstand and quill -pen, and with a correctness in the fit of the trousers such as was never achieved by the great original. Tliere was a WITH THE SECRETARY. 193 round table in tlie middle of the room, divided into two equal portions by a line of books of reference — Guide - books, M'CulIocli's Commer- cial Dictionary, Haydn's Dates, the Post-Office Directory, Bradshaw, and other light reading: one side of the line of demarcation was bare (save at one o'clock, wdien it bore the little tray containing the Secretary's light luncheon) ; on the other lay the Secretary's blotting-book, pen- stand, and paper-case. About the time when the conversation recorded in the last chapter was going on between his clerks, Mr. Simnel, the Secretary, sat in his official room, signing his name to printed papers, which he took one by one from a large heap at his right hand, and, after signing, dropped at his feet. It was plain that his thoughts were otherwise absorbed ; for as the sheets fell from liis hand and fluttered to the gromid, he never looked after them, but would occasionally pause in his occupation, lay down his pen, nm-se his right leg with both hands, and rock himself quietly to and fro. As he moved here and there in the sunlight, you might have perceived VOL. I. o 194 BROKEN TO HARNESS. that liis limbs were long and ungainly ; that he had big broad hands with thick corrugated veins, and finger-nails strong, hard, and cut to a point ; that he was very bald, and that such fringe of hair as remained was of a dull red ; that he had a large sensual face, big projecting brown eyes, thick clumsy nose, full scarlet underlip, heavy jowl, and large massive chin. You could have noticed, too, that, in certain lights, this face was worn and jaded and almost haggard, traversed here and there with deep fm-rowed lines, marked with crow's- feet and wrinkles and deep indentations. As you gazed, perhaps, all this faded away, the face beamed forth happy, jolly, sensual as ever ; but you felt that the wrinkles were there, and that so soon as the flicker passed away, they would be seen again. Not in the discharge of his easy labom's at the Tin-Tax Office had Mr. Simnel acquired these hues and wrinkles. Tlie calm direction of that engine of the State had only come upon him of late years, and never had caused him any trouble. But Mr. Simnel had compressed a great many years' ex- l)erience into forty years of life, and the crow's- WITH THE SECRETARY. 195 feet and indentations were the result of brain- ' labour, worry, and anxiety. Mr. Simnel's first recollection of any thing found him a little boy, in a skeleton-suit, at the grammar-school of Comb- cardingham, — a city which every body save the envious inhabitants of its rival Dockborough al- lowed to be the metropolis of the north. Little Bob Simnel did not know whose son he was, or how his schooling was paid for ; all he knew was, that he boarded with an old lady, the widow of a tax-collector, who was very kind to him, and that he soon found out the best thing he could do was to stick to his book. To his book he stuck man- fully ; walked through all the classes of the gram- mar-school, one by one, until he became junior boy of the sixth form, until he became senior boy of the sixth form, until the visiting examiner, the Bishop of Latakia, New Zealand, declared that he had the greatest pleasm'e in naming Mr. Robert Simnel as the gainer of the exhibition of seventy- five pomids a year ; and added, as he shook hands with said Robert, that whichever University he might prefer Avould be honoiu'ed by his choice. 196 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Yotmg Mr. Simnel, however, did not go to either Oxford or Cambridge : after a lengthened inter- view with the head-master, the Rev. Dr. Barker, Mr. Simnel graceftilly resigned the exhibition in favour of Swetter, major ^ who " proximo accessit," and entered as the articled clerk of Messrs. Banner and Blair, accounted the sharj)est lawyers in Comb- cardingham, and knoTvn through all the county as great electioneering agents for the Liberal partv. A few years passed on ; Mr. Simnel had finished his articles, had become the junior partner of Messrs. Banner and Blair, and was working steadily and well, when an event happened wliich insured his success for life. It w^as this : Combcardingham, for the three last general elections, had returned the same two members — Sir Tliomas Prodd and ]\Ii'. Shuttler; both local magnates, employing hundreds of hands, supporting local charities, known throughout the county, and Liberal to the backbone. One morn- ing news sped to London that Mr. Shuttler was dead; and that evening a tall, thin gentleman, with a hare-lip, arrived by afternoon express in WITH THE SECRETARY. 197 Combcardingliam, and engaged the Waterloo Ho- tel as the head-quarters of Mr. Farquhar, the Con- servative candidate. Blue bills on a dead-wall un- pleasantly 2)roclaimed this fact to Mr. Simnel as he was shaving himself the next morning; and he perceived that young Woof ham, the hope of the Liberal party, would not be brought in without a struggle. So he, metaphorically, took off his coat and set to work; canvassed, intrigued, cajoled, went tln'ough all the dirty round of electioneering tactics, but found he did not make much way; found, in truth, that the hare-lipped man seemed to have Fortunatus's purse somewhere about him, and that young Woofham was a miserly yomig hunks, who did not see the borough as a proper investment for his ingots. What was to be done ? To lose the borough would be a tremendous blow to the Government, who had always looked upon it as their own, and to whom it was always sup- posed to owe allegiance. But the money? The night before the nomination, Mr. Simnel, with his face muffled in a huge handkerchief, despatched tlie following telegraphic message to Mr. WeaJ, 198 BROKEN TO HARNESS. the Government whip, at the retrencliment Club : *^ No. 104 is putting on the steam at Combcar- clingham. If No. 102 does not do likewise, up goes the sponge." While No. 102 Mall-Pall is the Retrenchment Club, No. 104 is, it is needless to saj, the No Sm-render (familiarly known as the Wig and Whiskers), the head-quarters of the Con- servative 2:)artj. By the early morning express a messenger, Avith a letter from Mr. Weal, arrived at Mr. Simnel's office, and dm-ing the day the doubts under w^hich many of the electors suffered were satisfactorily explained away, and at the close of the poll Mr. Woof ham's name stood well ahead of his rival. Mr. Weal and his party did not for- get their telegraphing fr-iend at Combcardingham. After the election was over, Mr. Simnel was sum- moned to London, had an interview with certain of the Dil 7najoi'es, and at the end of six months was inducted into the Secretaryship of the Tin-Tax Office, then vacant. Tliey did not like him at first at the Tin-Tax ; they thought Bingham ought to have succeeded to the berth ; and Bingham — who was a very gouty WITH THE SECRETARY. 199 old gentleman, who took a great deal of snufF, and swore a great deal, and kept a pocket-dictionary in the right-hand top-drawer of his desk wherewith to correct his orthography — ^thought so too. But Sir Hickory Maddox, who was not merely very popular, but very much respected by his men, showed such thorough appreciation of Mr. Simnel's talents, and so thoroughly endorsed all the Secre- tary's acts, that the men began to waver in their allegiance to the Bingham faction; to think that Bingham was little l3etter than an old idiot ; that " new blood" in the secretariat might probably not only improve the status of the Tin-Tax Office, but get a new and improved scale for the clerks ; and when they found that, after a couple of years, the new Secretary actually did accomplish this feat, the new Secretary was popular for ever. Popular officially, not privately. The juniors at the Tin-Tax had been in the habit of chaffing their late lamented secretary ; of bribing him, by gifts of game and hothouse fruits, to grant them odd days and even weeks of leave of absence ; of chat- ting with him familiarly on current events. Mr. J 200 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Simnel's manners effectually cliecked all that kind of tiling. With the Commissioners he might mi- bend ; Avith the jmiiors he was adamant. But if he met one of his men in society, in the Opera lobby, or at a Botanical Fete, he would make a jDoint of shaking hands with him as though they hadn't seen each other for ages, and of talking witli him of every subject possible — except the Tin-Tax Office. The pile of papers for signatm-e had melted to one solitary document, the floor Avas sti'eT\Ti with the evidences of Mr. Simnel's handiwork, and Mr. Simnel himself sat nursiiiij his lesr and swaying himself gently to and fro in meditation. Occasionally he would pass his disengaged hand through his fringe of hair, and smile quietly to himself, then make a few figm-es on his blotting- pad, add them, and set-to rocking again. Li the midst of this occupation he heard his door open, and looking up, saw Mr. Beresford. " Why, Avhat the deuce does this mean?" he exclaimed, in sm-prise. '' I though you were on Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up mihmited gold WITH THE SECRETARY. 201 and silver, wooing heiresses, and settling a Bel- gravian menage; and you tm-n up in this dingy old harrack. Is it all over? — ^lias the lady suc- cumbed ? and do you want me to help you to choose fii'e-irons and window-cm'tains ?" Mr. Beresford did not reply for a minute; tlien he said, shortly and decisively, " I've been sold!" Mr. Simnel gave one short, loud whistle, and said interrogatively, "Wouldn't?" Mr. Beresford, seating himself on the edge of the table, looked up at Mr. Simnel, who had taken up Ms position on the rug, with his back to the empty fire-place, and said, " No chance ; booked beforehand !" Whereupon Mr. Simnel gave a louder wliistle, and said, " TeU !" " You laiow how I stand, Simnel, well enough," said Mr. Beresford ; " and this looked a very safe coup, 1 thought, specially after I got your telegram. Tliere were two or tlu*ee fellows staying do^vn at Bissett who I thought were on, too. Man named Lyster ; do you know liim ? — 202 BROKEN TO HARNESS. tall man, dark beard, yaw-haw beast, from Lidian army." "I know him!" was all Mr. Simnel's reply to this flattering sketch. "And another man, newspaper man, belongs to the ' Ketrenchment' and the ' Fly-by-night ;' Chm'chill, you know." " I know Chm'chill. Was he going in for an heiress ?" " No, not exactly ; at least I thought so, but it tm-ned out not. But I didn't like these fellows hanging about ; specially Lyster — ^romantic party, sigh and that sort of business. So, when I found from you it was all right, I made up my mind to see where I was." ^'Well; and Miss Townshend w^ouldn't have it ?" " Not at all ! We were sitting after dinner, when the women had gone to the drawing-room, the very day I got yom" telegram, and old Went- worth told us there was a man coming down the next day, — Schrotter, or Scln-oder, a German merchant in Mincing Lane — " WITH THE SECRETARY. 203 " I know him," interrupted Simnel : " Gustav Sclu'oder ; elderly man. What took him to Bis- sett ?'' " Love, sir — love ! he's engaged to be married to Miss To^vnshend !" ^^Whew!" said Mr. Simnel, with his longest and shrillest whistle. " Tlie deuce he is ! Tliat is news ! How does the yomig lady like it?" " Well, not much. She couldn't, of course, be expected to feel very enthusiastic about a short, stout, gray-headed German, who talks the most infernal jargon, and hasn't got a sound tooth in his head. Took him out shooting once, but he made the most awftd mess of it; devihsh near shot the beaters, and sprained his ankle leaping a half-foot ditch. Tlie girl seemed horribly ashamed of him, and of his clumsy compliments and elephantine gambols ; but she's evidently booked — her father takes care of that." " Ah, ha !" said Mr. Simnel, nm-sing liis knee, rocking himself to and fro, and rapidly going off into an absent fit ; " ah, ha !" " I hate to hear you say ^ ah, ha,' Simnel !" 204 BROKEN TO HAKNESS. said Mr. Beresford, with some asperity. " You're always up to some plottings and plans when you utter those seemingly benevolent grmits. I sup- pose you suspect old Townshend of some grand diablerie in this affair. I never could make out what it is that you know about that old gentle- man." " Know about him ?" said Simnel, rousing himself with a laugh; "that he gives capital din- ners and has plenty of money ; that he's about to marry his daughter to one of the richest men in the City. What more need one know about a man? I don't know what church he goes to, or what peculiar shade of religion he affects ; whether he's a good father or a bad one ; whether he rules his daughter or is ruled by her. But I do know that he drinks Tod-Heatly's champagne, and banks at the London and Westminster. Tliis .news looks fishy for your business, Beresford !" " Simply a case of stump," said Mr. Beres- ford, rising from the table, plunging his hands into his trousers-pockets, and striding up and down the room. WITH THE SECRETARY. 205 " What do you mean to do ?" " Borrow two hundred pounds more of you/' exclaimed Beresford, stopping short on the edge of the rug and confronting Mr. Simnel. "And tlien?" asked the latter gentleman, smiling calmly. " God knows!" said Beresford, with something like a shudder. " Something must turn up ; the Bishop must die or Lady Lowndes, and there'd be a safe something from them; or there'll be some girl-" " Ye-es," interrupted Mr. Simnel drily, seating himself at his desk, and unlocking a draw therein. "You're the most marvellously sanguine fellow, perfectly Micawber-ish in your notions of some- thing turning up, and yom' making a coup. But — suppose t'other! suppose it didn't come off! Now you owe me," — looking at a paper which he took from the drawer, — " six hundred pomids already, and I've only got insurance-policies for security." "You get yom- interest," growled Beres- ford. " A mild six," said Mr. Simnel, with a shrug 206 BROKEN TO HARNESS. of his slioulders and his pleasant smile. *' A mild six; just what I should get in Bombay Preference, or Great Luxembourg Centrals, or a dozen other safe investments. However, you shall have this two hundred; but I should be glad to see your way in the future. Is there no girl with money whom you think you could propose to speedily?" " Not one," said Beresford, stopping in his walk and reseating himself on the table. ^' Oh, by Jove, I forgot to tell you that." ^^What?" ^' About Kate Mellon, — tremendous scene just before I left;" and Mr. Berestord proceeded to recount the dialogue between him and Kate Mellon, which was recorded in the foui'th chapter of this story. He told the tale honestly throughout, and Y/hen he had finished he looked up in Mi'. SimneFs face and said, "Deuced awkward position, wasn't it?" Mr. Simnelhad not lost one word of the story; on the contrary, he had listened to it with the greatest eagerness and interest, but he did not answer Mr. Beresford's final query. He had WITH THE SECRETAKY. 207 fallen into his old leg-nursing attitude, and was rocking himself silently to and fi'o. " Devihsh unpleasant, wasn't it?" reiterated Mr. Beresford. "Eh!" said Mr. Simnel in a loud high key. "Yes, most unpleasant, of com-se. We'll talk more about that; but you must be off now. To- day's only half a day, you know; and I've got all sorts of things to do before I go. You shall have that t^vo hmidred on Monday, all right. Good-by! see you on Monday;" and the Secre- tary shook hands with the Commissioner until tlie latter was fairly outside the door. Then Mr. Simnel retm-ned to his desk, and took up his leg again. " It seems to be coming on, now," he said to himself, "and all together too. Tlie old man always meant httle Alice for a Duke, and now to let her go to such carrion as old Sclu-oder; that looks like smash. He holds heavily in Pernam- bucos, in Cotopaxis, and other stuff that's rmi down like water lately ; and he must have dropped at least ten thousand in that blessed Bird-in-the- 208 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Hand insurance. I think the time has come to put the screw on, and I don't think" — turning to a drawer and taking from an envelope a paper yellow with age — "that he'll dishonour this. What an awfrd time ago it seems ! There," — replacing the paper, — "go back till you're wanted. You've kept so long that — ^Ah, by Jove ! the other business! To be married, eh? To be married, Kate?" releasing his leg and plucking at liis lips. "To be married to Master Charley Beresford! not while I live, my child! not while I live, and have power to tui-n a screw on in your direction too!" CHAPTER XII. WHERE MR. PRINGLE WENT TO. It lias been notified in a previous chapter that Mr. Pringle was in some mental anxiety touching the acquisition of a certain twenty pounds Avhich he :||lrequii'ed for immediate disbursement. Tliis posi- tion he held in common with many of his colleagues at the Tin-Tax Office, and indeed with most jmiior clerks in the Civil Service. " Tlie truth is," says Captain Smoke, in Douglas Jerrold's comedy. The Bullies of the Day, " I want a thousand pounds." " My dear Smoke," says his friend, "there never was a man yet that did not want a thousand pounds." Tlife truth of the axiom is undeniable; only in the Civil Service the amount is much diminished. Twenty pounds, familiarly known as a " tAventyer," is generally the much-desiderated sum among the junior slaves of the Crown ; and it VOL. I. p 210 BROKEN TO HARNESS. was for a " twenty er" that Mr. Pringle now pined. A hosier who some two years before liad sued for Mr. Pringle's custom, nor sued in vain, — who had suppHed him witli under-linen of fine texture and high price, with shirts of briUiant and variegated patterns, with boating jerseys and socks so vivid in stripe that his legs resembled those of the functionary in the opening of the pantomime who by the boys in the gallery is prematm-ely recognised as the fiitm-e clo^vn, owing to the re- splendent beauty of his ankles, — at length, after repeated transmissions of his "little accomit," and after mystic hints that he had not yet seen the colom- of Mr. Pringle's money, brought into action the terrible engines of the law, and summoned his debtor to the County Coui-t. It was at the very latter end of the quarter when this legal ukase was placed in Mr. Pringle's hands, and that gentleman, examining his capital, found it consist of thirty-seven shillings, a silver tln^eepence, and a penny, — which smns were to provide his dinners, cigars, and general pleasures for a fortnight. Clearly, then, out of this no com- WHERE MR. PRINGLE WENT TO. 211 promise coiild be effected; lie could not even go through that performance so dear to the hard- pressed debtor, which is temporarily so soothing and in the end so futile, known as paying " some- thing on account." A five-pound note has the same effect on a tradesman to whom twenty pomids are owing as a wet brush on a very bad hat, — it creates a temporary gleam of comfort, hut nothing more. Mr. Pringle had not even this resource : if he were summoned to the County Court, and if the investigation were reported, as it was sure to be, in The Dalston Dreadnought and De Beauvoir Toivn Looker-on, he should get horribly chaffed by his comrades, perhaps pitched into by the Board, and it would bring all his other creditors down on him. So something must be done, and cash must be raised at once. Mr. Pringle did not laiow where to turn : he had never been a borrower, and hated the idea of asking money-favours from his friends ; moreover, in real truth, he would not have known whom to turn to, had he been so minded. Pres- cott, his Pylades, was by no means overburdened with money — indeed, Mr. Pringle had reason to 212 BROKEN TO HARNESS. believe, was himself pressed by creditors; Kin- chenton's income only sufficed for the keeping up of his modest establishment and for the schooling of Percy ; while Dibb, Crump, Boppy, or any of the other office men, were utterly impracticable in such a case. Finally, he determined that he must " do a bill;" an act of which he had hitherto been innocent, and towards the proper accomplishment of which he thought it best to take the advice of Mr. Eittman. In nearly every Government office there is one impecunious black sheep, — one clerk who is always hovering on the edge of the precipice of insol- vency, over which he finally tumbles, to creep out with life indeed, but with scars and bruises which last him dm'ing the remainder of liis offi- cial existence. This character was in the Tin-Tax Office played by Mr. Rittman, who for years had been " in difficulties," and was thoroughly versed in every species of money-borrowing, were it the loan-simple from a friend, the loan-complex on a bill with a friend's name, the life-insm-ance facile, the loan-office ruinous, tlie bill-of-sale advertised, WHERE MR. PRINGLE WENT TO. 213 or the pawnbroker low. As yet no learned Com- missioner liad sat in judgment on Mr. Rittman's pecmiiary transactions, but he had been in spong- ing-liouses, in Whitecross Street, and in the Queen's Bench; and though his end was rapidly approaching (for he had a couple of sons verging on manhood, and apparently inheriting all their father's frailties), he was never despondent, but maintained a creditable appearance and a cheerful manner. To him Mr. Pringle had gone, on the day before that on wliich we first made his ac- quaintance ; and Mr. Rittman, from the yomig man's manner on entering the room, at once guessed the object of his visit. "How do, Rittman?" commenced Mr. Prin- gle. " Good morning, my dear sir — ^good morn- ing !" said the gentleman addressed, laying down his pen and boAving pleasantly. He had on a voluminous white waistcoat, a great show of sliirt- wristband, and before him, in a tumbler, stood some choice flowers. " Seldom 3^ou come doAvn to this part of the building; keep to the more 214 BROKEN TO HARNESS. aristocratic end — eh?" and Mr. Rittman smiled, and showed a good set of teeth. "No! I don't know — the truth is — I want some advice, and I think you're the man to give it to me." " My dear sir, I shall be delighted. What is it?" (this tin-own off at a tangent to a messenger who appeared in the doorway, saying, " Ere's Brown's man agen, Mr. Rittman"). " Ah ! Brown's man; well, you'd better say I've not yet returned from Jersey, but you expect me on Tuesday. — ^And now, my dear sir ; you were say- ing — some advice?" " Well, the fact is, Rittman, I'm hard up, and I want to borrow some money; and I thought you could — " "Not lend you any? that would be almost too delicious, my dear sir. You didn't think I could lend you any?" and Mr. Rittman screamed with laughter at the absurdity of the idea. " No, no, of course not ; but I thought you might tell me where I could get it." " Oh, that's a totally diiferent thing; of course WHERE MR. PRINGLE WENT TO. 215 I can. I rather pique myself upon knowing more about such matters than most men. Of course I can. Now, let me see — what security can you give?" "Eh?" asked Mr. Pringle. " Security for the repayment? If you borrow from the Eainy Day or Amicable Nest-Eggs Lisurance Office, you must give two sureties, householders, and insm-e for double the amomit of the loan. If you go to the Helping Hand or the Leg-up Loan Office, you must give tlu'ee sm-eties, householders, and pay a lot for office-fees and inquiries, which are made by a dirty-faced man at a pomid a week. If you give a bill of sale on your furniture — " " My good sir," said Pringle testily, '' I've got no furniture. And surely all this bother can't be necessary for tlie sum I want — only twenty pomids." " Twenty pomids ! twenty pomids ! a fleabite, a mere fleabite !" said Mr. Rittman (he had tlu-ee and sevenpence in liis pocket at the moment, and did not know in the least where to tm*n for 216 BROKEN TO HARNESS. more). ^' I hoped you were going to call my generalsliip into play; for I may say, without boasting, that when it's not for myself, I am fer- tile in resources. But — twenty pounds — I'll give you the address of a man who'll let you have it at once." ^^ There won't be any names wanted, or any thing of that sort, will there?" asked Pringle, rather doubtful of this promptitude. "Nothing of the kind; merely your acknow- ledgment. Here's the address — Scadgers, New- man Street. You'll find Mr. Scadgers a cm'ious man, but very pleasant; and when you say you come from me, he'll be very polite. And, ]Mr. Pringle, let me give you one word of ad\dce — Be firm in the matter of Madeira." " In the matter of Madeira?" " Yes, awfiil; you can't stand it. Ostades are bad enough, or a Stradivarius fiddle ; and perhaps, as you're a single man in apartments, a key-bugle mightn't do, as likely to be objected to by the other lodgers — but any of them rather than the Ma- deira." WHERE MR. PRINGLE WENT TO. 217 In the middle of Newman Street stands a paint- less door, in the centre of which gleams a brass- plate, bearing the word " Scadgers," in fat Roman capitals. Nothing else. No " Mr. ;" no descrip- tion of Scadgers' profession ; nothing to break the charm. " Scadgers" stands an oasis of shining brass in a desert of lustreless deal, and winks knowingly at the double-faced portrait, one half dirty, the other half clean, at the j^icture-restorer's over the way. Scadgers' door differed from its fellows in having but one bell-handle ; for Scad- gers' had quite enough business to occupy the whole house, and to demand ramifications in the neighbourhood. All we have to do, in the com-se of this story, is to deal with Scadgers as Scadgers ; but my private belief is, that Scadgers was the Universal Philantlu'opic Man's a Man for a' that Loan Office, held at the Blue Pig and Toothache in Wells Street; that he was " Cash promptly ad- vanced on fLu-niture without removal, freehold and leasehold property, legacies, reversions, warrants, and all other securities. Sheriffs' executions and rent-distraint immediately paid out" (vide advertise- 218 BROKEN TO HARNESS. ment) ; — that lie was " Methuselah's Muffin-Pow- der, or Never say Die" patent medicine, and proprietor-in-chief of " Tlie Hob," a domestic Miscellany, which commenced with weak romance, and failed, but has since achieved an enormous success for itself, and a fortune for its spirited pro- prietor, by the publication of " Baby Clarence; or, My Life at Brompton." Certainly you could not have guessed Scadgers' occupation from the out- side of his residence, which looked hke a dirty lodging-house, like a third-rate boai'ding-house, like those melancholy houses occupied by those most melancholy people on earth, thu'd-rate piano- sellers ; like a house let in rooms to people who lithograph fashion-plates ; like any thing but what it was — a house where more money was made than in nine-tenths of the houses in London. When Mr. Pringle arrived on the Scadgerian steps, he looked for a knocker, and finding none, he pulled the Scadgerian bell. A responsive click and the partial unlatching of the door invited him to push; the door yielded, and he fomid himself in a large and empty hall, on one side of which was a WHERE MR. PRINGLE WENT TO. 219 glass-door, with the word " Office" in faded gilt letters on a white ground. This glass-door being open, Mr. Pringle walked straight through, and found himself in the " office." He had seen a good many offices in his time, but never one like this. He had never seen an office with musical instru- ments in it before; and here were four or five pianos standing ranged against the wall, to say notliing of harps in leather cases leaning drmikenly in corners, and a few cornets-a-piston in green boxes, and a harp or two with blue ribbons to hang them romid your neck by, just as if they had come fresh fi'om the necks of Spanish donnas. And there were slack-baked-looking old pictures in heavy Dutch-metal frames — fuie specimens of old masters — saints with skulls and Bibles in fi.'ont of them, and very ascetic cheek-bones and great phrenological development of talent and corn-age ; Dutch boors standing on one leg and drinking glasses of ale, and yawning youths with an effect of shaded candle-light on their faces. Tliere were modem pictures, too, of lakes and Thames scenery, and girls with fair hair, which, when compared 220 BROKEN TO HARNESS. with the old ones, looked as if they had been painted in milk-and-water ; and there were three driving- whips in one corner, a set of harness across a chair, and the leather cushions of a brougham under it. There was a bronze umbrella-stand formed by a dog holding a whip in his mouth, a big French clock, and a couple of chemist's bot- tles, red and green ; and in the midst of all this confusion stood a little shrivelled old man, Tvdth very white hair and a very red face — a dirty little old man dressed in a rusty suit of black, who ad- dressed Mr. Pringle in a rusty creaking voice, and wanted to know "his pleasure." " I — I wish to speak to Mr. Scadgers," said Mr. Pringle, w^ith a modesty and hesitation alto- gether strange to him. "All !" said the little old man ; " deary me ! yes !" and then he seated himself on the edge of a wine-hamper, and began to comit his fingers with great interest, as though not quite sm-e of the number he really possessed. " Mr. Scadgers !" said Pringle after a minute or two. WHERE MR. PRINGLE WENT TO. 221 "Ah, yes ! I'll call him," said the little old man, and rang a bell which lurked in the corner of the chimney-piece. A great creaking of uncarpeted stairs under heavy boots followed this bell-ringing, and pre- sently Mr. Scadgers entered the room. Mr. Scad- gers' appearance partook of the charming amenities of the prize-fighter and the midertaker : his hair was black and close-cropped, his face white, his nose red, one eye was considerably larger than the other, and one corner of his mouth had a pecu- liar upward twist. He was dressed in black, with a pair of dull leather boots reaching half-way up his thighs ; and as he came through the door, he took a red silk pocket-handkerchief from the crown of his hat, and mopped his head. " Servant, sir!" said Mr. Scadgers, surveying ]\Ir. Pringle with his gleaming black eyes, and reckoning him up in a moment. " What may you want?" " Well," said Mr. Pringle, " I wanted a few minutes' conversation; but private, if you please — " " Oh !" interrupted Mr. Scadgers, " don't mind 222 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Jinks ; he's safe enough — knows all my affairs — thoroughly to be trusted." "Well, then," said Mr. Pringle, hesitating; then, with a desperate rush, " look here ! — fact is — want money !" "Ah !" said Mr. Scadgers, with something like admiration in his tone, " got it out with a rush, didn't you ? That's the only way ! Who told you to come to me ?" "Mr. Kittman, of the— " " I know — Tin-Tax Office. Do you belong to it ? Tliought so. Wretched office ; lost a mint of money in that office. What salary do you get ?" Mr. Pringle mentioned that he was in the re- ceipt of ninety pounds a-year. " All ! twenty-one eighteen and nine on the 5th of every third month — I know all about it ! Now," mopping his head, " how much do you want?" " Twenty pounds." " Lor' bless me ! and when do you want it?" « At once !" " Can't be done, sir ! can't be done !" Violent WHERE MR. PRINGLE WENT TO. 223 mopping. " Haven't got any money in the house. Can't you look in next week, and I might let }'ou have ten ?" Mr.' Pringle romidly asserted that this would not do at all, and turned round towards the door. " Stop, sir !" shouted Mr. Scadgers, making tremendous play with the red-silk handkerchief. '^ What a hasty young man you are ! Look here," — taking out his purse, — " here's a ten- pound note that I promised to young Stephens of the Wafer Office ; he was to have been here by two — noAv its getting on for three, and he's not come. I might let you have that !" " But that's only ten !" said Mr. Pringle. " Only ten! what a way to speak of money! Wait, sir — ^wait; let us see what we can do. Any one likely to look in this afternoon to pay any interest. Jinks ?" " Too late now!" said Jinks, with brevity. "Ah! too late — I dessay! Just look in the cash-box, Jinks, and see what's there ; though I'm afraid it's not much. I should say there wasn't more than three pounds, Jinks !" 224 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Mr. Jinks peered into a little cash-box on the desk before him, and answered, " Just tln-ee pound !" "All! bring 'em out, Jinks; give 'em here. Let's see — ten and tlu-ee's thirteen; and that only leaves me seven-and-six to go on with till Monday ! Never mind : you could have thir- teen, Mr.—" "But I want twenty!" " All, so you do ! Pity you don't want some wine ! I've got some Madeiry as would — but wine ain't money, is it? Tliere's a splendid picture, now, — a Murillo : you might take that." " Pictm^es are not more money than wine ; are they?" " Ain't they? Tliat Murillo's worth ten pound, and any one would give you that for it. Ain't there no one you could sell it to? You see you're in such a hurry for the money, or you might offer it to the National Gallery, or some swell collecting of pictures might buy it, but you're so pressed. Tell you what you might do, though," said Mr. Scadgers, as though sti'uck WHERE MR, PRINGLE WENT TO. 225 by a sudden inspiration : " you might pawn it.'» " How the deuce could I go lugging that pic- tui-e about the streets to pawn it?" said Pringle testily. " No, to be sure ! Stay, look here ! I dare say Jinks wouldn't mind paw^iing it for you. Jinks, look here ; just rmi with this round the comer, will you? Get as much as you can, you know." And without more ado Mr. Jinks put on a reddish-black napless hat, tucked the picture under his arm, and started off. While he was gone Mr. Scadgers asked Mr. Pringle what his name was, how long he had been in the office, where he lodged, and other home-tln^usting questions ; and presently Mr. Jinks returned without the picture, but with three sovereigns and a printed ticket, which he delivered to his master, saymg, ^^ Wouldn't do no more than three," " Three!" said Mr. Scadgers. "WeU, that's nearer to twenty than we was, isn't it? Now, Mr, Pringle," — ^taking a slip of stamped paper VOL. I. Q 226 BROKEN TO HARNESS. from his pocket-book — "just you sign your name at the bottom here. All correct, you see. Fifth of next month, — promise to pay, — value received, — and all the rest of it ; and I'll hand you over sixteen pounds and the ticket ; and when you get that picture out, you'll have a treasure." " Oh, curse the pictm^e !" said Pringle ruefully. " Ah," said Mr. Scadgers, grinning, " that's what they all says. Cuss the picture ! Well, if that ticket ain't any use to you, I don't mind giving you half a pomid for it." " I thought you had only seven-and-sixpence left?" " No more I have, myself; but I might bor- row half a pound from Jinks. ^Vhat do you say? Ah, I thought so. Here, Jinks, put this little dockyment along with your other valuables. Here's the half-pound, sir. Now let's look at your signatm'e. George Townshend Pringle ! Very nice. No relation to Mr. Townshend of Austin Friars — the great Townshend?" " He's my uncle," said Pringle. " I'm named after him." WHERE MR. PRIKGLE WENT TO. 227 " Indeed ! named after liim ! A very capital connexion. Good morning, sir! good morning! I'll look in upon you on the fifth." But after Mr. Pringle had gone Mr. Scadgers still stood with the bill fluttering between his fin- gers, muttering to himself: " Sing'ler that! very sing'ler! For years I hadn't seen the Rmmer until yesterday, when I came across him in Cheapside ; and now to-day I hear of him again. I wonder," added Mr. Scadgers, with a very sinister smile, " whether that little account between me and the Rmmer will ever be womid up? I've owed him one this many a year." CHAPTER XIII. MR. prescott's proceedings. The Hansom cab conve^aiiff Mr. Prescott went at a rapid jiace along the Sti'and, through the Pall-Mail district, and bv divers short cuts into Piccadilly. Tliere was nothing to stop it ; there were no blocks or stop2:)ages ; and as it was the dead season of the year, and every one was out of town, the Commissioners of Sewers were good enough to leave the roads alone ; reserving mitil the traffic was in full play their right to erect gigantic, hideous hoardings in tlie most crowded thoroughfares. Tlie streets were deserted, the public buildings shut up, dust and straw and dirty paper whirled about in the eddying gusts of the autumnal wind, and the entii'e appeai'ance of London was dull and A\Tetclied. People had evidently been in doubt what to do about dress ; MR. prescott's proceedings. 229 and while some were in the faded gaiety of the just-departed summer, others were putting on an even shadier appearance in the creased and awkward garments of the i:)revious winter. The doctors' carriages and the hack-cabs had tlie thorouglifares to themselves ; the occupants of the former, always on the watch for the re- cognition of some favoured patient, sat back in their vehicles, engaged either in the perusal of some medical work, or in happy day-dreams of increased practice, studs of wearied horses, noble introductions, enormous fees, — all culminating, perhaps, in baronetcies and appointments at Court. Of the hack-cabs seen about, but few were Hansoms ; for at that season men who want to go quickly, and don't mind paying a shilling a mile, ai'e at a discomit. Now and then a smi-tanned swell, whose portmanteau atop nearly obstructed the driver's sight, and who liimself was but dimly visible among gun-cases, hat-boxes, and railway- rugs, might have been encountered, passing from one terminus to another ; but the " reg'lar riders," 230 BROKEN TO HARNESS. — tlie lawyer's clerk, with the tape-tied bundle of papers, who charges his cab to ^'the office;" the lounging swell ; the M.P, dashing down to the House ; the smug-faced capitalist, whose brain is full of calculation, and who sits the whole way to the City smiling at all and seeing none ; the impe- cunious speculator, who rides in a cab because he cannot afford to be seen in an omnibus, — all these were away from London. And the fom'-wheelers, though laden, had but dreary bm'dens : the fort- night at Margate is over ; no more morning dips, no more afternoon rambles on the sands, no donkey-backs, no pleasure-boats, no Pegwell Bay now! Paterfamilias is once more Hobbs and Motchkin's out-door at thirty shillings a week; the eight-roomed house in NaA^arino Terrace, Cam- den Town, resumes its wonted appearance ; the children return to the " ciu'rieulum" of education at Miss Gimp's in the Crescent ; and save the sand-covered little wooden spades, which hang from the hat-pegs in the passage, naught remains of their maritime excm-sion. Dreary, dreary, e^ery where ! Dreary down 231 ill old country mansions, where, while the men are pheasant-shooting in the woods, the ladies look dismally on what was lately the croquet-gi'ound, where the gardeners are now busy sweeping up the leaves and pressing them into huge barrows and wheeKng them away ; where the trees stand out gamit and brown, and where the evergreens bordering the pleasant walks rustle with the au- tumnal winds ; where the cracks and flaws and dampnesses of old country mansions begin to make themselves unpleasantly conspicuous ; and where the servants, town-bred, commence to be colded, sniffy, to have shivers and " creeps." Dreary at the sea-side, where the storm-soaked, worm-eaten jetty lately echoing to the pattering feet of chil- dren, or the sturdy tread of the visitor taking his constitutional, is now given OA'er to its normal frequenters — ^tarry-trousered men in blue jerseys and oil-skin sou' -wester hats, who are always looking out for some boat that never arri^'es, or some storm which always comes when they do not expect it; bills are stuck on the pleasant plate- glass bow-windows so lately filled with pretty 232 BROKEN TO HARNESS. girls, rosy children, and parents who dined at two o'clock, and enjoyed their nuts and port -wine " looking over the sea ;" and the proprietors of the lodging-houses, who have lived in damp back- kitchens since June, are once more seen above- ground. Dreary in Continental towns, where home-returning English are finding out that they have spent too much money on their trip, and bewailing the Napoleons left as a ti'ibute to the managers of the Homburg Bank ; where the dis- comforts of the retm-n sea-passage first assert themselves, and where couriers and innkeepers are going in for their last grand turn of robbery and swindle. Dreary, dreary, every where ! but specially dreary in Hyde Park, at the Piccadilly gates, at which Mr. Prescott leaves his Hansom, and strolls into Rotten Row. A blank desert of posts and rails and dry dusty gravel ; a long strip of iron-enclosed sand and grit, with half a dozen figures in the tlu'ee -quarter mile range to break the didl monotony. As Prescott mooned drearily along, at five-minute intervals he would hear the sound of a horse's hoofs, and tm-n- 233 ing rapidly, would find some easy-going steed doing its quiet sanitary business for its owner, a man who, eitlier from circumstances or disposition, never quitted London, but was to be seen at some time or other of the day in the Row, no matter what might be the time of year. Interspersed with these were gi'ooms, riding in that groomy undress of wideawake hat, short, stiff shirt-collar, and tight-fitting, yellow-clay-coloured trousers, trying the wind and bottom of some that were meant to be flyers in the aj)proachiug limiting- season; beasts with heavy, strong quarters, long backs, short, sharp heads, and rolling eyes, with a preponderance of white always showing. Comitry- bred is Mr. Prescott, and cannot therefore divest himself of a certain canniness in the matter of horseflesli : noAv and then he leans over the rail to follow the progress of a horseman flying past, with his hands well down and every muscle of his steed brought into splendid play ; or the healthy gym- nastics of a valetudinarian, who had learned ex- actly the utmost amomit of exercise to be derived from his horse as compared with the least amount 234 BROKEN TO HARNESS. of discomfort to be endured by himself. But these do not rivet his attention ; and he passes on until he is nearly abreast of the Serpentine, when, look- ing back, he sees a blue skirt fluttering in the wind, and in an instant recognising its wearer, pulls up by the rails and waits her advent. It does not take long for that chestnut mare to cover the distance, albeit she is being ridden from side to side, and is evidently receiving her ^' finish- ing" in the elegancies of the manege. In less than two minutes she is pulled up short by the rails where Prescott is standing, and her rider, Kate Mellon, with the colour flushing in her cheeks, with her eyes aglow, with her hair a trifle dishe- velled fi'om the exercise, is sitting bolt upright, and with the handle of her riding- whip giving the young gentleman a mock salute. " Servant, colonel !" says she. " How do you do, Kate ?" says Prescott, lean- ing forward and touching the neat little white cuff on her wrist; " I thought I should find you here." " More than I thought of you!" says the lady. " Why ain't you counting up those figures, and MR. prescott's proceedings. 235 adding and subtracting, and all the rest of it you do in your office, eli ?" " To-day's a half-holiday, Kitty — Satui'day, you know," says Prescott, with rather a grim smile ; for he does not like that rough description of his official duties. *^ Oh, ah!" says the lady, with great simpli- city; " Saturday, ah ! Confomided nuisance some- times ! Lost my net veil one Satm-day afternoon here in the Eow ; went to Marshall and Snelgrove's on my way home ; all shut up tight as wax !" " You're better than you were yesterday, at the station ?" " Oh, yes ; I'm all right ; I shall do well enough ! Wo-ho ! steady, old lady !" (this to the mare). " I'm always better in town. Don't let's stand here ; I can't hold tliis mare quiet, and that's the truth ; she fi'ets on the cm-b most awful." " Most awfully, Kitty, not most awfiil. I've told you of that a hundred times." " Well, most awfully, if you like it better. Steady, Poll! Walk along by my side. Who are you, I should like to know, to pull me up 236 BROKEN TO HARNESS. about my talking ? What right have you to lec- tui'e me about my grammar and that ?" ^' What right?" asks Pre scott, suddenly turn- ing white ; '' none, save the fact of my loving you, Kitty. You know it well enough, though I've never told you in so many words. You know that I do love you ! You can't have seen me hanging about you during the last season, making excuses to come to your place, first there and last to go, hating every man who had more chances of talking to you than I had, — ^you can't have seen all this without knowing that I loved you, Katty !" The mare is pidled suddenly uj) ; there is no one near them in the blank desert of the Row; and her rider says, "And suppose I did know it, — what then ?" Prescott shrugs his shoulders and looks upon the ground, but does not reply. "Have you ever had one word of encom'age- ment from me ? Have you ever seen a look of mine which has led you on? Can you say that, suppose I tell you to let me hear no more of this, — as I do tell you at once and for ever, — I have MR. prescott's proceedings. 237 deceived or thrown you over in anv one way?" "Never!" "Tliank God for that!" says the girl, with some bitterness ; " for that's a chalk in my favour, at least. Now look here ! I know you, James Prescott ; and I know that you're too good a man — too well brought up and fond of home and that sort of thing — to hint any thing but what's right towards me." "Kitty!" " There — I know it. Don't break a blood- vessel with youi' emotion," she added, gently tapping him on the shoulder with her riding- whip. "All right. Well, suppose we were mar- ried, you'd feel very jolly, wouldn't you, while you were do"v\ai at yoiu' office doing your sums and things, which you got so riled when I spoke of just now, to think that Tom Orme, and Claverhouse, and De Bonnet, and a whole lot of fellows, were mooning about this place with me ?" " I'd wring all their necks !" says honest Jim Prescott, looking excessively wobegone. 238 BROKEN TO HARNESS. "Exactly. But you see, if you wrung their necks, they would not send their wives and sisters and daughters to be taught riding at The Den ; they Avould not commission me to look out for ladies' hacks, to break them, and bring them into order; and my trade would be gone. And we couldn't live on the twopence-half- 2)enny a-year you get from your office, Jim, old feUow." " I know that, Kitty," said poor Prescott ; " I Iviiow all that ; but — " "Hold on half a second!" interrupted Kate; " let us look the thing straight in the face, and have tt out, Jim, now and for ever. I know you — Imow you're a thoroughgoing good fellow, sti-aight as an arrow, and know that if you married me, you'd stick to me till you dropped. But you'd have a hard time, Jim — an awful haixl time !" " I should not mind that, Kitty. I'd work for you-" " Oh, it isn't in that way I mean. But how would you stand haA-ing to break off with your own ME. prescott's proceedings. 239 peojile for your wife's sake ? How could you take me down to your governor's parsonage, and intro- duce me there ? How would my manners and my talk please your mother and sisters? It's mad- ness, Jim, — it's worse than madness, — ^to talk of such a scheme. Shake hands, and let's be always good friends — the best of friends. If you ever want a good turn that I can do, you know where I'm to be found. God bless you, old boy; but never mention this subject again !" James Prescott gave a great gulp at a lump which was rising in his throat, and warmly grasj^ed Kate Mellon's proffered hand. As she raised her eyes he noticed her colour fade, and saw a troubled expression in her face. " Good by, Jim," she said hm-riedly. " Just strike down that path, will you ? Get away quickly ; here's some one coming; and — and I don't want to be seen talking to you. Quick ! there's a good feUow. Good by." She touched her horse with her slight whip, and cantered off at once. Prescott looked in the direction she had indicated, and saw Mr. Simnel, 240 BROKEN TO HARNESS. mounted on a handsome thoroughl^red, calmly cur- veting up the Kow. What could there be betw'een Kate Mellon and Kobert Simnel? CHAPTER XIY. MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. After that episode at the stile, which, as it hap- pened, formed such a crisis in their destinies, Barbara Lexden and Frank Churchill did not move towards the house, but quietly turned into that fir plantation through which they had strolled some days previously on their return fi'om the shooting party. At first neither spoke; Barbara walked Avith her eyes downcast, and Churchill strolled idly by her side ; then, after a few paces, he took her unresisting hand and placed it in his arm. She looked up into his face with calm, earnest, trustful eyes, and he bowed his head until, for the first time in his life, his lips touched hers, and as he withdrew them he murmured, *^ My darling! my own darling! thank God for this!" His arm stole round her waist, and for an instant VOL. I. R 242 BROKEN TO HARNESS. he held her tightly clasped ; then gently releasmg her, he again passed her hand tlu'ough his arm, coyered it with his other hand, and walked on quietly by her side. Tliere was no need of sj^eech ; it was all known, all settled, all arranged; that restored gloye, that one fervent sentence, that one look in which each seemed to read the secrets of the other's sonl, had done it all. Tliis was first loye, undisturbed by the fact that on either side there had probably been some half-dozen attacks of that spm'ious article, that saccharine bliss, that state of 2:)leasant tortm-e which reyeals itself in sheep-like glances and deep-drawn sighs, in a tendency to wear tight boots and to increase the already oyer-swollen tailor's bill, to groan and be poetical, and to shrink from butchers' meat. Al- though the existent state of Barbara and Chm'chill had none of these characteristics, it was still first loye. Maryellous, maryellous time! so short in its dm^ation, but leaying such an indelible impress on the memory! A charmed period, a hasheesh- dream impossible eyer to be renewed, a prolonged MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 243 intoxication scarcely capable of realisation in one's sober moments. A tiling of once, wliicli gone never comes again, but leaves beliind it remem- brances wliicli, while they cause the lips to cm^l at their past folly, yet give the heart a twinge in the reflection that the earnestness which outbalanced the folly, the power of entering into and being swayed by them, the youth — ^tliat is it, after all ; confess it! — the youth is vanished for ever and aye. What and where was the glamour, the power of which you dimly remember but cannot recall? Put aside the claret-jug, and, with your feet on the fender, as you sit alone, try and analyse that bygone time. Tlie form comes clearly out of the mist : the dark-brown banded hair, the quiet earnest eyes, the slight lissome figure and delicate hands; and with them a floating remi- niscence of a violet perfiime, a subtle, delicate essence, which made yom' heart beat with extra A-igom* even before your eyes rested on what they longed for. Kisses and hand-clasps and ardent glances were the current coin of those days ; one of either of the former missed, say at parting for 244 BROKEN TO HARNESS. the night, for instance, made you wretched; one of the latter shot in a different direction sent you to toss sleepless all night on your bed, and to rise with the face of a murderer, and with something not very diflPerent from the mind of one. There were heartaches in those days, real dead, dull pains, sickening longings, spasms of hope and fear ; dim dread of missing the prize on the attainment of which the whole of life was set ; a psychical state which would be as impossible to yom' mind now as would the early infantile freshness to your lined cheek, or the curling locks of boyhood to your grizzled pate. It is gone, clean gone. Perhaps it snapped off short with a wrench, lea^-ing its victim vfitli a gaping wound which the searing- iron of time has comj^letely cicatrised ; perhaps it mellowed down into calm, peaceful, conjugal, and subsequently paternal affection. But tell me not, hard-hearted and worldly-minded bachelor, intent on the sublimation of self, and cynically enough disposed to all that is innocent and tender, — tell me not, husband, however devoted to your wife, however proud of yom* ofispring, — tell me MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 245 not that a regret for that vanished time does not sometimes cross yom: mind, that the sense of having lost the power of enjoying such twopenny happiness, ay, and sucli petty misery, does not cost you an occasional pang. It still goes on, that tragi- comedy, the same as ever, though the actors be different, though our places are now in the cushioned gallery among the spectators instead of on the stage, and we witness the performance, not with envy, not with admiration, but with a strange feeling of bewilderment that such tilings once were with us, — ^that the dalliance of the puppets, and the liquid jargon which they speak, once were our dehght, and that we once had the pass-key to that blissful w^orld whose pleasm-es and whose sorrows now alike fail to interest us. So in the thorough enjoyment of this new- found happiness, in all tranquillity and repose, as in a calm haven after tempest, three or four days passed over Barbara and Chm'chill. Their secret was their own, and was doubly dear for being known but to themselves. No one suspected it. Churchill joined the shooting-party on two occa- 246 BROKEN TO HARNESS. sions ; but as lie had previously been in tlie habit of detaching himself after luncheon, no one re- marked his doing so now, and no one knew that the remainder of the day until dinner-time was sj^ent with Barbara alone. After dinner Barbai'a w^ould sometimes sing, and then Chm*chill w^ould hover round the piano, perhaps with more em^ pressemetit than he had previously sho^^^i (because, though fond, as every man of any sensitiveness must be, of music, he was by no means an enthu- siast, and was racked woftdly with smothered yawns during the performance of any elaborate piece), yet hj no means noticeably. And during all the time each had the inward satisfaction of knowing that their words and actions were appreciated by the other, and that the "little look across the crowd," as Owen Meredith says, was full of meaning to and thorougldy understood by the person it was intended to reach. At length, about the fourth day after the proceedings at the stile, their conversation took a more practical turn. They had been wan- dering slowly along, and had at length stopped to rest on a grass-covered bank which was screened MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 247 ft'oin the sight of the distant house by a thick belt of evergi'eens, while far away in front of them stretched a glorious prospect of field and woodland. As sometimes happens in October, the smi seemed to have recovered his old July force, and blazed so fiercely that they were glad to sit under the friendly shade, Barbara had removed the glove from her right hand, and sat looking down at her lover, who lay by her side, idly tracing the com'se of one of the violet veins in the little hand which rested in his own broad palm. Suddenly he looked uj) and said: " Darling, this lotus-eating is rapidly coming to an end. It would be sweet enough, thus * propped on beds of amaranth and moly,' to remain and dream away the time together; but there's the big world before us, and my holiday is nearly finished." " And you must go back to town ?" and the little fingers tightened romid his, and the shapely head was bent towards his face. " Yes, pet ; must. But what of that ? When I go, it is but to prepare for thee, my heart's 248 BROKEN TO HARNESS. darling; but to set things straight for your re- cej)tioii. You're determined, child, to share my lot at once? You've reflected on what I said the other night, about waiting a }'ear to see whether—" '^ !N'o, Frank, no ! those long engagements are utterly hateful. There will you be, I suppose" (and she glanced slyly at him), '' moping by yourself, and there shall I be w^ith another romid of that horrible season before me, thinking of you, longing for you, and yet having to midergo all the detestable nonsense of balls and parties and fetes^ which I so thorouglily despise — for what? At the end to find om-sehes a year older, and you perhaps a tew pounds richer. As though riches made happiness !" said poor Barbara, who, since she had come to what are called years of discretion, had never known what it was to have a whim unindulo-ed. Churchill raised himself on his elbow, and smiled as he smoothed her glossy hair. '' My child," said he, " have you never heard of the philosopher who, Avhen told that poverty MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 249 was no crime, rejoined, ' No ; no crime ; but it's deuced inconvenient' ? Kecollect, furnished lodg- ings in Mesopotamia, hack cabs to ride in, no Parker to ch'ess your hair, no Rotten Row — by Jove, when I think of it, I feel almost inclined to rush off and never see you again, so horrible is the change to which holdino; to me must lead you !" and a dark shadow passed across his face. " Do you?" asked Barbara, bending so closely over him that he felt her warm breath on his cheek; "do you?" she repeated, with such a dash of earnest in her jesting tone that Churchill thought it necessary^ to slip his arm romid her, and press his lips to her forehead in reassurance. " Why, you silly boy, you forget that when I was a child at home with papa, I knew what poverty was; such poverty as would make what you speak of wealth by comparison. Besides, shall we not be together to share it ? And you'll buy me a — what do they call it? — a cookery book, and I'll learn all kinds of housekeeping ways. I can do some things already; Guerin, the Morrisons' chef — who was a little struck with 250 BROKEN TO HARNESS. me, I think, sir — sIioavccI Clara Morrison and me how to make an omelette ; and Maurice Glad- stone — my cousin Maurice, you know; when we Avere staying at Sandgate, he was quartered at ShornclifFe — taught me to do bashawed lobster, and he says my bashawed lobster is as good as Sergeant Pheeny's. And you know all the Guards are mad to get asked to sup Avith Ser- geant Plieeny, who's a lawyer, you know, and not a soldier-sergeant." And she stopped quite out of breath. " ' You know' and ' you know,' " said Chur- chill, mocking her ; ''I do know Sergeant Plieeny, as it hapj^ens, and his bashawed lobster, and that dish and omelettes will doubtless be our staple food ; and you shall cook it, and clean the sauce- pans afterwards, you little goose. However, I tell you candidly, darling, though it somids selfish, I dare not run the risk of losing you, even with all these difficulties before us. As you say, we shall share them together, and — " " Now, not another word !" said Bai'bara, placing her hand upon his lips ; " there are to MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 251 be no difficulties, and all is to be arranged at once. And I tliink the first thing to be done is for me to speak to my aunt." " Ay," said Churchill, with rather a dolorous expression of face ; "I am afraid that will be what yom- friend Captain Lyster would call a * teaser.' Talking about no difficulties — ^^ve shall find one there !" "I do not think so. I am sure, Frank, my aunt has sho^^ai special politeness to ?/oi«." ^' Yes, darling, politeness of a certain kind to people in my position. Don't frown ; I have long since di'opped that distinction as between om'- selves. But I mean so far as the outer world is concerned, to people in my position — authors, artists, and ' professional people' of all kinds — mixing in society, there are always two distinct varieties of pohteness. One, which seems to say, ^ You are not belonging to nous autres ; you are not a man of family and position ; but you bring something which is a distinction in its way, and which, so far as this kind of acquaintance goes, entitles you to a proper reception at oiu- hands.' 252 BROKEN TO HARNESS. The other, which says as plainly, ^ You don't eat peas with your knife, or wipe your lips with the back of your hand; you're decently dressed, and will pass muster; while at the same time you're odd, quaint, amusing, out of the common rmi, and you present at my house a sort of appanage to my position.' I think Miss Lexden belongs to the latter class, Barbara." " I am afraid that old feeling of class-prejudice is a monomania with you," said Barbara, a little coldly: "however, I will see my amit, and bring matters to an issue there at once." " All luck go with you, child ! Tliere is one chance for us. Tlie old proverb says, ^ Femme savante est toujour s galaiite.^ Miss Lexden is a clever woman; perhaps has had her own love- affairs, and will feel pity for ours. But, Barbara, in case she should be antagonistic — ^violently, I mean — ^you will not — " " Monsieur J '' said Barbara, with a little inflated moue^ " la garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas, as Cambronne did not say. No, no ; trust in me. And now give me your arm, and let us go home." MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 253 It was a point of honour with old Miss Lexden to have the best room in every house where she visited; and so good was her system of tactics, that she generally succeeded. Far away in north- ern castles, where accommodation was by no means on a par with the rank of their owners, duchesses had been Avorse lodged and infinitely worse attended to than this old commoner, whose bitter tongue and incapacity for reticence did her yeoman's ser- vice on all possible occasions; not that she was ever rude, or even impolite, or said any thing ap- proaching to actual savagery ; but she had a knack of dropping hints, of firing from behind a masked battery of complacency, and of rouglily rubbing "raws," which was more eff'ective than the most studied attacks. As spent balls, when rolling calmly along, as innocuous, apparently, as those "twisters" of Hilly er's, which evade the dexterous " dip" of the longstop on the smooth short sward of the Oval, have been known, when attempted to be stopjjed, to take off a foot, so did old Miss Lex- den's apparently casual remai'ks, after to all ap- pearance missing their aim, tear and womid and 254 BROKEN TO HARNESS. send limping to the rear any one who rashly chanced to answer or gainsay her. Women, with that strange blmidering upon the right so often seen among them, seemed to guess the diabolical power of the old lady's missiles, and avoided them with graceful ease, making gentle detours^ which led them out of harm's way, or cowering for shelter in elegant attitudes under projecting platitudes ; but men, in their conscious self-strength, would often stand up to bear the brunt of an argument, and always came away worsted from the fight. So that old Miss Lexden generally had her own way amongst her acquaintance, and one important part of her o"v\ti way was the acquisition of the OTeatest comfort wherever she staved. Of course, in an easy, regulated household like that of Sir Marmaduke 'Went^vortll, there was no need of special strategy. Years ago, on her first visit, she had selected her apartments, and had had them reserved for her ever since. Pleasant apart- ments they were, large, airy, and with a glorious look-out across the garden over the smTOunding downs. When the windows were open, as they MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 255 always were when practicable during Miss Lexclen's tenancy, — for the old lady was a great lover of fresh air, — the rooms were tilled with the per- fume of the flowers, occasionally mixed with fresh, healthy sea-smell. These had been the state- rooms in the Grange in bygone times ; and when Miss Lexden first came there, there was a huge bed, with nodding plmnes at the foot, and a great canopy, and high-backed solemn chairs, and a big wardrobe like a family mausoleum ; but the old lady had all these cleared away, and persuaded Sir Marmaduke to refurnish the rooms with a suite of light maple and moss-rosebud chintz, w^ith looking-glass let into the panels of the ward- robe, and snug little low chairs scattered about ; and then, with a chintz paper, and water-colour (h'awings in light frames, the place was so changed that the old housekeeper, who had been in the family for years, scarcely kncAv it again, and was loud in her lamentations over the desecration. Miss Lexden was a lazy old lady, who always breakfasted in bed, and when staying on a visit at a country-house generally remained the greater 256 BROKEN TO HARNESS. portion of the day in her room. She was accus- tomed to say witli great freedom that she did not amuse the young people, and they certainly did not amuse her, and that she hated all old people except herself. She was a gi'eat correspondent of all kinds of j^eople, wrote lengthy epistles in very excellent French to all kinds of refugees, who were perpetually turning up in different parts of Europe, and working the oracle for their o^vn pm-poses ; wrote lengthy epistles to American statesmen on the slavery question, to English lecturers on sub- jects of political economy, and to her special friends on all points of domestic scandal. I fear that, with the exception of the last, her correspondence was not much regarded, as she never sent to reftigees any thing but her blessing and her prayers ; and these, even though coming fr'om an English miladi, were not discountable at any Geld-ivechsel Comp- toir on the Continent. But her Chronique Scan- daleuse was delicious ; it was bold in invention, full in detail, and always w^ritten in the most pointed and epigrammatic style. There were people who obtained autumn invitations on the MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 257 sheer strength of their being recipients of Miss Lexden's correspondence. Extracts from her let- ters were read pubhcly at the brealdast-table, and created the greatest dehght. " Good as a book, by Jove !" was a frequent comment on them ; " full of humoiu-, and that land of thing ; sort of thing that fellow writes and people pay money for, by Jove ! ought to send it to Pwicli, that she ought." (For it is a thing to be noted, that if the aristocracy of this great comitry ever permit themselves to be amused, they invariably think that the thing which amused them, no matter of what kind.it be, ought to be sent to Punch.) Miss Lexden also was a great reader of French novels ; she subscribed regularly to Rolandi's, and devom-ed all that sound sense, morality, pliilosophy, and extensive know- ' ledge of the world, which yearly issued from the Parisian publishers. Li bygone times she had laughed heartily over the farcical humour of M. Paul de Kock ; now that her palate had somewhat dulled, Fortmie had sent her the titillating works of M. Gustave Flaubert, M. Xavier do Montepin, M. Ernest Feydeau, and others of that modern VOL. I. s 258 BROKEN TO HARNESS. school whicli delights in calling a spade a spade, with the broad theories of M. Proudhon to be her political guide, and the casuistries of M. Renan for her Sunday reading. She read all, but liked the novels best ; and had been seen to weep over a yellow-covered volume in which an elegant mar- quis, all soul and black eyes, a memhre du Jockei- Cluh, and altogether an adorable person, had to give satisfaction to a brute of a husband who ob- jected to being dishonoui'ed. With one of these yellow-covered volumes on her lap, ]\Iiss Lexden was sitting placidly in the easiest of chairs at the open window on the after- noon when Barbara and Churchill held the con- versation just narrated. She was a pleasant-look- ing old lady, with a fat, ^vl'inkleless, full face, like an old child, with a shiny pink-and-white com- plexion, and with hair which defied you to tell whether it had been wonderfully well preserved, or admirably dyed, arranged under a becoming cap. She was dressed in a rich brown moire-antique silk, and with a black-lace shawl thrown over her ample shoulders; her fat, pudgy little hands, MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 259 covered with valuable rings, were crossed over the book on her lap ; and she was just on the point of dro^iping off into a placid slumber, when there came a knock at the door, immediately upon which Barbara entered the room. " Well, Barbara," said the old lady, stifling a yawn; "is it time to di'ess? I've done nothing since luncheon but read this ridiculous book, and I was very nearly di'opping asleep, and I've no notion of the time ; and Withers is always gadding about in this house with that steward, and never comes near me till the last moment." "It is quite early, aunt; scarcely six o'clock yet ; and I came up to you on purpose to have a quiet cause with you before you dressed. I think I have news which will keep you awake. You've not asked me of my flirtations lately." " My dear child, why should I ask ? I in- terested myself about Lord Hinchenbrook because he was the parti of the season, and because to have carried liim off from that odious doll, that Miss Musters, as you could easily, would have been a triumph to us both ; but you refused. I 260 BKOKEN TO HARNESS. interested myself about young Clialdecott because our families had long been intimate, and the largest property in Yorkshire is worth interesting oneself about ; but you refused. You know your own mind best, Barbara, and / know that you have too much good sense and real notion of what is right to do a foolish thing; so I leave you to youi'self, and don't worry you with any ques- tions." '' Tlianks, aunt, for your good opinion," said Barbara, playing with a sprig of scarlet geranium which she had taken from a vase on the table; " but I shall give you no furtlier trouble. I am 2:oino; to be married." " Sir Charles Clialdecott has AMritten?" said the old lady, putting aside the book, and sitting upright in her chair ; " has \\Titten ; and you — ?" and in her anxiety Miss Lexden smiled so un- guardedly that, for the first time in her life, the gold-settings of her false teeth were seen by a looker-on. " I — ^we shall not hear any more of Sir Charles Chaldecott, aunt," said Barbara hesitatinglv ; " no ; MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 261 I am going to be married to a gentleman now staying in this liouse." Miss Lexden's face fell ; tlie gold teeth-settings disappeared from view entirely ; and she slirugged her shoulders as she said, " Very well, my dear ; I feared something of the sort. If you like to settle on tln-ee thousand a year, and to take a man whose constitution is ruined by the Indian climate, I can only say — it is your affair." Barbara bit her lips to avoid betraying a smile as she replied, " You are wrong again, amit. Captain Lyster has never done me the honom- of an offer." Then seriously, " I am going to be married to Mr. Chm-chill." " WliatT^ shrieked the old lady, sm'prised out of all decorum ; " what ?" Then, after an instant's pause, "I beg your pardon, Barbara; did I not understand you to say that you were going to be married to Mr. Churchill, the — the gentleman now staying in this house ?" " You did so understand me, amit, and it is the fact." " Then," said Miss Lexden, in rather a low, 262 BROKEN TO HARNESS. flat key, " I'll trouble you to ring the bell for Withers. It must be time for me to dress for climier." Barbara looked astonished, and would have spoken ; but her aunt had risen from her chair and turned her back on her, moving towards the dressing-table. So she mechanically rang the bell, and left the room. With the result of this conversation Chm'chill was made acquainted as he and Barbara bent together over a large stereoscope in the di-awing- room before dinner. In a few hmTied words, in- terspersed with ejaculations of admiration at the views, uttered in a much louder tone, Barbara conveyed to her lover that their project would meet with no assistance from her amit, even if that old lady did not actively and violently oppose it. Chm'chill shrugged his shoulders on hearing this, and looked somewhat serious and annoyed; but as she rose to go in to dinner, Barbai'a pressed his hand, and looking into her face he saw her eyes brighten and her lip cmd with an expression of triumph, and he recognised in an instant that MISS LEXDEN ON MATIilMONY. 263 lier energy had risen at the prospect of opposition, and that her determination to have her own way had strengthened rather than lessened from her aunt's treatment. Tliere was an accession to the dinner-table that day in the person of Mr. Schroder, a German long resident in England, and partner in the great house of Schroder, Stutterheim, Hinterhaus, and Company, bankers and brokers, which had branches and ramifications in all the principal cities of the world. No one would have judged Gustav Schro- der to have been a keen financier and a consum- mate master of his business from his personal ap- pearance. He was between fifty-five and sixty years old, heavy and dull-looking, with short, stubbly, iron-gray hair, dull boiled eyes, and thin dry lips, which he was constantly sucking. He was clumsy in his movements, and very tacitiu'n ; but though he spoke little, even to Miss Towns- hend, by whom he was seated, he seemed to de- rive intense satisfaction in s^azino^ at her with a proprietorial kind of air which nearly goaded Lys- ter, sitting directly opposite to them, to despera- 264 BROKEN TO HARNESS. tion. Upon his evidently uncomfortable state Caj^tain L}'ster was rallied with great humour by old Miss Lexden, who, however much she may have been inwardly annoyed, showed no signs of trouble. She opined that Captain Lyster must be in love ; that some shepherdess on the neighbour- ing downs, some Brighton j^oissaixle, must have captivated him, and she was delighted at it, and it would do him good ; and in spite of Lyster' s pro- testations — which, however, he soon gave up when he found he had the trouble of re2:)eating them — the old lady launched out into a very unusual tirade on her part in favour of early marriages, of love-matches made for love's sake alone, which frequently tm-ned out the happiest, '' didn't they, Mr. Chmx'hill?" At which question Churchill, who was dreamily looking across the table, and thinking how artistically Barbara's head was posed on lier neck, and what a lovely ear she had, stam- mered an inarticulate and inaj^propriate reply. But when dinner was over, and the ^iost- prandial drink finished, and the cofi^'ee consumed in the drawing-room, and the '' little music'* MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 265 played, and tlie ladies had retired to rest (Bar- bara, in her good night to Chui'chill, giving one reassuring hand-pressure, and looking as saucily triumphant as before), and the men had exchanged their dress-coats for comfortable velvet lomiging- jackets, and had, in most cases, dispensed with their white cravats; when Sir Marmaduke had nodded his farewell for the night, Churcliill, in- stead of joining the party in the smoke-room, made his way to the old gentleman's quarters, and knocked at the dressing-room door. Bidden to come in, he fomid Sir Marmaduke in his dressing-gown and slippers, seated before a fire (for the evenings were begimiing to be chilly), with a glass of cold brandy-and-water on a little table at his right hand, and the evening paper on his knee. " Holloa !" was the old gentleman's saluta- tion; "what's in the wind noAV? There must be something the matter when a yomig fellow like you, instead of joining in the nonsense down- stairs, comes to limit out an old fogey like me. What is it?" 266 BROKEN TO HARNESS. " Business, Sir Marmaduke," commenced Cliurcliill; "I want five minutes' business talk with you." " God bless my soul !" growled Sir Marma- duke; "business at this time of night, and with me! You can't talk without something to di'ink, you know. Here, Gumble ; another tumbler and the brandy for Mr. Churchill. Why don't you talk to Stone, my dear fellow? he manages |p my business, you know." " Yes, yes. Sir Marmaduke ; but this is for you, and you alone. I came to tell you that I am going to be married." "Ay, ay! no news to me, though you tliink it is. What's his name, Beresford, told us all about it. Well, well, deuced risky business ; wish you well tlu'ough it, and all that kind of thing. Don't congratulate you, because that's all 1mm- bug. But why specially annomice it to meV " Simply because it is yom' due. I met tlie lady in this house, and the fii'st introduction was tlu'ough you. I don't know what nonsense Ml'. Beresford may have been spreading, but the MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 267 real fact is that I am going to be married to Barbara Lexdeii. Now you see my motive." " I'm obliged to you, sir," said tlie old man, rising fi'om his chair and extending liis hand; " you've acted like a gentleman, by Jove ! like a gentleman and a man of honour. God bless my soul! how I recollect your father, Frank, and how like you are to him! And so you're going to marry little Barbara! not little Barbara now, though. How time flies! A good girl, sir ; and a deuced fine girl too, for the matter of thai What does her aunt say to that? She meant her for much higher game than you, yomig fellow. What does her amit say? Does she know of it — Does Miss Lexden know of it? I'll wager there'll be ' wigs upon the green,' as poor Dick Bm'ke used to say, when she hears of it." "Miss Lexden has heard of it, sir," said Chm'chill, smiling; "and I'm afraid she did not receive the news very auspiciously; but we shall endeavour to gain her consent, and if we fail — well, we must do without it. And now I won't keep you from your paper any longer. I thought 268 BROKEN TO HARNESS. it my duty to tell you, and having done so, I'll say good night." " One minute, Frank Chui'chill; wait one minute. I'm a queer, useless old fellow — an old brute, I often tliink, for I'm not unconscious of the strange life I lead and the odd — ^but, how- ever, that's neither here nor there. Your father and I were boon companions — a wild, harmn- scarum chap he was — and such company — and I've a regard for you, which is strengthened by your conduct to-night. My old cousin. Miss Lexden — well, she's an old lady, you know, and she meant Barbara for a marquis, at least; and then old women hate to be disappointed, you know, and she'll be savage, I've no doubt. But when you're once married she won't be difficult to deal with, and so far as I can help you I will. And now, God bless you, and good night ; and — give Barbara a kiss for me in the morning." About the same time another conversation on the same great topic was going on under the same roof. Barbara had scarcely been five minutes in MISS LEXDEN ON MATRIMONY. 269 her room, and had been leaning thoughtfully, with her arms upon the window-sill, gazing out into the moonlit park, and utterly oblivious of Parker, who was preparing the instrument of torture for her mistress's hair, when Withers arrived with a message that Miss Lexden wished to speak to her niece. Obedient to the summons, Barbara crossed the landing, and found the old lady, resplendent in a dark-bhie cashmere cbess- ing-gown, seated before her fire. Wither's dis- missed pro tem.^ Miss Lexden said: " I'll not detain you long, Barbara. I merely wished to know whether what you said this even- ing about your intended marriage with Mr. Chm'chill was jest or earnest." " Thorough earnest," replied Barbara, regard- ing her stedfastly. "As to marriage, I mean ?" asked the old lady; " not as to a temporary flirtation, which,/aMf6 de mieuw, with a pleasant man in a dull coimtry house, is well enough, and not likely to tell against one's interests. But as to marriage ?" "What I said before, aunt," said Barbara 270 BROKEN TO HARNESS. slowly, never dropping her eyes, " I repeat. Mr. Churcliill has done me the honour to ask me to be- come his wife. I have consented, and I mean to keep my word." " Ve-ry well," said Miss Lexden, drawing a long breath ; "I only wished to know. You are your own mistress, and control youi' own actions, of course. You have made yoiu' choice, and will abide by it. I don't seek to influence you one jot. But, recollect one thing : if I were to see you with broken health, with broken spirits, ill-used, de- serted, star^^ng — as is likely enough, for I know these people — I would not lift one finger to help you, after your degradation of me. I have said it, and you know I keep my word. Tliat is all ; we will have no quarrel, and give no occasion for shoulder-sln^ugs and scandal. The sooner yoiu' arrangements permit of your quitting my house, the better pleased I shall be. Now, good night. Withers, I am ready now. See Miss Lexden to her room. Good night, dear." Tlie old lady proffered her enamelled cheek, against which Barbara laid the tip of her nose. And so the aunt and niece separated for the night. CHAPTER XV. MOTHER AND SON. At the drawing-room window of a lionse in Great Adullam Street, Macpelah Square, in that district of London whilom known as " Mesopotamia," a lady had been sitting from an early horn* in the afternoon until now, when twilight falls upon the neighbourhood. Tliis, I am aware, does not par- ticularly fix the hour, because twilight falls upon the Mesopotamian neighbom^hood earlier than on any other with which I am acquainted. You leave Oxford Street in a blaze of sunlight, which bit by bit decreases as you progress tlu'ough the dingy streets and the dull, vast, second-rate squares, until when you enter upon the confines of Great Adul- lam Street you find the glory of the day departed, a yellow fog settling gloomily down, and the gene- ral aspect suicidal. At the time of which I am 272 BROKEN TO HARISTESS. speaking, the twilight had been a settled thing for at least an liour,— it was approaching six o'clock. The lamps were lighted, and the inhabitants of the neighbouring houses had pulled their blinds do^\Ti and settled in for the night ; but still at No. 57 the lady sat in the drawing-room window, staring out into the yellow fog. The street lamp flickering on her showed her to be a woman of about sixty years old, with clean-cut regular features, intelligent but sweet expression, and with gray hair — almost wdiite — arranged in broad bands on either side her face. Her dress was black silk, with a soft white-muslin cape pinned across her breast, and on her head she w^ore a plain Avhite-muslin cap with a little crimped border. On her hands she had black- lace mittens, and she wore a few old-fashioned but valuable rings. A glance at her would have pro- claimed her a lady to the most casual observer, a w^oman of taste and refinement and sensibility to the physiognomist ; and a further study would have shown the latter deeply-indented traces of mental anxiety and suffering. Indeed, Eleanor Chm'chiU's life had not been a MOTHER AND SON. 273 particularly liappy one. Daughter of a country clergyman near Bath, she lost both her parents be- fore she was eighteen, and remained in the school where she was being " finished" after their death, giving her services as teacher for her board and lodging. Here she was seen and admired by Vance Churcliill, who attended the school as draw- ing-master; a wild young fellow, full of talent, who worked (at intervals) like a horse, and whose splendid method of touching-up the pupils' draw- ings, so as to make them look all their own, re- deemed many of his shortcomings, and caused him to be continued in favour at Minerva House. But when he fell in love with the pretty teacher, and muttered love to her as he was sharpening pencil- points, and was seen by the writing-master — an old person of seventy, who was jealous of his young confrere— 'to hand her a note in a copy of the Laws of Perspective, and on being taxed with his crime acknowledged it and gloried in it, it became impos- sible for the Miss Inderwicks, as the girls called them, or the Misses Inderwick, as they called them- selves, to stand it any longer. So both the delin- VOL. I. T 274 BROKEN TO HARNESS. quents were discharged; and ha^nng nothing to live uj)onj they at once got married, and came up to London. Once there, Vance Churcliill set to work with a will : he drew on wood, he litho- graphed, he drew languishing heads for the music- shops, and caricatures political and social ; he finished several elaborate sketches in water-colour and in oil ; but he sold scarcely any thing. There was not that demand for art in those days there is now, and consequently not that chance of liveli- hood for its possessors ; and Vance Churchill and his young wife were very near to starvation indeed, and had buried one little girl-baby, who, had luxu- ries been provided for her, might have lived, when a small pictm-e of Lady Macbeth, which had fomid a place in the Somerset-House Exhibition, was seen and pm'chased by Sir Jasper Wentworth, our old friend Sir Marmaduke's micle and his prede- cessor in the baronetcy. From that time Vance Chm'chill's fortune was looked upon as made ; for Sir Jasper, who had a nice eye for art, took him up, introduced him right and left, and got him conmiissions without end. Yomig Marmaduke, a MOTHER AND SON. 275 free-spoken, jolly yo^^ng man, coeval with the artist, took an immense fancy to him, and was never happy save in his society; money was, if not plentiful, always to be had, — and Eleanor Churchill was more wretched than she had ever been in the days of her direst poverty. For though Vance Chm'chill could struggle against poverty, neglect, and hardship, he could not withstand ease, comparative wealth, and the attractions of society. He was eminently a " so- cial" man ; a big, jolly jovial fellow, with bright blue eyes, large brown whiskers, and a splendid set of teeth. He had capital lungs, and sang a capital song in a deep baritone voice, and he had nice feeling in his singing, which so seldom ac- companies correct musical execution ; but when Vance Churchill sang " Farewell, my trim-built Wherry," or " Tom Bowling," all the female portion of his audience was in tears, while the men felt husky and uncomfortable. He became the rage in a certain set of fast young men about to^svn, and in that pleasant Upper Bohemia wherein so many literary men, artists, and actors 276 BROKEN TO HARNESS. of tliat day used to spend their time ; not a Bohemia of taprooms and sanded floors, of long clay-pipes and spittoons and twopennyworths of gin, nor of Haymarket night-honses and drmiken trulls, nor of blind-hooky and vingt-et-un parties in dingy chambers ; but a Bohemia of green- rooms and coulisses, of sparkling little suppers afterwards at Vauxhall, where wit would flow as fast as the champagne, where jokes would be more telling than the hot punch, and whence the mad party would not mifrequently dash away in their carriages to breakfast at the Star and Garter at Richmond, or to drink fresh milk and eat fresh l^utter in a Hampstead farmhouse. A Bohemia, the denizens of which always would have good clothes and fine linen on their backs, gold watches in their pockets, and guineas in their purses, let who would pay for it ; and who roared with laughter at the astonishment of the world at their vagaries, increasing their eccentricities, and saying of the world as Balzac's actress said, '^ QiCimporte f donne leur des grimaces j^our leur argent J et vivons heureux .^" MOTHER AND SON. 277 Petted and feted by the style of society in wliicli he revelled, Vance Churchill had yet the grace not to attempt to force his wife to join it ; indeed he had good reason for keeping her away. For the ladies liked Vance Churchill vastly, and Vance returned the compliment, and behaved just as though there were no moral and legal ties binding him to any one in particular. He loved his wife sincerely all the time, and in his quiet moments would tear his hair, and stamp upon the gromid, and curse his own weakness and folly, and his treatment of that angel who sat patiently at home attending to and teaching their little boy, and who never reproached him save by her pale face and broken spirit ; and then, as evening came romid, Marmaduke "Wentworth would call for him, or the servant would bring him a dainty little note, written in a very scrawly hand, which she would hold in the corner of her dingy apron, and which Vance would seize from her, and after reading it he would sally out, and commence his vagaries da capo. Preaching before Mary Queen of Scots and 278 BROKEN TO HARNESS. her maids of lionoui', old John Knox is reported to have said : " Oh, how beautiful, how charm- ing, how pleasm-able would be this life, if it would only lastr Tliese were Mr. Vance Churchill's sentiments, but he soon fomid that it would not last. What the writers of those ghastly imposi- tions, bacchanalian ditties, call "wine and wo- men," or "beauty and the bowl," don't agree with hard work ; and if you go to bed at five a.m. after orgies, you w^ll not be able to paint your pictures next day, or to Avrite yom' book, or mould yom- clay, or study yom' part. It is as- tonishing how slow people are to believe this, and how, year after year, we see fi'iends and ac- quaintances still determined, not merely upon bm-ning the candle at both ends, but lighting any bit of wick that may protrude in the middle, and quite astonished when they see the flame flicker and feel the whole affair about to collapse. Vance Churchill had plenty of commissions for pictiu'es from first-rate people, — noblemen, connoisseurs, and patrons of art, — but he did not give him- self the chances of painting them : his brain was MOTHER AND SON. 279 never clear enough for conception, his hand never steady enough for execution ; and the result was, that his financial affairs became desperate. His noble patrons never dreamed of parting with their money mitil the work was done — and in truth not often then ; and there were in those days no middle men, no bland picture-dealers, to ad- vance large sums on mitouched canvases; and even if there had been, they would have been far too wise to let Yance Churchill have any money on the strength of "working it out." So the money dwindled and dwindled, and then Vance began borrowino; of his friends mitil he fomid averted faces and buttoned pockets, and then he faded straight away out of his grand society, and took lodgings at Chelsea, and tried once again to work for liis livelihood. He painted one picture, which showed but few traces of liis old force and promise. It was plain that the mischief was done ; and then Vance Churchill, after steadily drinking for four days, was fomid one morning with an empty laudanum-phial in his clenched fingers, and a heart-breaking letter to his wife by his side. 280 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Tlien Eleanor Churchill — avIio, while perfectly conscious of her husband's frailties and imperfec- tions, had never ceased worshipping him — fairly broke down ; and had she not been attended by a skilful j^hysician, and perseveringly nursed night and day by the girl wdio had been " scrub" at Miss Indenvick's school, and had left when Eleanor left to follow her fortunes, little Frank would have been motherless as w^ell as fatherless. As it was, she recovered, and went away, so soon as she was able to move, to a little fishing-village in Devon, of which an old friend of her father's was vicar. Her income w^as a mere pittance ; contributions from old friends of her husband's family and her o^^^l gimdgingly yielded ; but her expenses were trifling, and the old parson took the boy's edu- cation under his own charge, and gave him an excellent classical gromidwork. The ^dcar died when Frank was about fifteen, and left the whole of his little savings — some seven hmidred pounds — to Eleanor Churchill, '' for the furtherance of her son's education ;" and then the widow carried out her long-cherished plan of sencb'ng her son to MOTHER AND SON. 281 some foreign university, where, in addition to liis Classics, he could perfect himself in some of the modem languages. Frank was absent at Leipzig nearly four years, during which period he paid two flying visits to England, at the second of which he was introduced to his godfather. Sir Marmaduke Wentworth, who had succeeded to the family title on his micle's death. Frank little thought that one of Sir Marmaduke's first acts on coming into his property had been to settle two hmidred a year on Mrs. Churchill for her life ; he would hear of no refusal. "It is merely an act of reparation," said he ; " and but a scanty one. It was my folly, my bad example, that led poor Vance astray ; and I should never rest if I thought that those he left behind him were in want, while I had means." But one condition was attached to this gift, and that was that Frank should never know of it. "I recollect Vance's spirit in his best days," Marmaduke said ; " and if the boy is like him, he'd fling my money at my head." After taking his degree, Frank was fortunate enough to render himself so agreeable to yomig 282 BROKEN TO HARNESS. Fortinbrass, the son of the great Indian pale- ale brewer, that that young plutocrat insisted on taking him with him as half-secretary, half-bear- leader, in his tour through Europe and the East ; and as they stoj^ped at every place where there was any thing to be done, and a good many at wliich there was nothing to be done, and as they had the usual share of quarantine, and as Fortin- brass took ill at Smyrna and had to lay up for four months, it was full tlu'ee years before Frank returned to England. Then he determined to settle down and get to work in earnest; and after a few rebuffs and discouragements, philo- sopliically encoimtered, he made his mark in the press world, and obtained constant and fairly remunerative employment. Then the house in Great Adullam Street was taken, as handy to the Statesman office, Frank's head-quarters, and fur- nished partly with the best of the Devonsliire furnitm-e, and partly with odds and ends bought cheap at sales, for the joint income was but small, and Eleanor had a wholesome horror of debt. And then the full tide of Eleanor Chm'chill's MOTHER AND SON. 283 happiness flowed in : she had loved her husband ; she had worsliipped his memory in her holy of hoHes; she had preserved liis image, and had bowed down before it; with his death vanished all liis shortcomings, but his better qualities — the early affection, kindness, and chivahy — ^were remembered. But now that her son was with her, the old image faded and rapidly paled. Here was one uniting: the excellences of liis father with virtues w^hich his father never possessed, temper- ing liigh spirits and ardent affection with earnest- ness, industry, and honour; no mawkish senti- mentalist, no prudish Pharisee ; a man of passions and impulse, yet a Christian and a gentleman, and above all — ^lier own boy. Tliat was the touch- stone; that was the grand secret. He had liis flirtations, of com'se ; his intrigues, perhaps ; but he was her son, her companion, and slie was liis honoured mother, but she was also his trusted friend. All his hopes and fears, all the fun and gossip of the day, were brought by him to her; he talked to her on books and art and social questions ; he read to her and with her ; he ad- 284 BROKEN TO HARKESS. vised her on her own reading, and he brought home Avith him men of Eui'opean fame and name, and introduced her to them, and made much of her before them. If it would only last ! Beware of that, Eleanor Chm*chill ! Some one must reign after you, and with her uprising must be youi' do^\aisetting. It was ever so. Ask not why tarry the wheels of his chariot, for the news that he brings with him will wring and torture your fond, trusting heart. The old lady's face, which had grown some- what worn and rigid in watching, brightened as she heard the somid of wheels in the distance, and as she saw a hansom cab come plmiging and rat- tling over the uneven stones, to be finally pulled up with a jerk before the door. As Frank Chm'chill sprang out, he looked up to the window and waved his hand. In a minute he had rmi up-stairs and was in his mother's arms. " Why, my boy, how late you are !" said Mrs. Churchill, as she relaxed her embrace. " You must be famished for your dinner, my poor fellow!" " Excursion-trains, mother, your fiivoui'ite doc- MOTHER AND SON. 285 trine of health and change for your old proteg^ tlie working-man, you know, have contributed to your anxiety and my delay. We were stopped at Forest Hill for a train full of people, with droop- ino^ hats and feathers and banners and bands and general tomfoolery, who had been having a day at the Crystal Palace." " Well, so lonff as you're here, and all safe, that's all the old mother cares about, Frank. Dinner, Lucy, now, at once; Mr. Frank's half- starved. Let me look at you, my boy, and see whether the trip's done you any good. Eh, you're certainly tanne^l, and a little stouter, Frank, I think." " Perhaps so, mother, though I've been taking more exercise than usual too. Any news ? I saw a pile of letters on the study-table as I rushed past, but I didn't stop to look at them. Any body been?" " Mr. Harding was here yesterday, to see if you had returned from among the ' swells,' as he called them. I think he's a little envious of your going into such society ; eh, Frank ?" 2SQ BROKEN TO HARNESS. " Not a bit of it, mother ; nothing would take old Greorge Harding beyond his own set. But he's afraid of my getting my head turned." " ISTo fear of that in my boy," said Mrs. Churchill somewhat gravely ; " there is the dif- ference between you and your j^oor father, Frank. And now, how is Sir Marmaduke ? and what sort of people were staying there? and was he kind and friendly to you ? and how did you enjoy your- self?" As Mrs. Churchill finished speaking, Lucy the old servant entered the room and announced din- ner. She was a tall gaunt woman, with a hard mipleasant face, which did not soften much when Churchill, looking up, said, " Well, Lucy, back at home once again, you see." " Yes, I see. Master Frank," the woman re- plied coldly. " We've been waiting dinner until we must be faint, I should think." " But it wasn't Mr. Frank's fault, Lucy," said Mrs. Chiu-chill ; " the train was late. Now, my boy, come ; you must be starved in earnest;" and they went down-stairs. MOTHER AND SON. 287 "We've not got such a dinner for you as you've been having lately, maybe," said Lucy, as she uncovered the dishes. " But you can't be always among lords and ladies, Master Frank." " Lucy, you silly thing!" said Mrs. Churchill, half-laughing, but looking half-ashamed. " I've not been among them at all, Lucy, for the matter of that,'.' said Churchill good-humour- edly, though his brow began to cloud. " Well," said the woman, leisurely handing the dishes, " it's not for the want of wishing. Here we are, left at home, in the hot autumn weather ; while you — " " Lucy !" exclaimed Mrs. Churchill. " Be good enough to leave the room," said Churchill; "this minute!" he said, bringing his hand heavily doA\Ti on the table, as the woman lingered, looking towards her mistress. " Why, mother darling, what is tliis ?" he asked, when they were alone ; " that woman's tongue was always free, and her manner always familiar ; but this is quite a new experience." " It is, my child," said poor Mrs. Churchill ; 288 BROKEN TO HARNESS. "I don't know how to excuse her, except that it is all done out of excess of affection for me, and — " " That's quite enough excuse for me, mother," said Churchill, rising, and kissing her. " There, now we'll change the conversation ;" and they talked merrily enough on indifferent topics throughout dinner. When the cloth was removed, and afler Frank had produced his old meerschaum, and had dra^vn up his chair to the newly-lighted I^it of fire, he said to his mother, " I've some news to tell you, mum." " Tell it, my boy !" said the old lady, setthng her gold-rimmed glasses on her nose, and begin- ning to make play with a portentous piece of knit- ting ; " what is it, Frank ?" " Well, it's news that concerns both of us," said Cliurchill, slowly puffing at his pipe, " but me more especially. Tlie fact is, mum — I'm going to be married !" It had come at last ! that news which she had dreaded so many years past, that news which spoke to her of separation from all she loved, MOTHER AND SON. 28^ which heralded to her the commencement of a new existence — had come at last ! Her heart seemed to give one great bound within her breast as the words fell uj)on her ears, and her eyes were for an instant dimmed; then recovering herself, she smiled and said, ^' To be married? that is news indeed, my boy !" "Ay, mother, my tm-n has come at last. I tliought I had settled doAvn into a regular old bachelor, but I believe that is just the state of mind in which one is most liable to infection. However that be, I have caught it, and am in for it, as badly as any yomig lad of twenty." Mrs. Churchill had risen from her seat, and crossed the room to Frank. Putting her hand lightly on his head, she then flung her arms round him and kissed him warmly, saying, " God bless you, my darling boy, and grant you happiness ! God bless you, my son, my own son!" and she fairly broke down, and the tears coursed down her cheeks. " Why, mum !" said Churchill, gently caress- ing her; "why, mum!" continued he, stroking VOL. I. u 290 BROKEN TO HARNESS. lier soft gray hair with one hand, while the other was wound round her. " You must not do this, mum. And here's a mother for you! I declare she has never yet asked who or what the lady is !'* ^^ Tliat will come presently, darling; just now I am only thinking of you — thinking how differ- ent it — how, after so long — how strange — ^there, come now, and tell me all about it;" and with one great effort Mrs. Churchill composed herself, and sat down by her son's side to hear his story. Tliat story lasted far into the night. Frank told of all his hesitation ; of his determination not to propose ; of the accident that brought about the great result of his happiness; and of the manner in which the affair was viewed by old Miss Lex- den. He then said that he and Barbara were determined upon getting married at once, and that he had come up to to^vn principally with the view of looking out some lodgings which he could take in the neighbourhood for them to return to after their honeymoon. His mother listened pa- tiently throughout, with her calm, earnest eyes MOTHER AND SON. 291 fixed upon his face, and only now and then com- menting in a low tone ; but when he finished, she laid her hand on 'his and said quietly : " You will bring your bride here, Frank, and I will go into the lodgings. Henceforth this house is yours, my boy! You are the head of our family now, and I — so long as I'm near you and can see you from time to time, what more do I want ? So long as you are happy, I am happy, and — " " But you don't imagine, mother, I'm going to turn you out, and — " " There's no turning out in the case, my dar- ling. Lucy and I could not occupy the house by ourselves, and Ave shall be much better in lodgings. Besides, we w^on't have any one say that you had not a house of your own to bring your wife to. I shall see her soon, Frank? Do you think she'll like me, my darling? When she knows how I love you, I am sure she will; and yet I am not certain of that. You'll come and see me often, won't you, Frank? and — oh, my boy, my own darling boy !" and she fell on his neck and wept bitterly. CHAPTER XVI. When Churchill returned to Bissett, he found that a considerable change had taken place in the aspect of affairs there. Beresford and Lyster had departed, and old Miss Lexden was on the point of starting that very afternoon, her natty boxes in their leather cases lining the hall ; for the old lady was calmly implacable, and never altered one jot of her original determination. After his talk with Frank Churchill, Sir Marmaduke had determined on using his best efforts towards restoring peace, and setting affairs on an amicable footing ; so the next morning, when he was closeted with Major Stone discussing various points of business, the old gentleman gradually wore round to the matter per- plexing him, took Stone into his confidence, and finished by commanding the Major immediately to " FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE." 293 seek a conference with Miss Lexclen, to inform her of Sir Marmaduke's views, and use his best efforts to bring her at least to a compromise. The gallant warrior received the commission with a very iU grace. He hinted that to look after liis friend's rents and tenants, farm and live-stock, servants and money-matters, was all well enough ; but to have to collogue with a parcel of old cats who — however, since it was to be done, he supposed he must do it ; and he would " tackle" the old lady at once. But the old lady carried far too many guns for this blundering half-pay Major, and JDefore he had been in her company five minutes made him feel exceedingly sorry that he had asked for the interv^iew. Miss Lexden received him in the plea- santest manner, talked lightly of the weather, praised in the highest terms Major Stone's ad- mirable management of Sir Marmaduke's estate, could not imagine how Sir Marmaduke would get on without his "other self;" and then, when Stone's flattered vanity led him to disclose the real object of his visit. Miss Lexden pulled up short, and in her most dignified and icy manner de- 294 BROKEN TO HARNESS. clared that '^ these were family matters, which allowed of no intervention by a third person, especially one entirely unconnected with either side, and therefore incapable of appreciating the delicacies of the position ; what, for instance, would Sir Marmaduke have thought of her if she had sent Withers to enter into negotiations !" and thus having completely upset the Major, Miss Lexden summarily dismissed him. When he returned to his principal, and gave him a full accomit of his treatment, the old gentle- man was very wrath, and took a speedy oppor- tmiity of waiting personally upon Miss Lexden. After exchanging ordinary civilities, their con- versation was short and sharp. " Susan ! you're behaving sillily, worse than sillily, in this matter of Barbara and Frank Churchill ; and I've come to tell you of it !" " It's not the first time, Marmadulve, that you have come to me on a fool's errand." First blood to Miss Lexden : the old man thought of the days of his courtship, when he owed but little to Susan Lexden's assistance, and winced. " FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE." 295 ^^ Thank you! You're kind and generous as ever! But it was not to talk of bygone times that I came here. Take my word, Susan, you're wrong in your treatment of this business." "As how, pray?" " You've played for a big stake with Barbara, and she won't have it ! She's fallen in love, in real desperate love ; no make-believe humbug, but regular love ! " Miss Lexden slrrugged her shoulders, raised her eyebrows, and tattooed im]3atiently with her foot. " God knows she's to be envied," said the old gentleman ; " how many girls are there, do you think, who are booked for marriage before next spring, wdio would give their ears to feel to their future husbands as Barbara does to hers? It's not about her Pm come to preach, it's about you. You're behaving like an idiot, Susan, — worse than an idiot, — in thus refusing your countenance to the match." " You're growing horribly coarse in your lan- guage, Marmaduke, and imfit for me to listen to. 296 BROKEN TO HARNESS. But, since you've broached the topic, hear me : I shall leave Bissett at once ; and once gone, I shall never see Barbara again. I shall not give her one sixpence for her trousseau^ or make one addition to her wardrobe. I will not allow her a penny, and I will strive to forget that I ever knew there was such a person on earth. She has grievously disappointed me, and been selfish and ungrateful ; but I shall not cast her off, or do any thing melo- dramatic or nonsensical ; I shall simply ignore her existence, and live on as though she had never been." Sir Marmaduke retired, boiling over with rage. An hour afterwards he sent for Barbara to the library, and placing a cheque for 100/. in her hands, told her he had arranged with Mrs. Yin- cent to accompany her to town and get the re- quisite articles for her trousseau at once. Her aunt was about to leave, he said; but Mrs. Vincent had promised to stop and act chaperon, and Miss Townshend would be bridesmaid. Let the wed- ding take place at once, since both the yomig people wished it, and let it be from Bissett. There " FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE." 297 would be no fuss, no tomfoolery ; but no one should be able to say in future tliat there was any thing underhand or secret about her marriage, or that it was not properly comitenanced by some of the family. If her aunt chose to be an old fool, that was her look-out, not liis. And then the old gentleman kissed her on the forehead, and told her that while he lived she and Frank should never want a friend. Miss Lexden left on the evening of the day on which Churchill returned, without seeing him or taking farewell of any of the household. Mr. Townshend would have liked to go too, but his daughter strongly objected, determining to remain with Barbara; a determination in which she was well supported by Mr Schroder, who had taken great interest in Barbara's " love-affair" ever since it had been made public — as apparently seeing therein an excess of romance which might cast a halo over his own somewhat meagre and prosaic wooing. Mrs. Vincent, too, entered into the affair with great spirit, principally incited thereto by her hatred of old Miss Lexden, who had been 298 BROKEN TO HARNESS. particularly rude about Mr. Vincent's little gas- tronomical tastes ; and Sir Marmaduke seemed for a time to have eschewed his eccentricity, and to have become perfectly humanised. Of course Major Stone was in great force, rallying the lovers with much subtle humour, and looking after all the preparations for the wedding with as much interest as though he were a person principally concerned. Tlie day arrived, and the weather did its very noblest for the young people. Tlie sky was cloudless, and the sun brilliant, if not warm. Barbara was in the finest health and sph'its, and never looked more lovely than in her plain white- silk dress and Brussels lace — the latter an old family relic. Tlie wedding took place at the little parish-chmx-h, where three bells rang a somewhat abbreviated but merry peal, while the villagers thronged the chm'chyard and did proper obeisance and gratulation to a party coming from " the Grange." Afterwards there was a break- fast, at which no one save the clergyman and the hovTse-inmates were present, where there was only one speech of four words, — " God bless " FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE." 299 them both !" from Sir Marmaduke ; and then, kisses and hand-shakings done, they departed. As Churchill shook hands with the old gentle- man, the latter left an envelope in his godson's hands, which, on opening, he found to contain a bank-note for fifty pounds, with the words " For the honeymoon" in the envelope. lN"or had Barbara been without her presents. On the previous evening she had received a packet con- taining a necklace of ivy-leaves in dead deep- coloured gold, with earrings to match, and in the case Captain Lyster's card, with ^'Witli all good wishes" written on it; while a splendid enamel and diamond bracelet came to her as the joint gift of Mr. Scliroder and Alice Townshend. While the happy couple were honeymooning it in the north of Devon, unconsciously standing as capital models of posed figm-es to several ar- tists who had lingered beyond most of their fraternity in those pleasant quarters, old Mrs. Churchill, having engaged a tolerably neat lodg- ing not far ft*om her old abode, devoted herself 300 BROKEN TO HARNESS. and some of her savings to the embellishment of the house in Great Adullam Street, which was newly painted outside, and revived within to the extent of new carpeting and a general polishing of the furniture. Intelligence of these triumphs had been duly conveyed in letters to Frank, who, in retm-n, thanked his mother, and sent a ix)stscript by Barbara, who, addressing her as *Mier dear mother," begged her not to over- fatigue herself in their ser^^ice ; which little mes- sage, signed " Yom- affectionate daughter, B. C," brought tears of delight into the old lady's eyes, and had the effect of causing her to redouble her exertions. At last the day for their retm-n arrived, and the rain, which had been threaten- ing for nearly a week past, broke through the yellow canopy of fog hanging over London, and came down heroically. It was not favourable weather in which to make one's first acquaint- ance with Great Adullam Street, which required a ffood deal of sunlio-ht to do awav with its nor- mal ghastliness ; and as the evening twilight, drear and dim, came rolling u]), Eleanor Churchill, 301 sitting at the window of her lodgings on the look- out for the cab, which must pass her door, felt her heart sink within her with a strange, inde- finable sensation of dread. Her delicacy had pre- vented her being present on her ncAv daughter's first arrival at her home ; but she now almost regretted that she had not gone round to wel- come her amono; her new and strano;e surround- ings. Great Adullam Street very seldom had a cab rattling over its ill-set stones ; there was a large gate at one end (as is frequently the case in the neighbourhood), where every public ve- hicle was stopj^ed, and sent by a different route, at the mandate of a very sullen gate-keeper, mi- less it happened to be bomid to some house in the street. So that when Mrs. Churchill heard the creaking gates open, followed by the noise of wheels, she knew that her cliildren had ar- rived, and looking out, saw by the lamplight Barbara's handsome face at the cab-window. ^' Handsome, very handsome and patrician-look- ing," thought the old lady ; '' but what a strange look of bcAvilderment on it !" 302 BROKEN TO HARNESS. The cab stopped, and Churchill jumped out and handed Barbara into the house. Lucy, old Mrs. Churchill's servant, stood within the door, and gave a very grim bow as Barbara passed; the two newly-hired servants were smirking in the passage. Frank hurried past them, and led Barbara into the little dining-room. She was very tired with her journey, and at once sat down. " Who was that horrid person, Frank, at the door, — ^with the strange sour look, I mean?" " Oh, my mother's servant, old Lucy ; been with her since her girlhood. She has not pre- possessing manners, but she's a faithful creature. You'll make much of her, dearest." " Nothing, I should hope ; she's too horrible ! What a disagreeable colour this paper is, and what a horribly prim carpet! I'll take off my tilings, Frank, at once, and come down to din- ner; I'm rather faint." Churchill lit a candle, and preceded her up the stairs^— at the carpet on which Barbara made a despairing shrug — to the best bedroom, erst his " FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE." 303 motlier's, where stood tlie heavy four-post bed, the old-fashioned mahogany wardrobe, the dingy pictures of sacred subjects — all the furniture just as he recollected it for years. It was rather a ghastly room, certainly; and when Frank had left her, to go down and pay the cabman and see about the luggage, she glanced nervously round, and burying her face in her hands, burst into a flood of tears. Thus her husband fomid her when he returned. He at once rushed up to her, and asked her what was the matter; but she replied that she was a little over-fatigued, and would be better after the dinner and rest. "That's well," said Frank cheerfully; "you must not give way now, darling ; recollect you're at home.^^ At which words, strange though it may ap- pear, Barbara's sobs were redoubled. END OF VOL. I. a