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A DANGEROUS CATSPAW
BY
DAVID CHRISTIE MURRY
Author of "Life's Atonement," "One Traveler Returns,"
"The Way of the World," etc.
DONOHUE, HENNEBERRY & Co.
407-425 DEARBORN ST.
CHICAGO
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW,
0
N the last day of Trinity Term, Reuben Gale, a highly
respectable tool manufacturer, resident in Holborn,
was tried at the Old Bailey on a charge of burglary
and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
The case excited considerable interest, and the court was
crowded. The air was charged with grit and oil, and the
judge, the counsel, the jury, the ushers, the warders, and
the public were one and all in a contradictory condition
of being weighed down with languor and stimulated
by the mystery of the case.
The prisoner was decidedly unlike a burglar to look
at. It was easy to fancy him behind his counter, rub-
bing his hands, with ingratiatory welcoming inquiry,
"What can I do for you to-day, sir?" It was not diffi-
cult to picture him at a vestry meeting or in the bosom
of his family. But it was positively hard for the mind
to image the man on a desperate and criminal midnight
enterprise. He was about the middle height, of square,
sinewy build, and was attired in spotless black, a little
too liberal in cut, and in irreproachable linen. His dark
hair was getting to be iron grey, and the scrupulously
trimmed little bit of whisker on each cheek was almost
white. He had largish brown eyes, whose chief expres-
sion was of a mild and observant alacrity; and his hair,
954953
W
4
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
which was carefully brushed and oiled, was eut rather
close to the head, and parted in the middle. He wore
round his neck a pair of folding glasses, which he did
not seem to use, and in his right hand he held a large
white handkerchief, rolled into a ball the size of an
orange. He mopped his face with this at intervals, but
gave no sign of perturbation. For the matter of that,
scores of people who had no personal interest in the case
were mopping their faces in the sweltering heat as if
their lives depended on it.
Mr. Wyncott Esden, counsel for the defence, addressed
the jury in a speech of rare lucidity and persuasiveness.
He was not loud, as so many Old Bailey barristers are.
He was calm, argumentative, confidential. He took each
gentleman of the jury, as it were, by the button-hole, and
argued the case with an excellent conviction. His tone
and manner conveyed a flattery so intimate that the jury
could not but feel the wiser and the better for it.
He made his argument as clear as glass, and a child
could have seen through it from beginning to end with
perfect comprehension. The barrister's aspect helped
his cause, as a prepossessing personal appearance always
gives an advantage to an orator. He had large and well-
cut features and large grey eyes, infinitely sly and
friendly. A physiognomist would have doubted him at
sight, but he would have been a hard-hearted physiog-
nomist indeed who would have continued long in doubt.
Anything more frank, engaging, and confident than his
manner it would be dificult to fancy. He was sure of
winning you to his view of things-he was positive that
he was right, and his manner indicated so complete an
apprehension of his hearer's high intelligence that to dis-
credit his argument seemed to do oneself a wrong. He
knew-so that cordial and persuasive manner seemed to
say-no man knew better, how impossible it was to
hoodwink a person of your intense acuteness. It was of
no use in the world-his very attitude confessed it-to
try to humbug you! Come, now, let us have the cards
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
5
on the table. Let us argue the matter. Here are the
known facts. Here are the conclusions to which your
trained logical faculty has already carried you. It is
almost absurd to talk to you in this way, because you
know these things as well as I do, and probably a little
better. Still, for the satisfaction of outside stupid people,
they have to be stated. We thirteen clever fellows have
made up our minds long ago that the innocent person in
the dock is the victim of some capricious conspiracy of
circumstances. We are going to give him a friendly
hand together and help him through.
The court was so crammed that a number of people
had taken up a tentative position on the platform of the
bench itself, and these, egged on by listeners less favour-
ably placed, had encroached more and more, until the
very functionary who guarded the judge's left was
hustled by the more advanced of them. They were cleared
away at intervals, and came back as unconquerable as flies.
Any student of character regarding this group upon
the platform would have been likely to single out one
face for observation. It was the face of a man in early
middle age, very calm, resolute and ready. The man,
though jovial and, at first sight, common-place enough,
had a look of being unsurprisable, and not to be taken at
advantage. He wore a scarf and scarf-pin in execrable
taste, and held aloft in a gloved hand a silk hat, polished
like a mirror. The head of the pin was a reproduction
in miniature of a fifty-pound Bank of England note, a
quarter the size of a square on a Staunton chess-board.
The wearer of this shameless ornament was Joseph Prickett,
a member of the Metropolitan Detective Force, a man
fast climbing into fame. He had been entrusted with the
conduct of the case now under trial, and had the natural
anxiety to secure his quarry which animates sportmen of
all classes.
That intimate and persuasive discourse of Mr. Wyncott
Esden's coming to an end, the judge took up the ball, and
kept it rolling. He was extremely complimentary to the
6
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
defending counsel, and said several things which were
agreeable to that gentleman's ears and understanding.
But his summing up, though it had an elaborate air of
impartiality, went dead against the prisoner. Prickett,
who had gone doubtful, like a connoisseur in wine who
is puzzled to class an unknown vintage, brightened. The
prisoner's demeanour underwent little change, but he
ceased to mop his face with the rolled-up handkerchief,
and, clasping it tightly in both hands, leaned his arms upon
the rail of the dock, and scrutinised the faces of the jury.
The measured murmur of the judge's voice increased the
somnolent influence of the close air and heat, and when
the gentlemen of the jury were dismissed to their
deliberations a languid dulness settled upon everybody
present. The jury withdrew, the judge retired to his
own apartment, and the prisoner sat down, half hidden
behind the dock railing. Faint noises reached the hall
of justice from the street and from adjoining corridors.
The dusk began to fall. Murmurs of freedom and the
outer air touched the prisoner's ear, and once or twice so
pricked him that he turned to listen. In the gallery
there was a subdued buzz of voices, and one voice said,
"Fifteen years," with an argumentative snappishness.
The prisoner turned to look in the direction of the speaker,
and, hot as it was, wiped a cold sweat from his forehead
and his hand.
An old habitue of the court, a man in seedy black, with
a white wisp of necktie and a flavour of rum, stood near
to Prickett. He was respectfully certain of his own
opinion, but wanted authority to clinch it.
..
He'll get ten years at least, don't you think, sir?
You see," with the sort of shuddering relish with which
he took his rum hot of a winter's evening, "it's burglary
with violence, Mr. Prickett. It wasn't that far off from
being murder. It was quite a miracle the man recovered."
"You'll know all about it in half an hour," Prickett
answered. "There's no saying what a clever counsel
mayn't do for a fellow. That chap-indicating Mr. Wyn-
}
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
7
cott Esden with a sideway nod-is just as deep as Garrick.
He's got a tongue as would coax a bird from the bough."
A movement, almost as he spoke, foretold the return
of the jury. An officer of the court slid to the door lead
ing to the judge's apartments and threw it open. A
minute later his lordship and the jury were seated, and
the prisoner was on his feet again, searching their faces in
the gathering darkness. Were the gentlemen of the jury
ready with their verdict? asked the clerk. Yes. Did
they find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?
Not guilty. There was an instant buzz and clamour in
the court, and the prisoner, opening out the tight rolled
handkerchief, rubbed his hands hard with it, and put it
very deliberately in his breast pocket. The judge addres-
sed the prisoner pretty much as the giant addressed Thor
in the Norse story-"Better come no more to Jotunheim."
He had had counsel of singular ability, and the jury had
been clement. He was free to go.
Wyncott Esden found himself the centre of a little
congratulatory crowd, and one or two of the more genial
of the seniors were almost enthusiastic over him. He
accepted their compliments with the best grace in the
world, being neither shy nor inflated, but handsomely
cordial and obliged.
"Your bread's buttered for life, my boy," said one of
them, "as old What's-his-name said to Eldon. All thieves
who can your fees afford will rely on your orations."
Sundry of the unoccupied, stowing away their wigs
and gowns, hummed the refrain of the judge's song in
concert, with an improvised alteration—
And one good burglar he's restored
To his friends and his relations.
The Term was over, and they were already in the Long
Vacation. There was some animated talk about holiday-
making, and then, by ones and twos, men filtered away,
and Wyncott Esden, dropping into the street, encountered
Mr. Prickett in the roadway. The detective touched the
brim of his glossy hat with a neatly gloved forefinger,
8
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
and bestowed upon the barrister a smile of some com-
plexity. The smile expressed a deprecatory admiration,
and a touch of reproof was visible in it.
"You pulled him off, sir," said Mr. Prickett, with a
a gentle sorrow in his tone. "It's all in the day's work
of course, and it's a thing as our profession has got to
look forward to." Esden laughed, and, laying a familiar
hand upon the detective's shoulder, gave him an amiable
shake, and made as if he would pass on. Mr. Prickett
turned upon his heel, and accompanied the other's steps,
bending respectfully towards him, sideways. "I wouldn't
have given twopence ha'penny for his chances," he con-
tinued, "and I wouldn't have accepted a penny under a
hundred pounds for mine. I looked on that hundred
pounds as a moral, Mr. Esden."
"Well, you know, Prickett," the barrister answered,
turning that sly and friendly eye upon the detective with
an engaging smile, "it wasn't my business to earn the
hundred pounds for you. If it had been"
"Ah!" said Mr. Prickett. "If it had been!" He
walked on a pace or two further, still bending respect-
fully towards his companion. "A verdict of not guilty,"
he said, "establishes a man's character. It's no part of
my business to go about spreading libels, and, maybe,
getting hauled up for 'em. I don't say, mind you, Mr.
Esden, as Reuben isn't as innocent as a daisy. But I
shouldn't call anybody a fool as thought him guilty, and
it's my opinion that there isn't a luckier man a fool this
minute. He's got a lot to thank you for, Mr. Esden, if
you'll allow me to say as much."
"C
"We must all do our duty, Prickett," returned Esden,
twinkling at him in self-applauding enjoyment. We
must all do our duty in the varying positions to which
it pleases Providence to call us."
The officer smiled sadly and admiringly, fell back a
step, touched the brim of the glossy hat again, and said,
"Good day, sir."
Esden walked leisurely down Ludgate Hill and along
1
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
9
Fleet Street towards his chambers in the Temple. After
the gloom of the court the light of the August evening
looked garish, and the street traffic boomed and thundered
in contrast with his recent waiting amid the close mur-
murs of the attending crowd. He had started radiant,
smiling, and triumphant, but as he walked on he began
to droop, and falling more and more into a dejected mood,
he walked into the silence of the Temple with an air
altogether despondent. He climbed the monotonous
staircase in one of the lofty new houses in Elm Court
until he reached the top, and then, admitting himself,
banged the door behind him with some show of peevish-
ness. Behind the small glass shutter of the letter-box he
saw half-a-dozen missives awaiting him, and taking them
up he walked into his sitting-room, and there, with his
hat pushed to the back of his head, and his walking stick
held under his arm, he opened them, and with a mere
glance at the contents of each, he threw them on the table.
Each letter enclosed an account already rendered, and
without exception his correspondents expressed surprise
at his neglect of earlier applications. When he had
looked at them all he gathered them up, and threw them
in a little pile into the grate, and there set fire to them.
Then, with an air of fatigued disgust, he strolled into
his bedroom, and found a cash box, which, being investi-
gated, yielded a cheque book with but two leaves left in
it, and a solitary bank note for five pounds. He emptied
his pockets, and dribbled their contents about the dress-
ing table.
"Thirty-five at the bank," he said aloud, "and eleven
in hand. That's a devilish pretty prospect for the Long
Vacation!
""
He threw the cheque book back into the empty box,
and crumpling the note, put it in his pocket. Then,
gathering up his loose gold and silver, he left the rooms,
and went drooping down the interminable stairs in a
sort of half humorous, dejected savagery of mood. He
came out upon Fleet Street, under the shadow of the
10
1
i
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
Gryphon, and after lingering indeterminately for a min-
ute, crossed the street briskly, and entered the Cock
Tavern. There, ensconcing himself in an unoccupied box,
he called for a chop and a modest pint of Beaune, and
sat turning over a copy of that evening's paper as he
waited. His simple meal being brought to him, he fell-to
rather languidly, and something catching his attention in
the columns of the journal, he folded it conveniently,
propped the paper against the cruet-stand, and read and
ate together.
Another customer entered the box and sat down facing
him. The person was attired in scrupulous black, a thought
too large, and wore irreproachable linen. He carried a
white handkerchief crumpled into a ball of about the size
of an orange, and dabbed his forehead with it at brie
intervals. When the waiter came to learn his desires, the
new client spoke in a way which was at once hesitating
and confidential, as if he were shy, and his desire for an
under-done steak and a pint of bitter ale was somehow
in the nature of a secret. The waiter moved off with the
order, and the man in black, for the first time regarding
his vis-à-vis, started and looked at him intently, moving
his head from side to side to command new points of
view. He was obviously surprised, undecided as to his
neighbour's identity, and anxious to be sure of it. His
uncertainty lasted until the waiter had brought his steak
and flitted away again. Then the man in black put out
a hand towards the cruet and said, "I beg your pardon,
sir."
Esden looking up, recognized him at a glance, and
was recognized in turn. There was no mistaking the
fact of recognition on either side, but the barrister, after
a cool and leisurely gaze, took up his newspaper, propped
it against his wine-bottle, and went on eating and read-
ing. The personage whose character had been so recently
cleared by a dozen of his peers rolled his handkerchief
between his palms and looked uncomfortable. In a little
while he recovered himself, and attacked his steak with
1
A
G
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
11
2
vigour and enjoyment. He made such good progress that
he had finished his meal and paid for it before the earlier
arrival.
When the barrister paid in turn and rose to go, with
no renewed sign of recognition, Reuben Gale rose also.
Esden took down his hat and sauntered into the street,
and the man followed him at a distance of half-a-score
yards. The barrister turned into Chancery Lane, and
Gale, after one or two irresolute quickenings of his pace,
made up to him, hat in hand.
"I believe, sir,” he said, with a humble shyness, “that
I have the honour of addressing Mr. Wyncott Esden."
Esden, from his superior height, looked coldly down
across his shoulder.
"Well?" he demanded, in a voice of curt disdain.
"I thought I couldn't be mistaken," said Gale, still
keeping pace with him, hat in hand. His voice had an
embarrassed, unobtrusive wheeze in it. The man cer-
tainly spoke and looked uncommonly unlike a desperate
criminal. "I really don't know, sir, how to thank you
for the admirable way-
A passenger walking at a
swifter pace than they went by, and Gale paused until
he thought him out of hearing. "The real beautiful way,
sir," he said then, "you conducted my defence."
>>
"That's all right," said Esden, looking down on him
with the same careless, scornful glance, and speaking in
the same disdainful tone.
((
I am sure," the man went on, "there's hardly an-
other gentleman at the bar who could have done for me,
sir, what you have done this afternoon. The case looked
very black against me, sir. I don't think, sir, that an
junocent man ever had such a squeeze before."
(6
Very good," said Esden, quickening his step.
The man clung to him.
rr
If it lays in my power," he said, in his apologetic,
wheezing way, "anyhow to repay you, sir, it would be a
weight off of my mind."
You must understand," said Esden, stopping short
G
12
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW,
and looking down upon him, "that it is one thing to de-
fend a gentleman of your profession and another to be
seen walking with him in the streets. I am constrained
to wish you a very good evening, Mr. Gale."
:
(C
Why, that's only fit and proper, sir," Mr. Gale re-
sponded, still clinging to him as he pursued his way.
"I quite reco'nise the gulf which rears itself between us,
but a man must follow the dictation of his 'art, sir. You
done me such a turn this afternoon, sir, as no man ever
done before. Excuse me, sir-I should have said no
gentleman."
"My good friend," Esden answered, a little mollified
by the flattery of the man's gratitude, but scornful still,
"I did my duty, professionally, and was paid for it.”
<<
"Ah, sir," said Mr. Gale, accepting with evident eager-
ness this first faint sign of yielding on the other's part,
"how many gentlemen could ha' done what you done,
with the best will in the world? Of course a gentleman
desires quite natural-to do his duty, sir, because it
stands to reason that's how he makes his name, and fame,
and fortune, sir. But it's knowing how to do it, sir.
That's where it is. P'raps you mightn't care to know,
sir, how it came about as I instructed my solicitor to try
for nobody but Mr. Wyncott Esden? That," I says, sir,
to my solicitor, "is the gentleman for my money. I hap
pened to step into the Old Bailey, as near twelve months
ago as might be, just to pass away a hour, and I heard
Mr. Esden," I says to my solicitor, "defending a person of
the name of Hatchett, on suspicion of stealing jewellery.
Mr. Esden didn't get him off" I says, "but there! if it
had laid in the power of mortal gentleman to do it,"
I says, "he would ha' done it. Mr. Esden was that
quiet, that sure and easy. He had that way with the
jury. He put 'em in doubt for an hour and a half".
that's what I told my solicitor-" and if anybody else had
been there they'd ha' said guilty on the evidence without
so much as leaving the box."
Now Esden was a remarkably clever fellow, but, like
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
13
many clever fellows who have gone before him, he was
inordinately fond of praise. He was intimately per-
suaded that Mr. Gale was an arrant rascal, but even a
barrister cannot exert himself in behalf of a fellow crea-
ture without taking at least a partisan interest in him;
and to find the man so felicitating himself upon his choice
of a defender was like milk and honey.
mga
The actual day was falling towards darkness now, as
its grimy imitation had fallen into darkness in the Old
Bailey hours before. It was extremely improbable that
any friend or acquaintance would see him in conversation
with his late client, and, even if he were seen, it would
not be disagreeable to tell how the fellow clung to him
and resisted all snubs in the fulness of his gratitude.
<<
So you said to yourself," he answered, unbending,
and beginning to find a humorous interest in the man,
when it comes to my turn to get into a tight corner,
there is the counsel for my money ?"
r
<<
Why, sir," responded Mr. Gale, growing more at ease,
but still conserving the apologetic manner, "it never
entered my head at that time of day that such a thing
could happen to me."
"Of course not," Esden answered. "It's odd, though,
that Mr. Prickett should have entertained his unjust sus-
picions for the past five years."
"Odd sir!" cried Gale, obsequiously.
"Excuse me,
sir, but 'odd' is not the word for it. Blood-thirsty is
the word, sir."
Esden had slackened his pace to a mere lounge when
once he had become willing that the man should talk to
him. They were nearing Holborn now, and he halted
outright.
"I am prodigiously obliged to you, Mr. Gale," he said
with a smooth irony, "for the expression of your satis-
faction with my conduct of a case which I admit was
difficult and delicate. I think it probable that on the
next occasion my services may be of less value to you,
though they are always at your disposal. We are now
14
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
1
on the edge of the long vacation, and I cannot reasonably
hope to meet you for three months to come.
Once more,
I wish you a very good evening."
"A man in
"I beg your pardon, sir," Gale answered.
my position can't talk to a gentleman. He can't say,
proper, what he wants to say. But if you'd do me the
pleasure, sir, to walk into my business establishment-
it's close at hand, sir-I should like to make a proposi-
tion of a business nature."
He had resumed his hat some time before, and now
stood rubbing his hands in an extremity of embarrassment.
"You would like to make to me," said Esden, slowly,
in a tone of concentrated surprise, "a proposition of a
business character?"
"I should take it as a favour if you'd listen to it, sir.
If you'll do me the honour to walk into my establish-
">
ment-
"Dit l'araignee à la mouche," said Esden, with a
humorous survey of his own proportions and those of his
companion. "That would be a new form of gratitude,"
he added, inwardly.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Mr. Gale, "I didn't
catch your observation, sir. If you will do me the honour
to come in, sir, I should take it as a real favour.'
(6
My good fellow," said the barrister, "you can say
here and now anything you have to say."
"Well, to tell the truth, sir," Gale responded, "that's
just what I can't do. But if you will do me the goodness
only just to step round the corner, it won't take ten
words, nor one minute, and I think I can make it worth
your while."
Esden stared at him in the dusk with more and more
amazement.
"This is positively exasperating," he told himself. " I
have never been so curious in my life. Lead the way,"
he said aloud.
(C
Thank you, sir," responded Mr. Gale. "I am very
much obliged to you."
;
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
15
famach
Esden, following him, clipped his walking stick by the
middle, and cautiously appreciated its weight. His com-
panion, moving quickly on, drew a bunch of keys from
his trouser pocket, and jingled it in his hand as he
walked. At the end of a hundred yards, or thereabouts,
he paused before a sombre, low-browed little shop, the
door of which he unlocked with the brisk dexterity of
custom. The place gaped black beyond the open door-
way, and the tradesman, moving to one side, invited his
companion by a gesture.
"After you," said Esden, still balancing his stick in
his right hand.
((
Very good," Gale answered, and entering, struck a
light and lit a gas jet, which shrieked and sputtered as
he applied the match. Esden, following, found himself
in an atmosphere the smell of which was compounded of
the odours of brown paper, oil, and dry rot in wood.
From floor to ceiling on three sides were shelves, as
thickly packed as they could hold with symmetrical
brown paper packets, all neatly tied and ticketed, and all
having a certain aspect of great weight. In a big pair of
scales upon the counter five or six pounds of heavy nails
had made the balance kick the beam upon the other side,
and the empty scale hung entangled in its chain. Ranged
everywhere about the floor and counter, in precise order,
were crowbars of varying sizes, plasterers' chisels, ham-
mers, saws, centre-bits-all the paraphernalia of a tool
dealer's shop. In one corner behind the counter a green
painted safe stood wedged into the wall amongst the
other ponderables.
Gale closed the door, the barrister lounging against
the counter, and watching him with a cool and wary
eye, not knowing how to guess what might befall, and
wondering a little to find himself alone in such company.
His companion, without so much as a glance at him,
searched his bundle of keys, and passing round the
counter, opened the green painted safe. From this he
drew a cash-box, which he set upon the counter. Then
16
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
with an aspect increasingly furtive and embarrassed he
unlocked the cash-box in its turn, and counted from it
five soiled bank-notes, each for ten pounds.
"I don't know how to put it, sir," he said, looking
up, "but if a common man's gratitude might take that
form, sir" and he held out the notes, with a dogged
thumb clamped down upon them.
"Well, now, upon my word," said Esden, "you're not
a bad sort of fellow after all. Upon my word, for a
gentleman in your walk of life you are a very unusually
decent sort of fellow."
"Thank you, sir," said Gale, still holding out the
notes. "I was afraid you might find it offensive, so to
speak."
(C
Well, you know," the barrister answered, pushing a
quantity of heavy stuff on one side to make room for his
elbows, and lounging on the counter, "it is offensive, and
it isn't. Put up the notes, if you please. Put them up
at once," he added sharply, seeing that Gale stared at
him with a look of sudden disappointment, and still
held the money out towards him.
"I thought you were going to take them, sir,” said
Gale.
"Did you, by God?" asked Esden, wrathfully. He
would have had no need to be angry, and he knew this
perfectly well, if it had not been for the temptation
which assailed him. It was an impossible thing to do,
but nobody could ever hear of it, and he was so ruinously
hard up.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Gale, withdrawing the
notes at once. "I didn't know, sir, how a gentleman
might feel."
Esden watched the notes back to their place in the
safe with a feeling of reluctance. He half regretted that
he had spoken so decisively. After all, why should he
have been angry? Why should he have been such an
ass as to throw fifty pounds away?
Cale made a pretence of arranging things upon the
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
17
counter. The single gas jet shrieked noisily overhead,
and he turned it down a little, and looked at Esden, who
was lowering somewhat, with his arms upon the counter.
"I really must ask you, sir," said the tool-maker,
"not to think I asked you here to put an insult on you.
I've heard tell of the thing being done before and looked
upon quite otherwise.'
"I dare say," Esden answered, with rather a grand
air; "There are people of all sorts." Gale was perturbed
in the presence of this noble gentleman, and arranged
and re-arranged a handful of tools upon the counter.
"You're a better sort of fellow than I fancied," the
barrister resumed, in a patronizing tone. "I was annoyed
at first, I admit, but I can see that you meant well, and
were really grateful for my services.'
""
((
I am indeed, sir," said Gale, obsequiously.
"Well, come now," said Esden, with a sudden bright-
ness, taking an easier posture, "let me test this gratitude
of yours."
"With all my heart, sir."
"Good," said Esden, with a sly, friendly, persuasive
smile in full play again.
"You do know a little bit
about that business, don't you, Mr. Gale? Knowledge is
power, you know. I am a barrister in criminal practice,
and it might come in handy one of these days if I only
knew as much as you could tell me."
The tool-maker assumed an air of rectitude perhaps
too conscious.
"The very honestest tradesman in my line, sir," he
replied, “must run the risk of meeting very dicky people
now and then, and doing business with them."
(C
Naturally," said Esden, smiling still. "Now tell
me what an honest tradesman in your line may know."
Mr. Gale hesitated. "About burgling tools, for instance."
In a proper way of speaking, sir," the honest trades-
man answered, "there's no such thing as burgling tools.
In another way of speaking, there's hardly what you
might call a tool in the shop as might not be used by a
18
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
burglar in his way of business. There's the drill and the
cold chisel, and the crowbar, from a Lord Mayor down
to a pocket jemmy. All these are used in honest labour
every day of the year. If a man's a burglar and knows
his trade, and can afford it, he'll have 'em a bit finer than
a common tradesman will."
"Out of professional pride?" asked the barrister.
tr
Why, yes, sir, a little bit of that, sometimes, but
generally to be more useful. Of course, it's more par-
ticular than common work. It's got to be done quick.
It's got to be done quiet. For instance, a man comes to
me to buy a hammer-say as it's a short-handled ham-
mer, with a heavy head, like this-a kind of tool that's
used in a round dozen of trades. If he wants it for
night-work he gets it covered thick with leather, and he
has the top of his cold chisel covered the same way, and
before he starts on the job he soaks the leather two or
three hours in water, so as there's hardly any sound when
he uses 'em. Then sometimes they have their iron tools
all coated with leather, so as not to jingle when they
carry 'em about, and if the crowbars are too long to be
got into a decent sized carpet-bag, they has 'em made in
len❜ths, to screw together, the joints fitting air-tight, and
the screw very long. Why," he exclaimed, after a mo-
mentary pause, with an air of sudden remembrance, "I've
got the very article on the premises at this minute, if you
don't mind waiting alone for a second or two while I find
it!"
4
He left the shop, and presently returned, bearing in
his hand a small leather-covered crowbar, the exposed
ends of which-the one split and curved like the nail-
drawer of an ordinary hammer, and the other flat and
with an almost razor-like edge-shone in the gaslight
like polished silver.
"It's rather curious how I come to have such a thing
in my possession." There was a momentary gleam of
obsequious humour in Mr. Gale's look as he spoke the last
words. "I'll tell you.
'I'll tell you. One day, six months ago it was,
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
19
sir, or it might perhaps ha' been seven, a well-dressed,
respectable gent come into this very shop, and give me an
order for a set of tools. 'I want 'em,' he says, 'of the
very best steel, and made according to these directions,'
which he give me, standing on the identical spot as you're
standing on at this minute-a complete set of jemmies, of
all sizes, and two or three other articles. He was very
free and chatty, and he told me how he was very fond of
turning and carpenter's work. 'It took me three years
to furnish my house,' he says, 'and there isn't a single
article of furniture in it, from the attics to the basement,
as isn't my own handiwork.' Well, of course, that kind
of thing is common enough, sir, as you know. There's
lots of gents as finds time hang heavy, and passes it in
that way. It puzzled me a bit what he could want all
the jemmies for, and specially why he wanted 'em all
covered with leather, like this one. But it was no affair
of mine, and I took the order, and he give me two pounds
on account, quite the gentleman in all ways, sir, and he
went away, and that's the last I ever heard of him from
that day to this."
"He never came for the tools?" asked Esden.
(6
M
Never, sir. This is one of 'em. Now, if there is
such a thing as a burgling tool in London, that's the
article. And it's as good a bit of work as I ever laid a
hammer on. If it wasn't for the leather coating, I'd defy
anybody, even you, sir, to find the join. Look here, sir."
With the quick dexterity of a practised mechanic he un-
screwed the tool so rapidly that it seemed almost to fall
into two pieces in his hands. "Look at that, sir," he
said, indicating the screw. "It fits like watchwork, and,
thin as it is, there isn't a door in all London that wouldn't
fly like the lid of a match-box if you could find a crack
big enough to get the edge of the hook into it."
Mr. Gale had become a little excited in admiration of
his own handiwork; and his fingers, which were amaz-
ingly knotty and muscular to belong to so slight a man,
closed on the crowbar with a nervous grip as he illus-
20
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
trated the action of the tool. In the very act he caught
Esden's slyly twinkling smile, and stopped in a momen-
tary discomfiture.
"Rather an ugly thing, isn't it, for a suspected burglar
to have about his premises?" asked Esden.
(C
Why yes, sir," said Gale, with a rather overdone
candour.
A very ugly thing. And the curious part of
it is, sir, that though the police searched the premises on
my arrest, and have been here lots of times since, they
didn't find 'em. Good Lord! If they had!" The sud-
den wince he gave at the fancy was real enough, and he
dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief again. "Provi-
dence pertects the innocent, sir. They was lying where
anybody might ha' found 'em, among the other stock, and
yet they missed 'em. It was the finger of Providence.
That's what I call it, Mr. Esden, sir. It was the finger of
Providence."
-
Esden, still twinkling, turned the two halves of the
tool over and over in his hands, examining them with
obvious interest, and then screwed them together.
،،
Yes," he said, "it's a pretty bit of workmanship."
"I've got an idea, Mr. Esden," said Gale, leaning with
a sudden persuasive smile across the counter. "You
wouldn't accept the money-you'll excuse me, sir, for
even mentioning that little mistake of mine again, sir,
I'm sure. Will you take that, sir, as a savveneer of a
grateful client, sir?"
(C
"This?" asked Esden, holding out the tool in a comic
amazement.
'Why not, sir? I wouldn't offer it to anybody as
might turn up, sir. But in the hands of a gentleman
like you-and it's worth nothing-nothing, that is, to
speak of, so as you needn't be ashamed to accept it from
a poor man as owes you a very great obligation, sir."
Why, what should I do with such a thing as this?"
asked Esden.
((
(C
Why, of cours, sir, it's no use to you. But it's inter-
esting, sir-interesting from association, as one may say.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
21
And it's a good bit of stuff, and capital workmanship, if
a man may say so much about a thing as he's made him-
self. Take it, Mr. Esden, sir. It's no use to me; in fact,
it's dangerous, and it might be years before I found a cus-
tomer as wanted such a thing. You can carry it quite
easy in your breast pocket, so." He unscrewed it, and
held the pieces out towards the barrister. "Pray take
it, sir, as a suvveneer.”
“Well, after all, why not?" said Esden with a laugh.
I
A
T high noon on the following day, Esden, sitting short-
sleeved in his apartments, looked his own personal
circumstances discontentedly in the face. When things
went uncomfortably with him it was his habit to decline
to look at them. He was a young man who liked to see
the bright side of things, and he had no love for shadows.
The prospect now before him was almost altogether dark,
and he grew easily weary of the mental landscape. He
had to look at it, and he continued to look until his
gorge rose.
..
"I shall go melancholy mad if I don't get out of
this," he said aloud. "I must go somewhere and talk to
somebody."
He rose, and sauntered dispiritedly into his bedroom,
taking up a clothes-brush by the way, and, reaching down
from its peg the coat he had worn on the previous even-
ing, began idly to brush at it, pausing twice or thrice in
the course of that simple operation to fall into a despond-
ent day-dream. When he awoke from the last of these
excursions the clothes-brush struck upon something hard,
and remembering Mr. Gale's curious souvenir he drew
the housebreaking implement from the pocket in which
he had placed it, and began to turn it over and to screw
together the pieces of which it was composed. Anything
is good enough for an idle and unhappy man to think
22
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
about, and Esden was pleased to divert his thoughts even
by such a trifle as this.
"I don't see where the magic of it comes in," he said.
That fellow declared that any door would fly before it
if one could only get the edge in. The lever's a mighty
power, no doubt, but I fancy that a thing of this size
would want a lot of muscle behind it."
He looked about him to see if there were anything
in the chamber upon which he could test the force of the
implement, and decided that he would try its capacities
upon one of the bed-room doors. To that end he went
back to the sitting-room, and closed and locked the door;
then inserting the claw of the little crowbar in the cleft
between door and door-jamb near the lock, he gave a tug,
proportioned, as he fancied, to the necessities of the case.
For a moment or two he hardly knew how to be sur-
prised at the result, for the door, flying open with a swift-
rending sound, struck him smartly on the side of the
head, and put all inquiry into the forces of the lever out
of mind.
CC
("
Scotch engineering," he said, rubbing the side of his
head with a rueful grin. Main strength and foolish-
ness. I might as well have chucked a sovereign out of
the window. It will take that at least to repair the
damage. Hang Mr. Gale, and confound his souvenir."
He threw the implement away at haphazard, and,
falling in a straight line on the pillow of the bed at the
very edge of the neatly folded coverlid, it rolled over and
lay hidden.
"There's a demoniac adroitness about that tool," said
Esden, still rubbing at the injured spot. "It hides itself
as if it knew its work was over, and that it has no busi-
ness to be seen."
With an occasional glance at the shattered lock, and
here and there an exclamation of impatience at his own
clumsiness and folly, he proceeded to attire himself for
the streets. He winced a little under the application of
his hair brushes, and broke into profane sayings when
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
23
he discovered that his hat was considerably too small to
be conveniently worn.
"One can't go out like this," he said pettishly, as he
surveyed himself in the mirror, "with one's hat perched
on one ear, like a Jew shop boy's on a holiday. It's
lucky the bruise is under the hair. I'm a philosopher to
find anything lucky under the circumstances, though I
suppose I ought to be thankful for having got off without
a black eye.
""
Whilst he grumbled thus to himself, exchanging, with
no sense of gratitude, the contemplation of serious
troubles for that of small ones, there came a knock at
his outer door, and he strode with a tragic mien to an-
swer it. No sooner had he opened the door and set eyes
upon the man who stood beyond it, than he brightened
into instant good humour, and executed a hearty shake-
hands. The arrival was dressed like a cleric, but apart
from his dress he wore an air utterly unclerical. He
was about six feet in height, broad shouldered, deep
chested, and as well set up as if newly dismissed from
the drill yard. He had a most wholesome red and white
complexion, and a big, dragoon-looking moustache, so
that except for a certain suggestion of brains he carried
he might have passed for a Guardsman in disguise. He
was one of those men who preserve a physical condition
so perfect that even in the hottest summer weather in
London they contrive always to look cool and clean. Such
people convey to their very clothing a sense of their own
wholesomeness. Their linen is crisper than that of people
less favoured, their boots acquire less dust, and their
clothes take fewer wrinkles.
"I'm
"Come in, Arnold, old chap!" cried Esden.
glad to see you. I was just thinking of turning into the
Strand and getting an iced-fruit drink; but, upon my
soul, you're such an excellent substitute for it that I don't
feel thirsty any longer."
The dragoon-like cleric came in laughing, and closed
the door behind him with a motion of his foot.
24
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"What's the matter with you?" asked Esden. "You'd
better go into the next room and get a wash. You look
as if your left ear had been black-leaded."
The clergyman laughed, and even blushed a little.
<<
Soap and water will make no impression on that for
a day or two," he said. "That, as a point of fact"-blush-
ing a little more pronouncedly-"is a rememembrance of
one of my parishioners."
"You don't mean to say that they hammer the church
down there?" asked Esden.
66
My dear Wyncott, there are people in Limehouse
who would hammer anything hammerable from the Pope
downwards."
"Why don't you clear out of that," asked Esden,
"and take a respectable living? You've got plenty of
chances."
The people
interest me.
"Well, I don't know," said the parson.
We're getting to like each other."
“Ecce signum!" said the barrister, indicating the
bruised ear.
"My dear fellow," returned the other, "you mayn't
believe it, but you never said a truer word than that in
your life. Ecce signum ! I never made so small an
effort and secured such results by it."
..
Expound," said the barrister, thrusting out a lazy
foot and pushing a chair against the damaged door,
One Sunday night, after service," said the cleric, still
blushing, " a woman came to me at the Mission House-
an excellent person-and complained that William had
got upon the burst again. Now William had been going
pretty squarely for a good five months, and he and I had
got to be on capital terms. I'll tell you the whole thing
exactly as it happened. I was fortunate enough to find
William at a moment of repentance five months back,
when he had spent his last twopence, and was deserted
by his pals. I had a good talk with him, stood him a
dinner and a drink, and brought him to see the error of
his ways. He promised to drink no more for a month-
<<
D
C
Kapag
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
25
a month doesn't look very terrible, and I like to make
things look easy-and he stuck to his promise like a brick.
At the end of the month I got him to sign again. At
the end of that time he got hankering after the porter-
pots of the Burdett Road, and all I could do was to get
him to promise that he would tell me faithfully whenever
I met him what he had spent on liquor since I had seen
him last. I have found that work with some of them.
Those chaps, you must understand, are very clumsy at
lying. They're not like people of our own class, who
have studied all their life long to do it gracefully. It is
not so much, perhaps, that they want the will, as that
they lack the practice. William wouldn't lie after the
first or second time, because he found out, sympathetically,
that I knew when he was at it. I haunted him rather
badly, and he took umbrage and kept away, so that I
wasn't surprised on Sunday when the excellent Mrs. Per-
kins turned up and told me that William hadn't appeared
on the previous day with his week's money. As soon as
I could get free I went after him, drew half a dozen
places blank, and finally unearthed him in the Turk's
Head.
-
(C
"Now, William,' said I, 'this is against the contract.'
William refused to touch the question, and became per-
sonally offensive. I told him that wasn't just or manly.
'You know,' said I, 'that a clergyman can't use bad
language. Therefore, William, it is cowardly to use bad
language to a clergyman, just as it's cowardly to use a
stick or a knife against a man who has only his hands to
defend himself." Oh, if it comes to that,' said William,
'put 'em up.'
"Now, as a matter of fact," pursued this unusual
cleric, laughing in an embarrassed manner at his host,
'that is an exercise which I have never been averse
to. The proposal did not logically spring from anything
that I had said, but Mr. Perkins seemed to think it did,
and his companions shared his view. I tried to persuade
my strayed lamb to go back to the fold with a whol

26
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
:
skin, but this well-meant effort was derided by William
and the crowd as an evidence of pusillanimity. Until
then, though I'd been on the edge of it a score of times,
more or less, I had never felt it to be my duty as a
Christian clergyman to give any of my parishioners a
hiding. I said as much to William. I pointed out to
him gently, though I was afraid it might look like
bragging, that I was one of Angelo's pet pupils, and that
I could probably walk round him like a cooper round a
cask, and hit him where I wanted. The long and short
of the story is, that what between William's folly and
my own mismanagement I was compelled to retire with
him to a neighbouring court, or to lose whatever hold I
was beginning to get upon those fellows. So I chose
what seemed the less of the two evils, and took on more
than I knew of. For William, though a little stale,
turned out to be a past master in the art, and in the
course of some five minutes got to be on terms of greater
intimacy with me than anybody has been since I had
that turn-up at Hampton Court with the nigger with the
banjo."
"I remember the nigger with the banjo," said Esden.
"He was a very useful man."
"Mr. Perkins," pursued the cleric, "was about as good,
but he suffered from being out of form."
"So," said Esden, "you pensioned his widow, like
Codlingsby, and settled sixpence a year apiece on the
infant progeny?"
"No," said the embarrassed clergyman. "But I
gained the goodwill of the whole assemblage. Mr.
Perkins admitted that he had had enough, and I
extracted a promise from him that if ever he broke out
again he would stand up and take a similar dose. He
will be so little hungry for it, that I think the prospect
may help to keep him straight. You'd hardly believe,"
he added, "what a hero I've been since the news of this
business got abroad. All I have to do now is just to
keep the hold I've got upon the men I really want to
:
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
27
touch. As for the feeble respectable folk, they think me
a child of Satan, and that's natural enough, of course.
But then, wherever was there a man, in the whole history
of the world, who was worth his salt, and cared about
the verdict of respectable people?"
"It's a pity," said Esden, laughing, "that the man
didn't land on the eye instead of the ear.
A parson with
a black eye would be quite a refreshing spectacle."
(C
Hillo!" cried the clergyman, suddenly perceiving
the shattered lock upon the bedroom door. "What's
this? Burglary?"
"A bit of amateur work," said Esden. "The result
of a presentation from a client of mine. I defended a
fellow yesterday, and got him off with flying colours.
He actually dined at the same table with me last night
at the Cock, and he was abominably grateful. He
wanted to give me-wait a minute. There's the post-
man."
A little handful of letters fell noisily into the box
behind the outer door, and Esden made a dash from the
room and returned with them.
"Excuse me, Arnold," he said, "I'm expecting some-
thing of importance. I must look at these.
""
He opened the letters and glanced rapidly over them,
with muttered exclamations of discontent, until he came
to one which seemed to give him serious disquiet. He
walked with this to the window, and, propping himself
against the wall in the recess, appeared to read it more
than once from beginning to end. His face was troubled,
and he clawed his hair with a gesture of perplexity.
((
"J. P.'s handwriting, isn't it?" said the clergyman,
pushing the envelope across the table. Nothing the
matter with him, I hope ?"
،،
Suffering from my own complaint," said Esden.
"He's hard up. Wants to know if I can't let him have
some money.'
"
"You haven't been borrowing from J. P., I hope ?"
said the other.
28
▲ DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
((
<<
Borrowing from J. P.?" cried Esden, in a voice of
unexpected irritation. Who, in the name of wonder,
would think of borrowing from J. P.? He's as poor as a
church mouse, and has half a dozen children."
He folded the letter, and thrust it into his waistcoat
pocket. Then, advancing to the table, he took up the
sole remaining epistle, and tore it open with a look of
expectant disgust. As he read it his face brightened,
and by-and-by he broke out with a "Tra la la!" to a
popular dance tune, and took a turn or two with an
imaginary partner.
"That's better," said his companion.
"My dear boy," Esden answered, turning with a sud-
denly solemn countenance, "you don't know how much
better it is. I'll be hanged-I suppose a man may say
he'll be hanged in the presence of the cloth-I'll be
hanged if I knew how I should get through the vacation.
And here's an invitation from Wootton Hill to spend a
a couple of months there if I like. If I like! Shan't I
like? The old lady says Miss Pharr is there. Do you
know, old chap, I rather think the old lady wants to give
me a chance with Miss Pharr? I think you know her.
Scottish heiress. Freckled a bit. Reddish haired. Not
bad looking. And the Oof Bird he singeth all day in her
bowers. Old Pharr, her uncle, died at the beginning of
the year, and left her everything."
The young clergyman rose and paced up and down
the room, with a single glance at Esden.
"I should have thought better of you," he said, some-
what brusquely, "than to suppose that you were a for-
tune hunter."
•
"All but the fortune finders scorn the fortune hunters,"
said Esden. "But show me a chance of marrying a girl
with fifteen thousand a year, and I'll take it. So would
you."
"I beg your pardon," said the parson, stiffly. “I
would do nothing of the sort."
His face, voice, and gait displayed more anger than
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
29
the occasion seemed to call for, but he quieted himself
and resumed his seat.
You were telling a story," he said, still speaking a
little gloomily, "about a fellow you defended yesterday."
"Was I?" said Esden.
"Ah, yes.
The burglar.
There was no moral doubt in the world about his being
guilty, but I wheedled the jury, and I got him off. He
wanted to give me
"}
The story of Mr. Gale's curious souvenir was obviously
not to be told that day. A knock at the outer door cut
short Esden's speech, and he hastened to answer it. When
he caught sight of his visitor, he raised a swift forefinger,
and laid it on his lips, with a backward nod of the head
to indicate the presence of a third person in the rooms.
The outer door opened upon a square little hall, and from
this two other doors opened, one leading to the bedroom
and the other to the living room, The bedroom door stood
ajar, and Esden, indicating it with a gesture, the new-
comer passed through it on tiptoe, silently and rapidly.
The visitor was a pretty girl, ladylike, but not quite a
lady. She had fine, dark, intelligent eyes and a wealth
of black hair. She was attired very simply, but with a
scrupulous neatness, and in a style which gave her at first
sight almost an air of distinction. When she ad passed
into the bedroom, Esden drew the door cautiously towards
him, and secured the latch. Then, he said, in a voice
audible to the clergyman:
"All right. It will take me five months to find the
papers, but I'll come round directly I have them."
He spoke as if he addressed somebody without, and
then, slamming the outer door, returned bustlingly.
"I haven't time for another word, old fellow," he said,
seizing upon a japanned tin box which stood in one corner
of the room. "Most intricate case," he went on, fum-
bling for his keys, and kneeling on the floor beside the
box. "Shall have to work at it during the vacation."
"When are you going down to Wootton?" asked the
clergyman.
30
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"To-morrow," said Esden. "Don't bother me now,
there's a good old chap. Let me see, I want the Ffolliott
papers, and that copy of Jamieson's will, and Walker's
affidavits." He had unlocked the box by this time, and
was rummaging amidst its contents.
"Very well," said his visitor; "I'll go, since you're
busy. I may see you again in a week or two."
<<
All right,” Esden answered, springing to his feet and
shaking hands with an air of hurry and absorption.
Good-bye, old fellow. Sorry to chase you in this way.
Hoped we might have had a long chat together."
Talking thus, he accompanied his guest to the outer
door, and being rid of him, dropped his business books at
once and entered the bedroom, laughing at the easy suc-
cess of his small stratagem.
((
(C
Well, my dear," he cried, advancing to the girl as if
to embrace her. "This is an unexpected pleasure. You
can't guess how glad I am to see you."
The girl looked disdainfully at him, and held out a
hand to warn him away.
“Let us have no nonsense, if you please, Mr. Esden.
I came here upon a matter of importance to myself. If
I had been left to my own will I should never have
wished to see your face again.'
""
"Don't be cruel, darling," said Esden. "If you knew
how I pined to see you, and how happy the sight of your
face made me a minute ago, you would be kinder."
He bent over her in an attitude of mingled respect
and tenderness as he spoke. His voice murmured with
so persuasive an entreaty that she took fright at it, and
stamped her foot with a gust of defensive anger.
CC
I will not suffer you to talk to me in this way," she
said, with hands tightly clenched and eyes flashing. "I
was a fool ever to believe that you meant honestly by
But I am not fool enough to listen to a villain."
"Hard words for such soft and pretty lips to use,"
said Don Juan, with the same tender and reverential air.
"I should like your portrait painted as you stand. You
me.
}
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW,
31
look gloriously handsome when you're angry. Not that
I don't like other expressions better. But then, you see,
I'm not only madly in love with you, but I'm a bit of an
artist."
She turned away from him, and pushing open the door
which led to the sitting-room, passed beyond it and took
up a place upon the hearthrug.
"When you will listen to me," she said, "I will say
what I have to say, and go."
"If you will think a minute," he responded, "you will
see what a poor reason you give me for listening. Say
what you want to say and stay.'
""
"I have taken a place as lady's maid," she began,
entering upon her story with no further preface.
"What a wretched shame!" broke in Esden. "There's
no justice, even for beauty, nowadays. A thousand years
ago you'd have met King Cophetua.
My mistress," she went on, having waited for him
with an angry self-control, " is a Miss Pharr-Miss Janet
Pharr."
(c
""
"The deuce she is !" broke in Esden, surprised out of
his airs of gallantry.
"Miss Pharr is a guest at your aunt's house at Woot-
ton Hill. I was in the room when they were talking
about you last night, and I heard Mrs. Wyncott say that
she was writing to invite you down. I got a holiday
this morning on purpose to come here. You will be good
enough, if you please, not to take any notice of me when
you come, and not to let it be known that we have ever
met before."
"It's lucky," said Esden, "that my cousin Arnold
didn't see you. He's always about the house there, more
or less, when he can snatch an hour or two from his work,
and he was here when you came in. You might have
relied on my discretion, even without taking the trouble
to warn me, darling."
"If you were really a gentleman in your heart," she
answered angrily, "you would let a girl's word be enough.
32
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
I have told you that it is unpleasant to me to be addressed
in that way."
""
:
"How can I help it, dear? You are my darling."
She moved towards the door without further response
than that vouchsafed by an angry and contemptuous
glance, and he, interposing himself, began to plead with
her.
"Let me pass," she said.
"You were different once," cried Esden, "not so long
ago. You even told me that you cared for me.'
Her face went very white, and she breathed unevenly,
so that when she answered him her utterance was halting
and irregular.
"I did care for you. I am ashamed of myself because
I care for you now, even though I have found out what
kind of man you are. I can tell you that quite safely,
Mr. Esden, and I shall be all the stronger for having told
you. You made me love you, and then you taught me
to despise you."
She had read the words somewhere, and the air with
which she spoke them smacked a little of the footlights.
But she was none the less evidently in earnest. Esden
shrugged his shoulders with submission, and opened the
door for her.
"Let us part friends at least," he said, extending his
hand.
"Let us part as strangers," she answered, "and meet
as strangers. I have wished bitterly, a thousand times,
that we had been strangers always."
She moved swiftly past him, and ran down the stairs.
He followed for a pace or two, and looked after her, but
she did not turn her head.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
$3
III
WY
JYNCOTT ESDEN had still another visitor that day
-a long-haired, long-handed, nervous man, with a
face that looked all nose. He had an impediment in his
speech, and was inclined to be confidentially tearful. He
answered to the name of J. P., and seemed contented
with that mutilated form of address.
"You won't think I'm bothering you, will you?"
said J. P. "But if you forget that bill, you'll break me.
I can't meet it any more than I can fly.'
""
(C
My dear fellow," responded Esden, "there's no
earthly need for you to worry. You may regard the
thing as being settled. You will never hear another
word about it."
The visitor, protesting that a great weight was taken
from his mind, withdrew and left Esden to himself.
'I must really do something about that matter,” he
confessed," and I must do it at once, though where the
deuce the money is to come from is more than I can guess.
I can't ruin J. P. That's out of the question. I'll see
Shelden. I'll go and see him now."
He marched briskly into the Strand and, hailing a
hansom, drove to the offices of a money-lending solicitor
of his acquaintance in Cork Street. Mr. Shelden, despite
his Christian-sounding name, was eminently Jewish in
aspect and accent.
"Want money?" he said, when Esden had unfolded
his story. "So do I. So does everybody. You're likely
to want it, and to go on wanting it. There's more of
your paper in the market than I'd give a farthing in the
pound for."
"I can't let the other fellow in for the bill," said
Esden.
"Very well, then," responded the solicitor. "Don't."
Esden had never worked at a jury as he worked at
34
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
this obdurate Hebrew. He coaxed, cajoled, and flattered.
He said a hundred good things, and the solicitor, who
had a sense of fun, laughed until his sides ached. But
whenever the insidious borrower returned to his theme,
or gave a sign of returning to it, the Hebrew grew
unchristian and morose. He employed a frankness which
was nothing short of brutal.
"Dot a farthig! It isn't good enough."
It became evident in a while that Esden might as
well hope to carve adamant with a quill as to squeeze
gold from this Hebrew quartz, and he surrendered the
effort with an apparent perfect good humour.
66
If you won't, you know, you won't.”
"I won't," said the solicitor, with unnecessary affirma-
tion.
The barrister went away to try his persuasive acts on
others, but found the hour too late. Next day he scoured
the city, and spent a pound in cab fares, to no effect.
There was not a man in the whole money-lending con-
fraternity who would have advanced him half-a-crown
on his note of hand for fifty pounds. To deal fairly with
him, it must be admitted that J. P's. petitionary nose and
feeble mouth and aspect of tearful intimacy were con-
stantly before him, and the sense of obligation lay with
an almost leaden weight upon his heart. It was certain
that he never meant to swindle poor J. P. He had only
meant to have, by hook or by crook, a hundred and fifty
pounds, and it was very dreadful to think that so small
a sum of money should grow into so horrible a burden
for any man to carry. For his own part, he felt that he
could have supported a million. If people could have
been found to trust him with the amount of the National
Debt, its proportions would never have appalled him.
But he was J. P's. vicar, so to speak, and did his suffering
for him. J. P. had a wife and six children, and it
was very sad to think that the poor man was going to
be ruined by an act of friendly confidence. Esden felt,
all humbug apart, that he was really very, very sorry.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
35
But after all, if the money was not to be got at, it was
not to be got at, and there was nothing for it but to
trust to the chapter of accidents.
His last unavailing effort to secure the money brought
him close to a city station and a restaurant. He was
tired and hungry, and the time at which he had pro-
mised himself to reach Wootton Hill had come and gone
already. So he resolved to economize time, and to that
end despatched a commissionaire with a note to his
laundress, instructing her to pack up such of his belong-
ings as would be necessary for a month's stay in the
country. He dined whilst the man was away, and on
his return with the luggage took the down train. He
bought an evening journal or two, and was at first too
vexed to read. But being of that elastic sort of mind
which insistently returns to its native shape after any
amount of twisting from without, he fell back into comfort
and good humour almost before he knew it, and was
reading and smoking with perfect placidity when the
train drew up at the station. He was known there, and
the station-master saluted him with a deference which
was all the pleasanter on account of that little trouble of
J. P's. Esden's aunt was the personage of the neigh-
bourhood, and her guests naturally became people of local
distinction. It was a little soothing to a man who could
not for his soul raise so small a sum as one hundred and
fifty pounds to wear the air of a person of distinction.
It helped to rehabilitate him in his own opinion.
(C
<<
Very sorry, sir," said the station-master respectfully,
we sha'n't be able to send up your luggage for an hour.
Leastways, not the whole of it. The man's just gone up
to the 'Ill 'Ouse, sir, with the 'andcart."
All right," said Esden; "let me have it to-night."
"Of course, sir. Without fail," the station-master
responded.
Esden walked away, feeling like an hereditary lord of
the soil. Poor J. P. and his affairs had melted and were
far away.
2
· 36
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
f
The Hill House was a residence of considerable size,
with little or no pretension to architectural beauty. It
stood over the surrounding country, and was visible for a
mile or two in almost any direction. It had a number of
great park-like trees about it, and there was something
homely, serene, and mellow in its aspect, in spite of its
exposure to all sorts of winds and weathers. The high
road led over the hill, and the gates were not more than
two score yards from the house itself. The space was
filled in by a lawn of ancient verdure, dotted with great
trees, and an extension of this lawn in the rear of the
house was shut out from the common gaze by a line of
unusually well-grown rhododendron bushes. The house
was bisected, as to its lower story, by an open hall, which
ran from front to rear; and when both doors were opened,
as they often were in summer weather, people who drove
by could look over the outer wall, across the lawn, along
the shining expanse of polished oak flooring, and on to
the sun-bathed green of the lawn in the rear. The two
upper storeys of the house were each in like manner
divided by a corridor, and a broad winding staircase.
mounted at either end of the building to those upper regions.
Esden, strolling comfortably up hill, saw before him
a man trundling a handcart. The man, pausing to rest,
propped the wheel of the handcart with a stone, sat down
upon one of the shafts, and mopped his forehead. The
barrister came up with him just as he was preparing to
start anew. He walked along by the side of the hand-
cart, and read the superscription on the packages it con-
tained.
"You're going to Hill House?" he said affably. The
man answered in the affirmative. "Bring my luggage on
there from the station as soon as you can get back, there's
a good fellow."
The man was a new-comer, and Esden felt a certain
mild pleasure in making him aware of his destination.
The fellow touched his cap immediately, and looked
respectful.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
37
"You have a pretty heavy load there," said Esden,
condescendingly.
"Yes, sir," said the man. "Photographic tools, these
is, sir. The lady's been down half-a-dozen times to ask
after 'em, sir."
"Photographic tools?" said Esden. "Enough to set
up a professional man. Don't forget my luggage."
With that he sauntered affably along, and reached the
house a hundred yards before the messenger. As he
entered at the gate a little group of girls, habited in white
flannel, and twining together very prettily and affection-
ately, were moving across the lawn, chattering like a
flock of starlings. Behind them, an elderly gentleman in
black gave his arm to an elderly lady in grey. The visi-
tor quickened his step and came up to the old couple.
"Well, aunt," he said cheerfully. "Here I am, and
very glad I am to be here."
"My dear Wyncott," the old lady responded, "we are
very glad to have you.'
The girls turned at the sound of the new arrival's
voice, and one of them walked towards him with a frank
and boy-like smile, and a hand outstretched in welcome.
"You have not forgotten me, Mr. Esden?"
There was a faint indication of a Scottish accent in
the voice, and the speaker had the true Scotch fairness
of complexion. She could hardly have been called a
beauty, but there was something at first sight charming
and engaging in her looks. She had very frank and
brave grey eyes, and a great quantity of brownish bronze
hair, which just now floated about her head in a pic-
turesque confusion. She had a knack of tossing this
mane into shape by a swift motion of the head, and what
with her fearless and friendly look, the extreme upright-
ness of her carriage, and something almost virile in her
manner of shaking hands, she was at least as much like
a boy in petticoats as she was like a young woman, not-
withstanding the really supple and graceful lines of a
very womanly figure.
35
to
38
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
2.
Esden protested gaily that her question was an insult
alike to his understanding and his heart. There was a
laugh at this, and with another handshake, and a bow or
two, he moved on towards the house with the little party.
"I am the bearer of good news, Miss Pharr," he said.
"I am the advance guard of contentment."
"That is very nice to know," Miss Pharr responded,
with a spice of friendly satire in her tone.
"Your photographic apparatus," said Esden, "is at
this instant at the gate."
"No?" cried the lady, in a tone of unexpected delight
and energy, and without another word she turned and
sped towards the gate. by which Esden had entered.
There she paused with a sort of little expectant dance
on tiptoe, and her hands clasped together, a straw hat in
the one and a racquet in the other. A little breeze was
blowing up the hill, and her really beautiful hair was
waving and dancing in it. Esden turned upon his heel
and followed her at leisure.
"She isn't bad looking," he said to himself, " and she
has really charming ways. I suspect that her way with
the cheque-book is about as charming as any of them.
I shall make as much running as I can, Miss Pharr, and
you may take my word for it.
The young lady was fairly alight with expectation
and excitement. When the man wheeled the handcart
into the drive, she laid hands upon the packages one by
one, and walked alongside fondling them. She took up
one of the lighter parcels and carried it in her arms, and
seeing Esden laughing at this enthusiasm, nodded brightly
and laughed back at him in a pretty triumph.
"By George!" said Esden, inwardly, "she's really
jolly. She wasn't half as pretty as this last year."
He forgot that last year the lady's income had been
much more limited than it was at present. There had
been no such reason for admiring her.
In some five minutes' time the dining room presented
a scene of prodigious litter. Miss Pharr had always-
در
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW
39
been spoiled, had always been enthusiastic, and had always
had her own way. Now, with fifteen thousand a year at
her back she had it more than ever. Such a cutting of cords,
such a crackling and unfolding of brown paper, and such a
wild heaping of articles upon chairs and tables, the sober
apartment had never known before. Everything was
pronounced superb of its sort, and there was such a chorus
of admiration as might have been excited amongst a
party of tourists admitted to view the splendours of
Aladdin's palace. Then the dressing-bell rang, and the
servants were summoned in haste to carry away all the
newly arrived treasures, and to make the apartment habit-
able once more:
،،
The old lady lingered after everybody, but Esden had
trooped upstairs. She was stout and scant of breath,
and got about with difficulty, so that she had her apart-
ments upon the ground floor.
"I shall put you next to Miss Pharr, my dear," she
said, in a confidential tone, with a twinkle of her kind
old eyes.
Now, you know what I think about the
matter. Quite apart from her money, she is a charming
girl, and she would make you a better wife than you de-
serve."
"I," said Esden, "am the most obedient of nephews."
"You are very clever and handsome," the old lady
responded, "though I am afraid you are wickeder than
you ought to be, like your poor dear father before you.
Now run away and dress."
(<
My dear aunt," said Esden, "I must confess to one
crime. I have dined already. I was busy in the city,
and had no time for luncheon, and I got so hungry that
I really couldn't stand it any longer; and I can't dress
because there was nobody at the station to bring up my
luggage."
"You must come to table and entertain us. I forgot
to tell you-you can't have your old room, because Miss
Pharr is there. Yours is the blue room at the other end
of the corridor."
40
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
}
Esden escorted his aunt to the door of her apartments
and then marched upstairs, well pleased. J. P. and his
concerns were miles away by this time, as clean forgotten
as though they had never existed. The young gentle-
man felt that he had made an excellent fresh impression
upon the heiress. She evidently retained a friendly
memory of him, and when he had made such a toilet as
he could he sat down at his bedroom window, and lost
all sight of outward things whilst he laid his plan of
campaign. He decided that he would not cease to be
frankly friendly for at least a week. Then he saw him-
self growing a little shy, and looked on at the change
with a shy and humorous self-approval. Then he went
over a scheme of embarrassment at her appearances, of
chance encounters to be carefully arranged for; of abrupt
departures, when honest circumstances should leave them
together. He would take in the old lady herself, and
make her his confidante. He would grow ashamed of
the mere thought of fortune-hunting when once his heart
was genuinely engaged. At this he grinned and rubbed
his hands delightedly. It would be high comedy to have
his aunt frightened at his threat of a noble and self-
sacrificing desire to quit the field, and excellent fun to be
reluctantly persuaded to continue the chase-love con-
quering even the fear of being thought athirst for lucre.
He revelled in all this in anticipation, even apart from
any hope of final success. He was a ruseur by nature,
and hardly knew a higher joy than to conquer by per-
suasive trickery; and in a sort of fashion he was honest
with it all. If he won he would make an excellent hus-
band, and his wife would be proud of him. The battle
of the Courts was the breath of his nostrils, and he
credited himself with brains enough to justify him in
forecasting for himself one of the highest prizes to be
gained at the bar.
The dinner bell roused him from these dreams, and
he went gaily down to conquer.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
41
IV.
HⓇ 5
E was less entertaining and amusing than he had
meant to be, because the dinner-table talk was
mainly confined to a subject of which he was entirely
ignorant. But reflecting wisely that a good listener is
just about as entertaining to other people as a good
talker is to himself, he preserved for the most part a
charming silence.
It was natural that, after the arrival of Miss Pharr's
newly-acquired treasure, the talk should fall upon photo-
graphy. There were two amateur experts at table, and
one as yet unlearned enthusiast. Miss Edith Wyncott,
sole daughter of the lady of the house, a somewhat
stately maiden of five-and-thirty, consoled herself with
the photographic art as enthusiastically and lovingly as
other maiden ladies console themselves with pugs or par-
rots. Dr. Elphinstone, the elderly gentleman whom we
found a while ago arming his hostess across the lawn,
was old enough to remember the beginning of the art,
and had watched its progress with a vivid interest. The
world of science was indebted to him for a certain
remarkable series of enlarged photographs of microscopic
objects, so that he was a high authority.
It was the talk of these two which had persuaded Miss
Pharr to occupy her leisure in photographic work, and
the conversation was nearly all of wet processes and dry,
of grey lights and white lights, screws, swivels, caps, and
shutters. In the end, it grew too technical for the novice,
and then she left the battle to the two authorities, and
talked generally about the charms of the pursuit to Esden.
It is not everybody in the world who could make a
theme like this the means to display his own manly ten-
derness of heart, but Esden managed it. To have sou-
venirs of people and of places we have known or loved,
not coldly bought for a shilling or two from a tradesman,
42
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
:
+
but actually created by the labour of our own hands,
must really be delightful. How charming, he urged, in
solitude or age, to turn over the leaves of memory with
such an aid as this beautiful art afforded! What a plea-
sant thing it would be to photograph, say, a child, month
by month, until he grew to manhood, and to trace the
gradual growth of intellect and strength in that way!
The very combatants stopped in their dispute to listen to
him.
"If I were a photographer," said Esden, I should
make a point of dating all my work; not from any desire
to mark my progress in the art, but from reasons purely
sentimental. Think of the diary one could keep in such
a fashion."
"That is really a valuable Lint, Mr. Esden," said the
heiress. "I shall adopt that suggestion, and I shall
adopt it for that reason.
,,
Mrs. Wyncott sent Esden a meaning smile from her
place at the head of the table, as if to say, "You are
making excellent progress. Esden forboré to smile back
in return, though it cost him something of an effort. The
heiress looked at him with a grave and candid approval.
She thought him a man of an admirable good heart; and
he, quite honestly and to his own surprise, began more
and more to think her charming.
""
Elphinstone was a Scotchman, with a face like that
of an unusually benevolent and sagacious old deerhound.
Sir Walter's pet, Maida, might almost have sat for his
portrait. He was prodigiously solemn, even for his type,
and his highest expression of humorous satisfaction was
conveyed by a dry twitch and twinkle. He was grave
about matters of the most ordinary import, but where a
thing concerned him at all his seriousness was abysmal.
Ye're a very lucky pairson, Mess Janet" he said,
with his gracious and amiable solemnity, "to have het
upon a time for the commencement of your studies at a
moment when the sci'nce o' chemistry as applied to pho-
tography has so far pairfected itself. I began, for my
(C
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW,
43
own part, when 'twas en its enfancy. I remember pair-
fectly well the time when your late uncle braght over
that wonderful collection of jools and gems, and chains
and coins, and oncher and brooches. He asked me to
photograph them for'm. He was just new back from
Burmah, and the Art Journal was all agog to have draw-
ings of them. We had the thengs penned down upon a
board, and I got them ento the loveliest light y'ever saw,
and I photo'd them. There was a mighty discussion at
the time as to whether some of the coins were authentic,
and all the numismatists in the wide wide world took an
enterest in the question. Well, I took the photos; and
your uncle being in a hurry, went straight back to Burmah
with the oreginals. The pectures went from Edinburgh
to London by the post, and were kept in the editor's
drawer for a month, and when the poor man went to
hand them to the engraver, they'd just clean flown.
There was still a kind of smutch upon the paper, but any
o'
notion of a pecture they might have presented had van-
ished for guid and a'. There's no danger o' the laike o'
that happenin' nowadays, and the student o' photography
may reckon himself happy in that he begins at a time
when at least he'll be played no tricks weth."
The heiress laid her finger upon her lips, and looked
across at the aged medico with an aspect of exaggerated
D
secrecy.
"We will say more of this hereafter, Dr. Elphinstone,"
she said. “Remind me in the drawing-room.
When dinner was over Esden, who, under ordinary
conditions, would have lingered for the enjoyment of a
cigarette, had found the heiress so charming, and the be-
ginning of his pursuit received so kindly, that he felt
bound to follow her. When tea had been brought, and
the servant who brought it had retired, Elphinstone re-
minded Miss Pharr of her promise.
I know," she said, with a delightful little mischiev-
ous grimace at the old gentleman, "that I shall be scolded
for bringing them here;" and without a word of further
44
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
}
1
explanation she darted from the room in her own vivid
and boy-like way, and presently returning with a moroc-
co-bound despatch box, laid it on the table, and unlocked
it with a key she carried at her girdle along with a mul-
titude of miniature kitchen utensils in silver.
Dr. Elphinstone, leaning with both hands upon the
table, made a long-drawn exclamation of wonder and de-
light as the box was opened. Esden was at the table
already prepared to admire and wonder to precisely the
extent to which wonder or admiration might be called
for, and at the doctor's cry of surprise and pleasure the
others gathered around.
66
But, Janet!" cried the old lady, "this is midsummer
madness. How dare you carry such things about with
you?" She stretched out a hand, and laid a fore-finger,
which positively trembled with her delight, on a huge
half-cut sapphire lying in the centre of the case. What
are they worth?" she asked, in a tone which contrasted
comically, in its eagerness and worship, with her re-
proof.
"I can't tell you," Miss Pharr answered. "I dare say
my uncle may have registered them at their full value.
They were lying insured at the Crédit Lyonnais in Paris
for half a million of francs. They were eating their
heads off there, like unused horses in a stable. They
were costing a thousand pounds a year for insurance. I
can stable them in England much more cheaply."
Everybody about the table stared at the gems and
coins as if they had been jewels in a fairy tale. The
doctor touched them one by one with reverent fore-finger.
"I remember," he said, with unusual solemnity. "I
remember."
The case, which was no larger than a sheet of post
quarto, opened into two compartments, and in these, gems,
old and new, lay enshrined in violet velvet, together with
rings, coins, and chains of Oriental workmanship. The
heiress deftly whipped out a tray in the lower section of
the box.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
45
"There," she said, "is the real treasure."
The onlookers bent forward with craned necks and
jostling shoulders, each unconscious of the others. The
real treasure was less inviting to the eye than the one
first seen.
The gems displayed were, for the most part,
rock-encrusted, but every one on the upper side had, to a
greater or smaller extent, been cut and polished, so that
they flashed with gleams of sapphire and emerald, and
yellow diamond light-a light furtive and concealed.
The doctor drew an inward breath, and with extended
thumb and fore-finger, touched one great stone, an emerald.
Then, looking at the owner with an air of respect and
apology, he drew it from its place and laid it softly in
the palm of his left hand.
"I'm a lettle bet of an amateur," he said, in a half
awe-struck tone.
«
That," cried Miss Pharr, laughing "is quite a boast
for Dr. Elphinstone. When he admits himself to be ‘a
lettle bet of an amateur ""-with an audacious mimicry of
the old gentleman's tone and manner-"he means to say
that he knows everything that can be known."
The doctor turned upon her and twinkled.
"May so old a gentleman as myself invite so young a
leddy as you are not to talk nonsense? Janet, this is
is just wonderful!" He stood poring over the jewel and
watching its rich gleaming green for a minute, and then
returned it reverently to its place. Then he stretched
his white fingers over the collection as if he blessed it.
Eh?" he said suddenly, as if someone had addressed
him, and then in an inward murmur repeated the line,
"Full many a gem of purest ray serene."
(C
"Janet," said Mrs. Wyncott solemnly. "you must not
keep the valuables in the house. I shall never be able to
sleep so long as they are here. You will have us all
murdered in our beds.”
"There is not a soul except ourselves who knows that
these things are here," Miss Pharr responded. "I did
not even mention them before the servants at dinner.
46
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
J
Besides that, they are not the sort of thing a thief would
care to steal. They are too remarkable to be easily
disposed of."
(C
Pray don't be too certain of that, Miss Pharr," said
Esden. "I have encountered professionally a score of
gentlemen who would willingly risk their necks for such
a booty. And, as for disposing of them, there is an
actual firm of receivers of stolen goods in London who
are known to be ready, at almost any hour, with five
thousand pounds."
(C
Wyncott Esden knows these things," said Miss
Wyncott. "His profession brings him into contact with
those dangerous people. You should really listen to his
advice, Janet."
"Well," said Miss Pharr, looking up at Esden, "do
you think it unwise for me to have them with me?”
"I think it a little rash and hazardous," he answered.
"But," said the owner of the jewels, with a momentary
amused petulance, "you want to make them a sort of
white elephant to me. What is the good of a girl having
the things at all if she is only to lock them up in a bank
and pay for their being kept there?".
That's a verra pointed query," said Dr. Elphinstone,
"but I should be ill at ease weth them if they belonged
to me."
tr
"I suppose," said Miss Pharr, replacing the tray which
covered the more valuable gems, "that I may be allowed
to keep my mother's jewellery. And yet, to my mind,
they are more dangerous than the others. You have only
to wrench these stones from their setting, and nobody
could identify them.".
"Poor Robert would hardly have cared for the idea
of the collection being dessipated, or I should counsel
their being put upon the market," said Dr. Elphinstone.
"That I shall never do," said Miss Pharr decisively.
She closed and locked the casket. "In the meantime,"
she continued, laughing, "guard my dangerous secret.
There is a very strong and snug little cupboard in my
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
47
!
bedroom, and there they shall lie until I can find time to
Then they shall go to the
Am I likely to encounter a burglar on the
run up to town with them.
bankers.
stairs ?"
"Janet, I beg you not to talk of such terrible things
in a tone of levity," said the old lady. "It is a wanton
temptation of Providence."
There are some people who seem to think that Provi-
dence lies in wait for little opportunities of this kind. It
is a disrespectful theory, and would seem to imply a very
sleepy and capricious vigilance.
Miss Pharr ran off with her jewels, locked them in
the cupboard she had spoken of, and returned. Esden so
manœuvred as to place himself with apparent natural-
ness at her side, and they had a bright and cheerful talk
together. Every moment she grew more prepossessing
to his fancy, and he began to think that if things went
on at this pace, in a week's time from now there would
be no need for pretences. So far as he could judge-and
he was neither outrageously vain nor a fool--the im-
pression he made was as favourable as the one he received.
He went to bed with a light heart, but the hapless J. P.
haunted his pillow, and darkened his midnight hours,
until he went to sleep and dreamed of Miss Pharr and
Golconda
MO
48
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
(
t
ESD
ISDEN was rather a late bird for the country as a rule,
but next morning the man had no sooner brought
in his tub and shaving water than he bundled out of bed.
Overnight, a photographic expedition had been arranged,
and Miss Pharr was too eager to play with her new toy
to suffer herself to be delayed by any late comer. Esden
wanted to be helpful, and was naturally resolved to be
profoundly interested in photography.
The man appointed to attend to his necessities had
opened his portmanteau and stacked away his belongings
with perfect neatness. He had not, however, opened the
dressing-case, which closed with a snap lock, and that
light task was left to the hands of the proprietor. Esden,
growling a little at the delay, sought for the key, found
it, and opened the case. There, at the bottom of the bag,
to his considerable astonishment, lay the several halves
of Mr. Reuben Gale's curious souvenir.
•
•
"Now, what the deuce did the old fool think I wanted
that for?" he asked, half aloud. "What on earth does
she think it is, I wonder?"
He remembered having found it upon his pillow on
going to bed on the night of his experiment with the
door. He had unscrewed the tool, and set it on the chest
of drawers, and there his laundress had obviously found it.
"Thought it would come in handy, no doubt," he said,
laughingly, as he applied the soap-brush to his chin. "So
it would, with Miss Pharr's jewels in the house. There's
a good joke there. I'll take it down, and tell them the
story.
""
It crossed his mind that it would be a joke to pretend
to have found it and to argue from it the presence of a
burglar in the house, but he had too much wit to turn
practical joker, and abandoned that idea before it was
fairly formed. He was dilatory with his dressing, and
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
49
the breakfast bell ringing before he was half ready for it
put his discovery out of mind. He closed the dressing
bag with a snap, and had reached the foot of the stairs
before he recalled the thought of the implement.
'Never mind," he said to himself. "There'll be more
leisure for a story after dinner;" and so went down and
encountered his hostess and his fellow guests as brightly
as he had left them ten hours before.
"A letter for you, Wyncott," said the old lady.
Esden took it from her hand and recognized J. P.'s super-
scription. He sat down and opened the envelope with the
handle of an egg-spoon, and took out the missive some-
what jerkily. His correspondent wrote that he had heard
news which had very much disturbed him. He had
called at chambers for the purpose of talking it over, and
the laundress, knowing their intimacy, had given him
Esden's address. Was that bill really all right? J. P.
wanted to know. It was a matter of life and death to
him, and the information he had received made him fear
that it was doubtful. Would Esden wire ?
The young barrister had hard work to conceal his
annoyance. He wouldn't have let that wretched J. P. in
for this, so he told himself, for all the money in the
world. Apart from the fact that it was really pitiful to
damage so helpless a personage, it was disastrous to hurt
a man of J. P.'s temperament, because everybody would
know the injury he had sustained, and the cause of the
trouble would inevitably have life made a burden to him.
If it had not been that the others were supplied with a
theme in which they were warmly interested, the fall in
Esden's spirits, and the sham gaiety with which he tried
to mask it, would hardly have escaped notice. Confound
J. P. What had he got to howl about-as yet? Let
him howl when the time came! Esden was righteously
wrathful at the fact that J. P. would not accept his
reiterated word.
Breakfast over, a council of campaign was held, and,
everybody being entrusted with something to carry, the
50
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
:
;
party set out with Miss Pharr's brand-new paraphernalia
in search of landscape beauties at Wootton Wood. There,
at an indicated spot, they were to be met by luncheon,
and the three photographers at least were bent upon
making a day of it.
They had scarcely reached their destination, and were
all busily interested in working or watching, when the
gardener's boy from the house came up, hot and breath-
less, with a telegram for Esden. This also came from
J. P., and Esden, walking a little apart to open it, broke
into maledictions on its sender, until he caught sight of
the brown-faced boy at his elbow, staring aghast and
open-mouthed at him. He had an impulse upon him to
wring the boy's neck, but humour was his forte rather
than ill-temper, and he laughed instead. "For Heaven's
sake, wire,” ran J. P.'s message, and Esden, tearing a
blank leaf from his pocket-book, pencilled a message in
reply. "All right. Don't be an old ass." He gave this
to the boy with half-a-crown, and bade him take it to the
post office with all convenient speed.
"Be oi to bring back the chynge, sir?" the boy
asked.
"No," said Esden, "you can keep it."
The boy's face beamed, and he was off with a touch
of his hat brim. When he thought himself at a distance
to be unobserved, he was seen to hurl his hat in the air,
and to execute a wild flourish of delight with a pair
of prodigious boots. Miss Pharr, as well as Esden,
caught sight of him, and burst into a merry peal of
laughter.
"You have gladdened one heart to-day, Mr. Esden,"
she said, pleasantly.
This half restored Esden's balance. It was worth
while even to be badgered a little, if the badgering in any
way helped to establish him in Miss Pharr's good opinion.
But J. P. obstinately refused to be altogether got rid of.
There were indeed moments when he seemed so vividly
present, with that new moon of a nose of his, and his
¡
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
51
half-opened mouth of resigned complaint that Esden
loathed him and could have willingly done him bodily
injury if that could have helped the case.
With all this, it was his business to be unobtrusively
helpful, and constantly interested in Miss Pharr's opera-
tions. The doctor and the maiden lady were full of
advice, and were both itching to do the work themselves.
The spot was a little Paradise for a landscape artist.
Every change of posture, every half dozen paces gave a
new picture. Everybody in the little party was grouped
and posed repeatedly, and even when the operations were
cut short by the arrival of luncheon, Miss Pharr's amateur
enthusiasm was unabated, and her artistic appetite
uncloyed.
((
The cloth was spread upon a little turfy table at the
very edge of the wood, and the spot commanded a view
of the house and of the winding path across the fields
which led towards it. They were but half way through
the meal when Esden, glancing out of the shadow, gave
an actual groan of impatience and rose to his feet. There
was J. P.'s ramshackle figure on the pathway, and the
gardener's boy was escorting him.
"What is the matter, Wyncott?" asked his cousin.
"He's the deadliest bore in Europe," he responded.
He's a client of mine, and a personal acquaintance into
the bargain. He presumes on that to come and talk
about this case to me. I won't endure him. I will send
him back to his solicitor."
So saying he walked off to meet his unwelcome visitor,
who, seeing him approaching, waved his stick in recogni-
tion, and fumbled in his pocket for a tip for the boy.
He wore long-fingered dogskin gloves, and was by nature
one of those clumsy-handed people who do nothing
easily. He groped so long for the three-penny piece he
wanted, that Esden came up with him just as he had
found it. They both kept silence until the boy had
accepted the coin and retired with a salute.
د.
52
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
}
"Now, my dear fellow, what do you want here!”
Esden asked, in a tone of impatience.
<<
"Well, you see," mumbled the visitor, behind his nose
'you should have wired, Esden. You ought to have
wired."
"Hang it all, man," Esden answered, I did wire."
J. P. took the air of one suddenly arrested, and stared
at Esden with rounded eyes, and his mouth a little open
as if he were making ready to bleat.
"I never got it," he said feebly. "Where did you
send it to."
"I sent it to the office," Esden answered. "I sent it
immediately on receipt of yours.
""
Oh!" said J. P.," that accounts for it. I didn't go
to the office this morning. I was waiting at home all
day for an answer.
What did you say?"
"ŷ
<<
I said, "All right. Don't be an old ass." Esden laid
both hands on J. P.'s shoulders, and gave him a cordial
little shake. "You go home, old man," he said, calling
up his brightest and most friendly smile, "and make
your mind quite easy."
66
Well, if you say that," J. P. returned dubiously, "it
takes a weight off a man's mind, of course. But they
told me in the city last night that you were moving
heaven and earth to raise a hundred and fifty, and it
made me anxious."
..
Now, look here, J. P.," said Esden, with gentle
severity. "I've written to you that it's all right. I've
wired to you that its all right. I've told you over and
over again, speaking to you face to face, that it's all
right.
})
"Well-oh, of course, if you put it that way," said J.
P., still dubious.
""
Don't you fret," said Esden; "you shall never hear
any more about it."
J. P. said again that a load was taken from his mind,
though he looked as if an added burden had been laid
upon it.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
53
"You see Esden," he mumbled, in meek apology, "it
would be an awful thing for me to have to meet it. Six
girls, you know, all in perfect health, and such appetites
you'd hardly credit. Then Mrs. P.-it seems that she too
was shorn of a whole surname like himself—is very ail-
ing and weakly. We have had to take on another woman
to look after the children, and the doctor's bills are some-
thing awful. Of course I must let her have the best
assistance, and a good doctor is very expensive."
"I know, old chap, I know," said Esden, laying a
hand upon his shoulder. At that moment his heart ached
with compassion and repentance.
"You shan't be hurt,
J. P. He would be a hard-hearted devil who'd damage
you, old chap."
"Well, then," said J. P., "I can rely upon you."
"You can rely upon me," Esden answered.
He walked back with him towards the station, and
had to seem high-spirited and easy of heart all the way.
The poor J. P. went off comforted, and Esden strolled
back bitterly unhappy, and filled with an impotent loath-
ing of himself. He had spoken one phrase in all sincer-
ity. It was base indeed to hurt so harmless a creature,
But how he could help it, and how escape the disgrace
which seemed falling upon himself, he could not guess.
54
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
VI.
THE
HE placid Mrs. Wyncott watched her impecunious
nephew's progress with the heiress with a growing
satisfaction. She was one of those people who believe
that reformed rakes make the best husbands, which is at
least as true as that pickpockets retired from practice are
the most faithful of trustees. Esden had certainly been
a bit of a rake in his day. Once the old lady had paid
his debts for him, and there had been so pronounced a
coolness on her side after this act of kindness, that Esden,
who had natural and considerable expectations from her,
had been compelled to pretend to a condition of financial
prosperity which he was very far from enjoying. He had
even gone so far, when he had grown quite sure of his
aunt's forgiveness, as to offer repayment. The old lady
had been very kind with him on this occasion, and had
shed a tear or two over the returned and respectable
prodigal. It was quite right, in her judgment, for a young
man to sow his wild oats; but she had a strong impression,
too, that the young man should reserve a special field for
them, and that they should bring him some marketable har-
vest. Of her two nephews she had been used to prefer
Arnold, but Arnold had gone into the Church. Mrs. Wyn-
cott's father had been a pronounced Whig in the terrible old
Nineties, and she had imbibed from him certain vague
notions about the Godhead of Reason, which left the
Church respectable to her mind, but behind the age and
a trifle feeble. A man with Arnold's figure should have
gone into the Guards. She was a little parsimonious, but
she had cared enough for him to find the money for that
somewhat expensive and unprofitable career. He chose
the Church in spite of her, and her affection for him.
cooled, until she began to like the scapegrace better than
the mollycoddle.
There was an understood feud between her and her
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
55
daughter Edith on this point. Edith was a devout
Churchwoman, and reprobated mamma's freethinking
opinions, vague and harmless as they were. Then the
old maid—with that tender insight which unmarried
women who have passed their prime unloved so often
have had penetrated a secret to which her mother was
blind. Arnold was seriously in love with Miss Pharr,
and was only frightened away by the contemplation of
her money. She held the key to another secret which
needed no tenderness to discover. The money which
drove the solider and worthier man away was the bait
which drew his shallower and less deserving cousin. She
liked Wyncott Esden-most people liked him--and she
was not very severe in her judgment about him. But
she esteemed the other man infinitely more highly. So,
whilst mamma benevolently plotted in behalf of the bar-
rister, Miss Wyncott took the cause of the clergyman in
hand, and determined to do her best for him.
Miss Pharr and Esden and the old doctor were out
photographing together, and the old lady was inwardly
complacent at the prospect of the two young people being
left much in each other's society. She had never dared
to warn Edith out of the way, but she triumphed over
the small stratagem which she believed to have kept her
at home that morning. By-and-by however, she discov-
ered that there was another strategist on the field.
"It looks very hot outside this morning," said the
younger lady, leisurely plying her needle. "I am glad I
stayed within doors."
01
"S So am I, my dear," mamma answered comfortably.
It has given me an opportunity," said Miss Wyncott,
"of writing to Arnold." Mamma dropped her book upon
her lap, and folded her plump hands upon it with an
expression almost of dismay. "I don't know how it is
that one's hands seem so full always," Edith went on, with
no admission of having noticed this change of attitude,
"but one never seems to have time for anything."
She went on stitching with downcast eyes, and the
56
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
old lady, making her tone as tranquil as she could,
asked:
"What did you say to Arnold?”
"I told him we should be very glad to see him if he
would come down.'
"Edith!” cried the old lady, with sudden shrill-
ness.
(C
Yes, dear?" said Edith, looking innocently up
at her.
"For goodness' sake," exclaimed Mrs. Wyncott, “don't
take these airs with me. You know very well that I
don't want Arnold here at present. I don't want any
other young man than Wyncott about the house at
present. I forbid you to send that letter."
د.
For sole answer, Miss Wyncott rose from her seat and
rang the bell. Mamma fanned herself with a defined air
of triumphant indignation, and her daughter went back
to her sewing. By-and-by, a servant appeared in answer
to the summons.
((
"Ask Grainger to come here,” said Edith.
"Grainger, Miss Wyncott?" repeated the servant.
Grainger," repeated Edith, "Miss Pharr's maid."
There was another pause, and Mrs. Wyncott's fan took
a disturbed and doubtful movement. In a little while
Grainger came, looking reserved end handsome, and as if
under a sort of stately compulsion. She was dressed in
discreet black, with white linen at the wrists and throat,
and her lustrous black hair was rolled into a great knot.
She looked as unyielding and disdainful here as she had
done in Esden's chambers a week earlier.

The young lady did not so much as trouble to glance
at her.
"You have been to the village?" she asked, in a tone
of icy sweetness.
"Yes, Miss Wyncott."
"Did you post the letter I gave to you?"
"Yes, Miss Wyncott."
“Thank you.
That will do."
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
57
Grainger retired, closing the door behind her.
"I am naturally very sorry, mamma," said Edith, “but
you see it is too late.”
"You have done this in order to spite me, Edith, and
to thwart my plans," cried the old lady in an angry flutter.
"Really, mamma," Edith responded, "you say the
strangest and most unaccountable things. What plans of
yours do I know of that could possibly be thwarted by
Arnold's presence here?"
Co
Oh!" responded the old lady, "I have no patience.
You call yourself a Christian woman, Edith. I have no
faith in you sanctimonious people. If there is any dif-
ference between telling a lie and acting one I'm sure the
difference is in favour of the telling." Edith sewed on
contentedly. "How dare you try to face me out with a
pretence that you knew nothing of my plans?"
((
Mamma," said Edith, "you will not forgive yourself
for this outburst so readily as I shall."
"Fiddlestick," said the old lady. "If you succeed in
spoiling what I am trying to do-and you know what I
am trying to do as well as I do myself-I will never for-
give you to the day of my death, and I'll will every penny
to Wyncott."
"I have my own modest competence, mamma," said
Edith, with something almost saintly in her tone.
"You may make the most of it," her mother responded
angrily. If she had been as young as her daughter she
would have left the room in a swirl of petticoats. As it
was, she went off the scene with a sense of something
wanting in the way of dignified rapidity.
"Do not walk too fast, mamma," said Edith, with a
readiness of pardon which completed the other's exas-
peration. "You will only heat yourself, and be unnerved
afterwards."
Now this scene, coming on a proclamation of Miss
Wyncott's tender-heartedness, may seem to contradict it,
but only for the superficial. If her mother had been but
a hundredth part as distressed and annoyed about any-
}
· 58
DANGEROUS CATSPAW
thing else in the world she would have been sure of her
daughter's sympathy. But here was a love affair in
which each had an interest, and Edith would have done
almost anything to prevent her candidate from being
jostled out of the running. She wanted a finger in that
delicious love-pie which no man had ever baked for her
eating. There was something almost pious too, a feeling
of personal satisfaction in the thought that she might
help to roll Miss Pharr's thousands from the worldling's
track, and send them in the Church's way,
As Miss Wyncott went on with her sewing, her
thoughts turned, with a grave disapproval, on the accent
and bearing of Miss Pharr's new maid. She had not
liked the new maid from the moment of her arrival, but
she had never liked her so little as in the brief interview
of that morning. Grainger's manner had been undeniably
haughty, and so long as domestic service shall continue
as an institution, ladies will object to being treated de
haut en bas by their friend's maids. The more Miss
Wyncott thought of Grainger's manner, the less she
liked it. Now, the fact was, that Grainger was by nature
of a very sweet and serviceable disposition; but her
expectation of Esden in the house had laid a chilling
constraint upon her from the first, and on her way back
from the errand upon which Miss Wyncott had despatched
her, the girl had had an encounter of the most disturbing
sort.
The house and the railway station were both on the
high road, though at a considerable distance from each
other, but the way to the village ran through a close-
grown copse. Through the middle of this copse babbled
a little runnel, not more than a foot wide in dry weather.
The formation of its banks showed that in winter it could
assume considerable proportions, but at the present season
of the year the wooden bridge which crossed it looked
disproportionately and even absurdly long. As Grainger
approached this bridge she saw a gentleman lounging
moodily upon it, with his elbows on the rail, and a walk-
-

A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
59
ing-stick dangling from one hand. She drew her skirts
on one side, and quickened her step to pass him, for she
was a town-bred girl, and the solitude, silence, and dim-
ness of the little wood awed and frightened her more
than a little. An unknown lonely street on a dark night
would have had no such terrors for her as this quiet bit
of woodland. When she was within six feet of the moody
gentleman he turned and assumed an erect posture so
abruptly that she all but walked into his arms. She
recoiled with an involuntary smothered cry.
"Let me get by, Mr. Esden!"
"You seem in a deuce of a hurry to get by," said
Esden, looking at her with a face of unusual gloom.
"I am in a hurry," she responded. "I am doing an
errand for Miss Wyncott. Let me go by."
"You weren't always in such a hurry to get away
from me," said Esden.
"I wonder," she answered, with an angry flash, "that
you should have the face to speak about those times to
me. I wonder "-and then on a sudden her voice began
to quaver-"that you can find the heart"
Then, to Esden's discomfiture, and somewhat to his
amazement she began to cry, She turned away from
him to find her handkerchief, and having found it, hid
her face. Her sobs became almost convulsive, and her
figure writhed as though she struggled with herself. He
put his arm about her waist, intending to console her, but
she sprang away from him and faced him, with the hand-
kerchief clasped in both hands, and her face distorted
with weeping.
"You!" she said passionately. "Are you a man?
What right have you to stop me here?"
"I never thought you cared as much as this, Polly,"
said Esden.
"What right have you to say I care?" she asked.
You would have left me with enough to care for, if I
had been the fool you thought I was."
CC
My dear," said Esden, "if you think that I'm the
<<
60
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
sort of brute to throw a woman over after getting all I
care for, you're very much mistaken. For my own part,
I never thought that marriage was a part of the bargain.
I never fancied it entered your mind to think so."
"When a man tells a girl he loves her," she answered,
with a vehemence so passionate that she could hardly
find words for it, "he either means marriage or he is a
villain. Do you talk to Miss Pharr as you used to talk
to me? Do you dare to think about her as you had the
impudence to think about me?"
"Don't talk about Miss Pharr, if you please," said
Esden, sombrely. "I'm sorry that I hurt your pride.
I'm sorry that we misunderstood each other."
"Hurt my pride?" she said. "Hurt my pride?
You hurt my pride in you. I thought you were a man.
I thought you were a gentleman."
"Well, well, Polly," said Esden. "Let sleeping dogs
lie. I beg your pardon. There! I'm very sorry."
She disdained his offered hand, and he, shrugging his
shoulders, turned and walked away with a more dejected
air than ever.
When she had been left alone for a little
while, the girl, by a strong effort, suppressed her tears,
and climbing down the bank by the side of the runlet,
steeped a part of her handkerchief in its clear cool waters,
and removed all traces of her late passion. Esden mean-
while strode up to the house on some slight commission
which he had undertaken for Miss Pharr, and walking
briskly, by mere force of motion, cleared away for the
moment-as men of his temperament can do-the troubles
which lay upon his mind.
Next day Arnold ran down from town by an early
train, and was received rather icily by the old lady. The
younger lady was extremely warm on the contrary, and
had never been so hospitable and so cousinly affectionate
in all his kindly remembrance of her.
Miss Pharr was still indefatigable in her enjoyment of
the new toy, and the old doctor was her willing slave, as
he had been from the time when she tyrannised over him
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
61
in her babyhood. She was very deft-handed and quick
to learn, and with so experienced a monitor constantly at
her elbow she made delightful progress. They had set up
a tent upon the lawn, and were now bent on getting
pictures of the house from half-a-dozen points of view.
Mrs. Wyncott, who sat reading in the tent at the moment
of Arnold's arrival, was pleased to see that the heiress
received him with a manner very different from that with
which she had welcomed his cousin. Miss Pharr was a
trifle shy with the young clergyman, and gave no sign of
pleasure when she greeted him.
Arnold himself seemed not altogether at his ease, and
the young barrister fluttered so assiduously about the
heiress, that, but for Edith's attentions to him, the curate
would have felt himself altogether in the cold.
At
luncheon he was perforce taken into conversation, and
there he dropped what turned out to be a sort of social
bombshell, though he let it fall quite unawares.
'Whom do you think I met in town last night,
Wyncott?" he asked, addressing his cousin.
"That's rather a wide riddle," Wyncott answered
lightly.
I met the Booner. Boomer Brown."
"Never!" cried Esden, starting from the table. He
stood upright, with a flushed face, and cast a swift
glance around the table. Then he turned pale and sat
down again, drawing up his chair behind him. "I beg
your pardon," he said, with an odd catch in his voice.
"I'd heard the Boomer was dead. Royce told me so.
Arnold's announcement," he added, turning to his aunt,
and tapping his fingers upon his chest, "hit me rather
hard. It was like seeing a ghost to hear it. I must go
and see the Boomer, Arnold.'
"You will have to be pretty quick about it," Arnold
answered. "He's off again to-night, I fancy."
"Off?" said Esden. "Where?"
“Back to Honduras."
"My dear aunt," said Esden, rising, slowly this time,
62
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"I am sure you will forgive me, but this is a dear old
friend of mine. I thought he was dead, and that I
should never see his face again. I must run up to see
him. You'll excuse me, won't you? We were at Cam-
bridge together, the old Boomer and I. There isn't a
better fellow in the world."
He was very oddly moved, and everybody at table
remarked it.
(c.
Go by all means, Wyncott," the old lady answered.
“You know where he's staying, Arnold?"
Yes. At the Langham. He's there till six, I
fancy."
"All right," said Esden. "How do the up-trains go?"
"There is one due in a quarter of an hour, sir," said
the servant who waited at table. "One twenty-five,
sir."
"I'll take that," said Esden. "I'll take a handbag
“I'll
with me in case I should be able to induce him to stay
another night in town. I wouldn't miss him for the
world."
With that he left the room, and was heard racing
upstairs, three steps at a time. Shortly he was heard
racing down again, and when he thrust his head in at
the door in passing he looked positively radiant.
"If I'm not down by nine o'clock, don't expect me
to-night," he said, and disappeared, smiling.
"
Very well, dear,' Mrs. Wyncott answered, but he
was gone already. "Those affections between young
men," the old lady added, turning to Miss Pharr, "are
very beautiful to see. When you see that kind of feeling
in a young man, you know what sort of a heart he has.
Poor dear Wyncott. He was quite moved.”
That poor dear Wyncott had been moved, and deeply
moved, was obvious to the poorest observer. But it was
not his warmth and tenderness of attachment towards
this casually mentioned friend which had so excited him.
The plain English of the matter was that the Boomer
was not only one of the most generous and amiable men
•
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
63
in Esden's acquaintance, but beyond comparison the
wealthiest. He had but to tell the story of his embar-
rassments to the Boomer to be lifted out of them. He
could hear his friend's noisy, cheerful voice booming at
him in anticipation-" Three hundred, my boy? Čer-
tainly. Make it five." It is not to be supposed that the
Honduras millionaire had this agreeable and easy way
with every old college acquaintance, but it happened that
he had saved Esden from drowning once upon a time,
and from that moment forward had been as fond of him
as if he had brought him into being.
To save that forlorn J. P.-to save himself-it was a
glorious prospect! The summer sun had never shone
more brightly for Esden than it did that afternoon. The
broad earth laughed to his rejoicing fancy. He threw
care to the winds and sat like a king, with his thoughts
for courtiers, as the train bore him slowly through the
sleepy pastures. When he reached the terminus and
hailed a hansom he was so full of high spirits, that the
very cabby grinned responsive to his smile, and rattled
him along to the Langham with a solace for his own
hard-bitten fancies.
At the very portal blank midnight fell on every-
thing. Brown was gone. He had taken the morning
train, and had left no address behind him.
64
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
VII.
A
LITTLE after luncheon Miss Pharr and the doctor
went back to the lawn and resumed operations there.
Mrs Wincott, who was still inclined to be be chill with
Arnold, followed them and took up once more her place
in the tent. Edith and Arnold remained behind for a
time.
"I see," said the maiden lady," that you observed my
signal. Sit down, Arnold. I want to have a serious
talk with you."
Arnold sat down obediently, and waited. Edith
drew a chair pretty close to his, and laid a hand upon
his arm.
"I am quite old enough, Arnold," she began," to take
elder-sisterly airs with you. I don't want to waste
time in beating about the bush, and, above all things in
the world, I hate hints and mysteries."
With this preamble she began to speak in parables.
"There is a young clergyman, a friend of mine—in
fact, a not very distant relative-who came down here
last year.
There was a young lady here at the same
time, and I have every reason to believe that she and the
young clergyman. were beginning to be very seriously
attached to each other. All on a sudden the young
clergyman discovered that the lady was going, one of
these days, to be an heiress, and being himself an
absurdly Quixotic and highminded boy, he ran away as
soon as he could conveniently do it, and left the poor
girl under the impression that she had somehow offended
him. Now, if ever you should meet that young clergy-
man, Arnold, I want you to tell him that he behaved
very foolishly and rather badly."
"I happen to know something of the circumstances
of the case," Arnold answered. He was blushing like a
girl, and kept his eyes fixed upon the pattern of the
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
65
carpet. I happen to know that the young clergyman
did the only wise and honourable thing he could do
under the circumstances."
""
66
"Did the young lady decline to listen to him?
No," said Arnold, looking up for a moment. "He
never ran that risk,"
"Arnold, dear," said the old maid, "I think that he
was very much in love with her."
"Please say no more about it," said Arnold, rising.
"If you asked me down here to say this to me I can't do
less than thank you for it, because I know you meant it
kindly. If that young clergyman had any dreams he
awoke from them last autumn, and is not likely to go to
sleep in those delusions any more."
"But if they were no delusions?" the old maid an-
swered him. "Suppose the girl were wounded?"
"There is no ground to suppose anything of the sort,"
he said, with such a brusque decision that she was more
than half afraid of him.
"If I thought that," she said, "I should be a very
foolish and wicked woman to put these thoughts into
your mind. I believe she cares still, and I am quite sure
that she did care a little less than a year ago.'
""
She was blushing now, and what with that, and a
certain humid brightness in her eyes, she looked quite
young again, and almost pretty.
CC
I knew a girl," she said, half between laughing and
crying, but wholly doing neither "it is nearly twenty
years since. A girl who would have given anything for
somebody to do what I am doing now. But nobody did
it, and the girl's an old maid, my dear. Not unhappy,
very far from being unhappy, but not nearly, oh, not
nearly, so happy as she might have been."
Arnold stooped over her and kissed her, and she
allowed her head to rest for a moment on his shoulder.
Then she moved away, and having wiped her eyes with
a transparent make-believe of complete self-possession
she caine back to him.
66
A DANGEROUS CATSPaw.
"I shan't mend my cause in that way," she said, "I
shall only make you think that I am a silly and senti-
mental old woman.
"I won't deny," said Arnold, looking away from her
and speaking with great slowness and deliberation, " that
I had begun to have some fancies. I won't deny even
that the fancies carried me a long way sometimes. I
never spoke of this till now to a soul," he interjected
abruptly, turning his eyes upon her, "and never meant
to."
"I am sure of that," said Edith.
"I do not think," he went on deliberately again, “that
Miss Pharr ever cared at all. I suppose a man may speak
of these things without being a contemptible coxcomb.
I had what seemed to me good grounds for believing that
she did not care. But I should have tried my fortune if
I hadn't heard of hers."
vr
Exactly. Silly fellow!" cried Edith. "I was sure
of it along."
"But a woman," Arnold went on, disregarding her
interruption, "of her fortune, and with her worldly
chances, can hardly be asked to bury herself in the East
End of London, to live the life I live, and meet the people
amongst whom I spend my days. I like my work
so well that I won't leave it for anything in the world.
I have no right to ask a delicately nurtured woman
to share it. In plain English, my dear Edith, the only
fault I have been able to find in the character of the
lady whose affairs I am so impertinently discussing,
is that she has been a little spoiled. What some women
might endure with cheerfulness would be unbearable,
even horrible, for her. Now let us go away and forget
everything that has been said. That is the best thing we
can do."
She would have urged him further, but he was so very
resolute and quiet that she forbore, being afraid that if
she went too far she might draw him into some declar-
ation from which he would be unable to retire. She was
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
67
'too good a diplomatist to risk a permanent defeat when
she could escape with a temporary one, and so she accepted
the situation with the best grace she could command.
They talked of commonplace things for awhile, and
then went out upon the lawn together.
"It is unreasonable," Edith whispered to him as they
emerged from the house, "to be as chilly as you were this
morning. She will think she has offended you."
This was not particularly subtle for a woman, but it
was quite deep enough for Arnold, who fell headlong into
the simple trap thus set for him, and straightway did his
loyal best to be cordial. Miss Pharr thawed at once, and
Edith, having established this preliminary footing, left
them to their own devices. She joined mamma, whose
manner seemed to refrigerate the atmosphere of the tent,
The elder lady dozed and the younger embroidered,
for an hour or two. The trio on the lawn seemed to
Edith to be engaged in conversation rather than in the
manufacture of sun pictures, and once, pulling the canvas
wall of the tent slightly on one side, she saw them all
seated idly together in the shadow of a giant beech.
Elphinstone's Scottish drawl sounded from the distance
at which he sat like the hum of a slow-going bee. He
seemed to be entertaining his listeners rarely, for Miss
Pharr's ready laugh rippled pretty often across the
leisurely hum of his speech. It was very hot indeed, and Mrs.
Wyncott's deep and regular breathing and the level mur-
mur of the doctor's voice had so soothing an influence
upon Edith's nerves that she herself was startled from a
doze by the voice of one of the maids.
"If you please, miss," said the maid, "Miss Pharr
sends me to ask if you would like to have tea served on
the lawn."
"Certainly," she answered, waking up.
"By all
1
means."
The photographic apparatus was at work again, and
this time the doctor had taken it in hand. Miss Pharr
and Arnold were talking together with apparent natural-
2
M
68
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
ness and ease. So Edith feigned her usual interest in
art, and crossed over to ask if she could be of service to
the doctor.
"No, no," said he. "This is a lettle challenge from
Janet yonder, and I'm engaged sengle-handed. It's a
pairfect light for open-air work. The materials ought to
be of the best, and I'm going to try to give her an ideal
pecture."
The two maids came out, carrying the one a table, and
the other a tray, and a page boy in the rear bore the
tea urn.
"Get away there to one side," said Elphinstone
solemnly. "Arrange your table yonder, oot o' my line
o' sight, and let no one o' ye cross it till I give the word.”
The three domestics moved on stealthy tiptoe, and
Mrs. Wyncott, waking from her doze, appeared at the door
of the tent with a sunshade. At the moment at which
she stepped upon the lawn, 'click' went the shutter of
the camera, and Elphinstone turned upon Miss Pharr
with a bow of triumph.
-
"I thenk ye'll find that right, Miss Janet," the old
man said, twinkling his brightest.
"Very good," said Miss Janet; "and now for my turn."
She set to work gaily, protesting that the light was
fading, and that the conditions of the combat were un-
fair.
"And mind you," she declared, pretending to a gravity
equal to Elphinstone's own customary expression, “I į
want that same perfect stillness which was exige-what is
the English word?-by you."
|
"Ye shall have it, Janet," said the doctor. "Let no
living creature presume to stir, on pain o' death.”
Straightway everybody went silent, and the domestics
posed sheepishly, under the impression that they were
about to have their portraits taken. The page boy's grin
was ghastly, but the aspect of the country maids was not
untouched by coquetry.
There was a pause of a minute or two, in which Miss
1
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
69
Pharr alone made any movement. She skipped hither
and thither with a face of severe importance and deter-
mination. Finally the shutter of the camera clicked
again.
((
Folks are once more at leberty to breathe," said the
doctor, and all the pent-up stream of life moved on again.
"Ye're quite right, Miss Janet Pharr, in declaring that
this is no fair competition," he added, twinkling again.
"Ye've stolen my focus."
Miss Pharr herself was already moving across the
lawn towards the house, but she turned at this to wave
a threatening fore-finger at him.
"Tea, Janet," cried Mrs. Wyncott.
(C
"Yes," she answered, dancing backward with both
hands in the air. "I must wash my hands. Don't wait
for me; I'll be down in a moment.'
With that she turned and darted towards the house,
and only a minute later, if so much, there was heard a
most prodigious and unwonted shrill clatter of a bell, and
then a clash of metal, which told that the bell itself had
fallen upon the oaken floor of the hall. Almost before
anybody could express a wonder as to what this might
mean, Miss Pharr appeared at one of the windows of her
bed-chamber, and seemed to struggle frantically to open
it. When she had succeeded, she thrust out her head
and shoulders, and cried, in an agitated voice,
Arnold! Edith! My jewels!"
Arnold, Edith, and the doctor all ran towards the house,
leaving Mrs. Wyncott terror-stricken, and as if rooted to
the lawn. Arnold was naturally foremost, and as he
rushed upstairs he caught a momentary sight of a dark-
haired, dark-eyed girl, with a face as white as marble.
She was clinging to the jamb of the door at the entrance
to Miss Pharr's chamber, and she wore a look of awful
terror. She and Arnold catching sight of each other at
the same instant of time, she slipped swiftly into the
room, and when he in turn entered she was standing be-
fore Miss Pharr.
70
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
(C
My jewels!" cried the heiress. "My jewels! They
have stolen my jewels."
The girl's glance travelled slowly across the wall with
such a look of being drawn by some horrible fascination
that Arnold could but follow it. Before he could well
decide at what she was looking she gave a gasping cry,
and fell prone upon the ground. Her head came in con-
tact with the fender, and she lay like a corpse.
Miss Pharr, forgetting even her jewels for the instant,
darted forward with a cry of dismay and knelt by the
side of her maid. Arnold wound his arms about the re-
cumbent figure and lifted it. The girl's head fell back
nervously as he did so, and at that moment the doctor
entered the room with disturbed breath and hurried and
ungainly gestures.
"What's this?" he said pantingly. "Violence?"
He snatched two or three towels from the toilet rail,
spread out some of them upon the pillow of the bed, and
assisted Arnold in laying down the unconscious figure.
Then he dexterously undid the great knot of the girl's
hair, and asked, business-like, for a sponge. Miss Wyn-
cott, who had followed immediately upon the doctor's
heels, began to scream hysterically at the sight of blood,
and Elphinstone, turning to Miss Pharr, who stood pale
and trembling by his side, said calmly:
"Don't let Miss Wyncott do herself a damage, Janet.
Take her away and keep her quiet. Send me a few large
handkerchiefs and a pair of scissors.'
Janet obeyed. The two maids and the page boy were
standing in the corridor in a frightened group, and as she
passed them she gave one of them orders to wait upon
the doctor.
"Can I be of use, Dr. Elphinstone?" Arnold asked.
Yes, sir," said Elphinstone. "You can hold your
tongue. Gi' me that basin o' water. Hold it so.”
<<
The girl had fallen upon an almost knife-like edge of
the polished steel fender, and had received a serious
wound. It bled copiously, and for a time it was impossi-
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
71
ble to ascertain clearly its character and dimensions, but
when one of the maids had brought the scissors Elphin-
stone had asked for, he shore away the great folds of hair,
and examined the injury critically.
"What's this cry about jewels?" he asked, when he
had succeeded in checking the hæmorrhage by the appli-
cation of a cold-water compress.
"I know nothing," Arnold answered, "except that
Miss Pharr declares them to be stolen. Are they of great
value?"
A
“Value?" returned Elphinstone. "They're worth be-
twixt thirty and forty thousand pounds. The patient'll do
for awhile," he added. "Here you, Harriet, set ye down
here, and give your friend a wheff of the salts now and
again.'
""
"I suppose," said Arnold, "that this is the cupboard
from which they were stolen.'
He and the doctor crossed the room together, and in-
spected the recess he indicated. The door of the cupboard
lay upon the floor, and the framework, painted and var-
nished in imitation of ebony, stared white where the
hinges had been wrenched away. In the very centre of
the framework, on that side was a square, flat bruise in
the wood, and Arnold laid a finger on it.
"Ay!" said the doctor. "That's where the lever
went in. It took a strangish hand to do that piece o'
work."
>>
"Well, sir," said Arnold, "we can do no good by
standing here. It will be best to send a message to the
police authorities in London without loss of time."
"I think you may take that upon yourself, Mr. Esden,"
the old man answered; "and if there should be any need
for it I'll share the responsibility."
-
So arranged, so done. Arnold ran full tilt to the vil-
lage postoffice, and thence despatched a message---“ With-
in last few hours, jewels, value thirty thousand pounds,
have been stolen from Hill House, Wootton Hill, Kent.
Send experienced detective immediately."
72
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
}
Until now he had not had a second in which to think
clearly, but as he walked slowly back the horror-stricken
face he had seen at the top of the stairs intruded itself
upon his mind. The expression it had worn made it
memorable, and it hung before his thoughts as a life-like
pictured semblance of it might have hung before his eyes.
Was it a face of guilt? he asked again and again, and an
undertone in his thoughts always answered "No." Yet
apart from guilt he could discover no reason for the mon-
strous agitation under which the wearer of such an ex-
pression must have laboured. He wondered if a woman's
hand could have wrenched the door away, or if the woman
might have an accomplice in the act. In his excited
thoughts he felt a sort of pity for her beforehand, a pity
both for her guilt and for its inevitable discovery, even
whilst he admitted that he had no reasonable ground for
suspecting her.
In this frame of mind he reached the house. He
found everybody unexpectedly tranquil there. The old
lady, her daughter, Miss Pharr, and the doctor, were all
gathered together awaiting his return. They were all
very quiet, and the three ladies were something of an
awe-struck air.
(C
"You'll have your jewels back again, Janet," said
Elphinstone, when Arnold had recited his message, "it's
a thousand to one." The discovery happened too close
upon the theft. "It appears "-he turned upon Arnold
with this intelligence that one o' the maids was in
Miss Pharr's room ten minutes before she herself went up.
Everything was in order then, and so the thief had no
great time to get to any distance. They'll lay hands
upon him, never fear."
"And some poor wretch;" cried Janet, "will be sent
to prison, through my pride and folly. I would a thou-
sand times sooner have lost them in any other way."
(
"Ma dear," said the old doctor, soothingly, "that's
just a piece of tender-hearted nonsense. Ef a man can't
refrain himself from knocking me on the head because
i
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
73
I've a purse in my pocket and a watch in my fob, there's
not the least little bit o' moral oblequity, in my carrying
them, and the scoundrel that has that murderous envy of
them has got to be put away for the safety o' society."
""
But Janet was not to be consoled by this obvious
social philosophy, and was in genuine and deep distress
at the result of her own rashness. Mrs. Wyncott and
Edith alike forbore to upbraid her though the temptation
to say "I told you so," burned in the soul of either.
;
cr
-
Now, ladies," said Elphinstone, "in the natural ex-
citement of the time the five o'clock has been forgotten.
I'm not going to have three patients on my hands, and
I'll just take the liberty of ordering tea. That on the
lawn will be cold and useless by this time."
Nobody dissented, and tea being ordered and brought,
they sat sipping it in a doleful silence, when a sharp ring
at the hall bell startled the ladies into a simultaneous
exclamation, They had scarcely calmed themselves when
one of the maids appeared.
"A gentleman from Scotland Yard, ma'am, Mr.
Prickett.
VIII.
THE
HE doctor rose to his feet and ran out into the hall,
and there upon the doormat stood a stranger who
nursed a very lustrous silk hat tenderly by the brim, and
examined the hall as if he were a builder with a contract
to erect another on a similar pattern.
"Mr. Preckett?" said the Doctor, as he advanced
towards him.
"The same, sir," Prickett replied.
"Ye're here before ye were expected. I had not
attended so much despatch.
"I happened to be at the Yard when the telegram
came in, and I found a train at Charing Cross in a quarter
of an hour."
""
74
1
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"I'm very glad ye're here," returned Elphinstone.
"Come this way, and I'll introduce ye to the lady that
owns the stolen property."
Mr. Prickett followed him into the drawing-room, and
distributed four crisply amiable nods.
"Good afternoon, sir. Your servant, ladies."
Mr. Prickett had one peculiarity-a calmly wandering
glance, which appeared to be governed by system. It
travelled over every article in the room, lingering no-
where, and missing nothing, and in the same quiet fashion
touched every face and every detail of costume and per-
sonal adornment.
"This is Miss Pharr," said the Doctor, "the owner of
the jewels."
"Could have wished," said Mr. Prickett, with perfec
respectfulness, "to have met Miss Pharr under pleasanter
circumstances."
""
"Will you take a seat, sir?" said the old lady. "A
most dreadful thing has happened, and I am sure that
though one reads of them in the newspapers they never
really come home to one's feelings until-
"Exactly, madam," Mr. Prickett interposed, "that is
the general experience. Now, suppose, sir, to begin with,
I was to be allowed to ask a question. Have you got
anything to show me? Is there any breakage?"
"I must show this gentleman to your chamber, Miss
Pharr," the Doctor said, half apologetically.
"We'll go with you," Janet responded.
"Ye
The fewer the better," said Elphinstone.
musn't forget that Grainger lies hurt there. That's a
matter that may concern ye to know, Mr. Prickett," he
continued, as he led the detective from the room. "I'll
explain it later. I'll ask ye to tread softly, and not to
talk in the chamber unless it's needful."
The room reached, Elphinstone signalled the breakage
by a mere motion of the fore finger, and the other,
approaching the cupboard on tiptoe, scrutinised the frac-
tures closely. Next, he picked up the door, which lay
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
75
where it had fallen, and, having examined that in turn,
laid it down and stole out noiselessly. The two returned
to the drawing-room, and the detective, politely waiting
until the old gentleman was seated, resumed his place.
There's one thing certain, ladies and gentlemen," he
said, "It's no professional work. Amateur, I should call
it, and clumsy for that. Hopelessly amateur. The next
thing is as near as may be to fix the time when it was
done."
<<
"It was done," said Arnold, "between ten minutes to
five and five o'clock."
"Come," said Prickett, turning his calmly observant
eye upon him. "That's something, sir. How might you
have come to know that?"
Arnold, it appeared, had consulted his watch at the
moment at which Miss Pharr left the lawn. The maid,
who had last entered Miss Pharr's bedroom, would fix the
hour with almost equal accuracy. Tea had been ordered
for five o'clock, and she had noticed the time before going
upstairs.
Within the space of a quarter of an hour Mr. Prickett,
by dint of judicious inquiry, had made himself acquainted
with the name, age, and antecedents of every domestic
employed in or about the house. Butler and cook were man
and wife, and had gone away that morning, by their mis-
tress's permission, to attend a wedding in the neighbour-
ing village of Hemsleigh. The two maids and the page-
boy had been upon the lawn for the greater part of the
fateful ten minutes. The only person known to have been
in the house during that time was the maid Grainger, and
she at present was not in a condition to be interrogated.
"I altogether refuse to suspect Grainger," Janet said,
warmly. "Her parents are most respectable people, and
she was highly recommended to me by Lady Hilton."
<<
Well, don't you see, Miss," said Mr. Prickett, persua-
sively, "it's only fair to the young woman that the circum-
stances should be inquired into. What we've got to do is
to clear the poor thing's character. It might be flung in
Ng
So
76
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
her face in ten years' time, as she was the only young
person known to have been in the house when this job
was done. Where might she be supposed to be if she was
in the house at the time ?”
*
"She would probably be in her own bedroom," Janet
answered.
Learning that the maid's bedroom was in the same
corridor with Miss Pharr's and nearly facing it, Mr.
Prickett mused awhile.
"That there black oak flooring," he said, "is_very
talkative. I noticed that myself. She'd be likely to
hear anybody as went by. Suppose she did that, she
might ha' put two and two together when she heard
about the robbery, and that might be what frightened
her. You see, Miss," added Mr. Prickett, with a sapona-
ceous smoothness, "if she said to herself, Now that's a
stranger's footstep, and I ought to go out and see who's
there!' and then if, on the top of that, she said to her-
self, 'Rubbish! It's broad daylight, and I'm getting
nervous,' that might account for her tumbling down in
such a startling way when she heard as the jewels was
gone."
،
·
Janet accepted this solution with warmth, and began
to think highly of Mr. Prickett's powers of discernment.
But that wily personage had noticed that the mistress
was disposed to take up the maid's cause in something of
a partisan spirit, and was simply smoothing his way for
future inquiries.
At his own request he was allowed to inspect all pos-
sible means of egress and ingress, and, still with a view
to clearing Grainger's character, was permitted to over-
haul her belongings. Finding nothing which was of the
slightest service to his inquiry, he returned to the draw-
ing-room, and gave a judicial summing-up of the case.
C
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," he began, "this is what
it comes to. So far as we know at present, the two Miss
Wades, the young ladies visiting here at the time and
since gone away, Mr. Wyncott Esden, barrister-at-law,
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
19 77
absent all afternoon in London, and the present company
(with the exception of this reverend gentleman), was the
only people aware of the existence of this valuable
property. It seems that all of you was allowed to know
where the jewels was kept, and, so far as you can tell, no-
body else knew a word about it. It seems further," he
continued, with a quiet legal relish, "as on the evening
when the jewels was shown the lamps was lighted, and
this window, which I notice to be a French window,
opening all the way down, was open. The value of the
jewels was talked about, and maybe the talk was over-
heard. Maybe again, somebody broke confidence, and
spoke about the things. All these considerations has got
to be looked at. It's a great pity as we can't have a bit
of a talk with this young woman. She might throw a
light on the case. I understand you, sir, to be a medical
gentleman, and, so soon as you give me leave to do it, I
must ask her a question or two.
""
"I'll see her at once," said Elphinstone.
"I'm sorry," resumed Mr. Prickett, when the Doctor
had gone away, very sorry, as Mr. Wyncott Esden
chanced to be absent when this thing occurred. I've had
the honour of being prófessionally associated with Mr.
Wyncott Esden on one or two occasions, and I don't know
a smarter gentleman at the bar. These sort of things is
like everything else in one respect. Amateur work is
pretty nearly always loose, and that isn't so true of any-
thing as it is of amateur observation. With a trained mind
on the spot an hour before I got here-Lord! you don't
know what it might ha' done. Where could the thief ha
got to in ten minutes' time? Why, Mr. Wyncott Esden
would ha' been at the railway stations in the neighbour-
hood. He'd ha' been down to the local police, he'd ha'
made inquiries about suspicious strangers, and might ha'
laid hands on the man before he could ha' got five miles
away by train. Between the time that job was done and
now, ladies, six trains has left this neighborhood, two
east, and one west at Hemsleigh Junction, and two down,
(C
*
78
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
and one up at Wootton Hill. You mightn't ha' wanted
me if Mr. Wyncott Esden had been here on a hot scent
like that."
Even in her agitation and distress the old lady
experienced a momentary gratification as Mr. Prickett
chanted the praises of her favourite nephew. She was
glad that Janet should hear them. Mr. Prickett's speech
helped to show the high consideration in which Wyncott
was held by those who were in a position to appreciate
his talents.
While Prickett was still talking, the doctor returned,
with his ordinary expression of gravity increased ten-
fold.
"Ye can see the gyurl, Mr. Preckett,” he said,
"but
I'm sorely afraid ye'll make nothing out of her. Ye'd
better come upstairs with me at once. Ye'll have to be
very quaiet and soothing with her," he added, turning
upon the detective when they were half way upstairs
together. "It's only in view of the extreme importance
of the case that I allow ye to see her at all."
"I
"You can trust me, sir," responded Prickett.
shan't frighten her. That's no part of my business."
One of the servants sat by Grainger's side nursing a
bottle of smelling salts with a vague air of business. The
doctor dismissed her with a word. Grainger was seated
in an armchair by the window in an attitude altogether
listless and feeble. Her tumbled hair and the white
bandages about her head gave her a somewhat ghastly
look, and her large dark eyes followed the movements of
her visitors with a solicitude which was at singular vari-
ance with her aspect of bodily fatigue.
"This is a gentleman," said Elphinstone, bending over
her gently, and speaking with such a slow distinctness
as he would have employed in addressing a foreigner who
was but imperfectly acquainted with English-this is a
gentleman who has come down from London on purpose
to make inquiries about the event of this afternoon."
Grainger looked from the Doctor's face to Prickett's,
.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
79
and back again with what seemed to both of them like a
despairing challenge.
-
"You seem to have had rather an ugly accident,” said
Mr. Prickett, soothingly; "now, don't you go and over-
exert yourself. I just want to ask you a question or
two, and if you don't feel strong enough to be talked to
now, why, I'll come up again in the morning. Now, did
you happen, Miss, to see anything, that gave you a bit of
a turn ?"
Grainger answered with a look of dreadful eagerness;
but her speech was altogether unintelligible, a mere
collection of inarticulate sounds. She seemed to read in
Prickett's face the fact that she was not understood, and
glanced from him to the Doctor.
"Now," said Elphinstone, "ye're suffering from a very
considerable shock. Ye're not to agitate yourself, but ye
don't speak plainly. Just try again. Very slowly, and
as destenctly as ye can."
She spoke again, the same incomprehensible brash of
syllables. Prickett looked at the Doctor with a little
incredulous shake of the head; but Elphinstone warned
him with a fore-finger, and, producing a note-book from
his pocket, opened it at a blank page, and laid it in the
girl's hand.
"Just write that down for us," he said, offering her a
pencil.
She looked wonderingly at him, and then, taking the
pencil, wrote slowly and painstakingly, like a child who
is just learning to form letters. When she had finished,
the Doctor took the note-book, and after a glance at it
handed it to Prickett. The two lines she had written
ran thus:
"D gha wn nt tuldvrm rtt tle mire vbt hemtt
buturng.
The officer's opinion was that the girl was shamming,
and he wondered at the Doctor's patience and gentle-
ness.
"I'll not trouble you to talk any more," said Elphin-
80
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
stone. "Just give me a sign, yes or no. Were you in
the house when Miss Pharr rang her bell?"
The maid signalled "Yes."
"In your own bedroom ?”
She signalled "Yes" again.
"D'ye think ye'd been there for the last ten min-
utes?
""
The signal was repeated, this time with energy.
(6
More than that?”
"Yes."
"Did you hear any sound of footsteps, or any sound
of breaking wood, or anything to excite suspicion ?"
A decided shake of the head in answer, accompanied
by a look of terror.
"There's nothing to be done at present," said Elphin-
stone, and Prickett followed him obediently from the
room, though he cast a glance or two at the girl in
retiring.
"That's a pretty shallow style of humbug, ain't it,
sir?" he asked, turning on the Doctor in the corridor.
"It's a not uncommon, but very obscure form of
nervous disorder," said Elphinstone, "and, as far as I can
judge at present, a case o' great deffeculty. It's a case o'
severe nairvous shock, resulting in a complication of
agraphia and aphasia.'
""
"You don't think the young woman's shamming, sir?"
asked Prickett.
"I'm sure she's not. The cleverest actress in the
world couldn't sham it."
1
"Would you mind giving me those names again, sir?"
The Doctor repeated the words to him, and Mr. Prickett
whispered them thoughtfully to himself as he walked
downstairs, "aphasia, agraphia, agraphia, aphasia."
C6
'Do you think it's likely to last long, sir?” he asked.
*That girl knows something. She's got something on
her mind."
"The disorder's not often pairmanent," said Elphin-
stone, "when the pashint's under forty, and can both
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
81
[read and write, but how long it may last is just beyond
any man's saying. You must wait, my man.
""
Arnold and the three ladies waited anxiously in the
drawing-room, but the Doctor as yet said nothing of the
'maid's condition, beyond remarking that she was not in
a state to be closely questioned.
<<
I suppose," said Prickett, "that the village police
know all about the case ?"
i
I
1
"No, sir," returned the Doctor. "We've refrained
ourselves from troubling the lockleyockle."
"The what, sir?"
"The local yokel, sir," returned Elphinstone, with an
almost angry distinctness. "The one member of the
ceevil force in Wootton Hill might make a decent gate-
post if ye planted him, though, if he's good for any other
mortal theng, his Maker has seen fit to make a mystery
of it. Ye remember, Arnold, that pony o' mine-but I'll
not talk o' that at a time like this. I'll swear 'twas that
jepsy tinker blackgyard that stole 'm, but yon ox went
off on a false scent, and-I'll not talk about a loss like
that at such a time."
r
I'd better see the man, sir," said the detective. "He'll
be able to tell me if any strangers have been hanging
round, perhaps; and while I'm away, miss, there's one
thing you can do as will be of the greatest value. Ishall
want you, if you please, to draw up as full and complete
a description of these here gems as you can manage.
"
"Oh!” cried Janet, "I can give you everything about
them at once. My uncle had a catalogue of the jewels
printed only a few months before his death. I have
quite a number of copies, and you can have as many as
are necessary."
"That's lucky," said Prickett. "I'll take four of 'em,
if you please-one for myself, one for the Yard, and one
anicce for the two big Press Agencies."
Mrs. Wyncott made an exclamation of dismay.
"Dear me! Will it get into the newspapers?"
Why yes, ma'am," returned Mr. Prickett, "and a very
K
82
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
good thing, too. Every pawnbroker in the country, every
honest dealer in gems, and every lapidary who works on
the square, all England through, will be on our side to-
morrow, and on the look-out for the thief. If you'd
kindly let me have the catalogues at once, I'd send three
of 'em up to town by the guard of the next train."
૮૮
Janet tore upstairs, and returned in a minute or two
breathlessly, bearing a number of pamphlets in her hand.
"I suppose," said Prickett, taking up one of them and
glancing over its contents, "that this doesn't include a
description of your personal jewellery, miss?"
t
No," said Janet eagerly; "but I can write that out
for you."
""
tr
Do, if you please," he answered.

"That's likeliest
to be offered first. In fact, that may be in the hands of
the pawnbrokers already, just dropped here and there, in
little parcels like. And now, sir," turning gravely upon
the doctor, "if you'd be so good as to direct me, I'll take
a look at the local yokel."
Arnold undertook to guide him to the police station,
and the two set out together.
(C
You take no notes?" said Arnold, more for the sake
of saying something than because he was interested.
Well, as a matter of fact, sir," responded Mr. Prickett,
"a man in my line has got to spend his time in taking
notes, but I don't find as I need trouble to write 'em
down."
દુઃ
"Don't you find that your memory betrays you some-
times?"
"No," said Prickett reflectively, "I don't think it ever
did, sir. The major part of people ruins their memories
with reading novels, and songs, and trash. There's a chap
at the Yard as can recite by the hour. I should think
as he knows Lord Byron from beginning to end, but his
head's that full of that kind of tack there's no room in
it for anything else. You tell him what time a train
starts, tell him what complexion a man's got, tell him
what height he is, show him the plan of a building. If
I
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW,
83
he don't write down what you tell him he'll be in a fog
about it in twenty minutes. Many's the time I've told
him. If you'd leave the wheels inside your head-piece
free to act, you'd make a first-rate officer, but you clogs
'em up with all them treacly verses, and what d'ye
expect?""
<C
Do you never read at all, then?" asked Arnold, be-
ginning to be interested.
"Law
<<
"Criminal cases," responded Mr. Prickett.
reports. Takes a look at the advertisements in the
'Daily Telegraph' sometimes. Ye see, sir," he continued,
growing suddenly warm and confidential, and laying a
gloved fore-finger lightly on his companion's arm, all
day long the inside of a man's head is like a piece of
machinery in motion. It's bound to go, and it must
have something to work at. Now, when I went into the
force, sir, I made up my mind as I wasn't going to stop
on the bottom rung of the ladder all my life, and I says
to myself, 'Now, what's the first thing wanted to make
a tip-top officer?' I wasn't long in making up my mind.
He's got to be notice-taking more than any other man
alive, and he's never got to forget any person or anything
as he's once set eyes on. When I was on duty in the
Strand-I was there for the best part of three years-I
used to practise myself watching faces in the street. I
spotted a man only yesterday that I see go by me seven
years ago. I never see him before nor since, till yester-
day, and I could ha' picked him out among a million.
You tell that to some folks, and they'd think it was a lie,
but it's true as gospel. Leave books alone, keep your
head clear and your eyes open, and when you look at a
thing, look at it. That's the secret, if there is one.”
"Don't you think, sir," continued Mr. Prickett, who
had evidently mounted his pet hobby-“ don't you think
as I'm such a fool as to despise book learning. If I
should live to be old aged, and can afford the time, I
mean to have a real burst at it, but just now I've got my
way to make, and I can't afford it.”

84
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
?
t
*I suppose," said Arnold, "that you don't mean to say
that you never forget anything you have seen?"
"Well, no sir," returned the theorist, "I don't say that
of course. But I never forget anything I've looked at.
You'll notice, sir, that most people see things without
taking the trouble to look at "em, and so they don't
rightly remember the things as ought to be the most
familiar. Now, for instance, sir, you ought to know that
room we've been sitting in a good deal better than I do.
I'm not bragging, but I'll bet you don't.”
Well," said Arnold, "let us see.'
""
(C
<<
Carpet," said Prickett, as if he were dictating an in-
ventory to a shorthand clerk. "Brussels, whitish ground,
sprinkled with largish roses. Wall paper same shade as
carpet, diamond pattern in dull gold. Facing door, water-
colour: girl crossing stream on stepping-stone, making
signs to little chap on bank. Over door, water-colour:
old gentleman, knee breeches, reading book in a wood.
Twelve chairs, various-four easy, three spider-legged, in
gold. Little round-topped table near window, microscope
on it, and a bracket full o' books: Tennyson's poems,
green and gold, seven vollums; "Imitation of Christ,'
white vellum, gold letters; foreign book in a yellow cover,
don't know the name; "Leaders from the Times," two
vollums, name of Phillips. Little cabinet in the corner,
seven drawers, key in the middle drawer, basket of flowers
and lady's photo on top. Chimley ornaments Dresden
china, stag with antlers caught in a tree, left antler
broke
"
"I will not compete with you, Mr. Prickett," said
Arnold.
The sun had fallen behind the hill by this time, and
the whole landscape before them lay in the gentle and
equable light which was reflected from the eastern skies.
Everything was so still that the sounds of life in the yet
distant village were clearly audible-the crack of a
carter's whip, his long-drawn cry to his team, the very
tramp of the horses and complaining of the creaking
-
I
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
85
wheels. A hundred yards away, beyond the turning of
the road, there was the sound of a swift but equal foot
step, and as they neared the turning Wyncott Esden
rounded it, walking rapidly, and swinging a black dress-
ing case in his hand. Seeing them he checked his foot-
steps for a mere second, and then came on again.
،،
Hillo, Prickett," he said, in a hearty voice, "what
brings you into this part of the world ?"
IX.
THE
THERE was a low stone wall running by the side of
the road, and Wyncott, hearing the news, put out his
hand towards it as if he felt he needed its support. For
a second he glared rather wildly from his cousin to the
detective, and then tilting back his hat and passing his
hand across his forehead, recovered himself from his
amazement.
"That's pretty bold work," he said, "isn't it, Prickett?
You've had more experience than I have, of course, but I
never heard of anything like it. You have lost no time
either."
<<
Well, no sir,” said Prickett, mildly. "I don't let the
grass grow under me oftener than I can help."
“You'll make any use of me you can, Prickett," said
the barrister.
"Thank you, sir," said Prickett. "I shall be very
pleased to have your help, sir."
He sketched briefly what had been learned already,
and Wyncott listened keenly.
Well, now," he said at the end of Prickett's state-
ment, "let us divide our forces. You go and question
Dadge, and I'll go back to the railway station and make
inquiries there. Or, look here, Arnold, you go to the
station here, and I'll walk over to Hemsleigh and
make inquiries there. It's a pity these things weren't
done at once. By this time the thief may be in
،،
86
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
Birmingham, or at Dover. You never saw the case
in which the jewels were held, did you? It was about
the size of a sheet of large post quarto, and four, or
perhaps five, inches in depth. A man couldn't carry it
about under his coat without bulging suspiciously. He
might carry it openly, or he might carry it in a bag, or
he might carry it like a commonplace newspaper parcel,
or rolled up in a coat, or in any one of fifty ways. The
main thing is a stranger with a parcel, by the first train
he could possibly catch after five o'clock. You might
put the station master on to make inquiries at the next
two or three stations each way. I'll do the same at
Hemsleigh. Now, where shall we meet again?"
CC
،،
I left my bag at the 'Angler's Rest' as I came
along," said Prickett. Pleasant-looking little sort of
house. Perhaps you might meet me there, gentlemen,
when you've made your inquiries. If you'll allow me,
Mr. Esden, I'll leave your bag there."
.
"All right," said Esden, surrendering it. "I'll be
back in an hour. I shall expect to see you there too,
Arnold."
He was off at a swift and resolute pace, and Prickett
stood for a moment to look after him.
((
That's the exact line I told you, sir," he said, "that
Mr. Wyncott Esden would have taken in a minute if he'd
been on the spot. That's the line that ought to have
been taken."
"I suppose it is," Arnold answered, somewhat de-
spondently.
"Oh, I shouldn't think, sir," said Prickett, "of blam-
ing myself, if I was you. That sort o' thing doesn't
come in your line, sir; and you don't seem to have lost a
minute in getting the news off to the Yard. It was
hardly to be expected as you should start an inquiry on
your own account."
From the moment when Prickett had first suggested
Wyncott's probable lines of action Arnold had blamed
himself for not adopting them, but every man's experi-
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
87
ence is full of memories of lost opportunities. When it
is too late to do a thing it is irritating to see how obvi-
ously it ought to have been done. The young clergyman
went off crestfallen to his talk with the station-master.
Neither he nor Pricket found anything which could be
of advantage to their guest, and when Wyncott joined
them he had the same story of a blind trail.
The detective had ordered dinner for himself, and
was engaged with a perfect philosophic phlegm over a
round of cold boiled beef and a jug of home-brewed ale.
"That looks appetizing, Prickett," said Wyncott. “I
think I'll join you.
""
"
"The pickles, sir," said Mr. Prickett, exploring the
pickle-jar in search of a chosen morsel, "is excellent.
Country-made pickles is always the best, except when
the yokels takes to boiling ha'pence with 'em to make
'em green.
"I'll join too," said Arnold, "I am hungry, as we
shall save them trouble at the house. Dinner is over
there by this time, if they have had the heart to take it.”
The three sat and ate together, until Wyncott, sud-
denly pushing his plate away, began to pace up and
down the room.
((
Pricket," he said, “I have an idea. I think it very
possible that we may get the stolen property back again."
"That's a thing to be wished for," said Pricket, tenta-
tively.
"Miss Pharr's private jewellery," said Esden, "might
pawn, perhaps, for a couple of hundred pounds. I'm not
much of a judge in such matters, but I've seen it, and I
don't think it is likely to have cost more than six
hundred when it was bought. There are a lot of rare
coins in the case which are almost priceless to people
who know their value, but there isn't fifty pounds worth
of metal in the collection. Every one of them is famous,
more or less, and they're only good as old gold to the
thief. The gems are all uncut, and to take them to a
lapidary, so as to fit them for the market, would be
!
88
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
:
tremendously risky and expensive. The lapidary would
certainly want to go shares, and then you know what
gems in dishonest hands go for when they come to be
sold."
"That's how I always look at thieving," said Prickett,
picking his teeth with a penknife, and reclining in his
chair with an air of after-dinner contentment.
"It's a
depreciation of the value of property. If I was a thief
I shouldn't steal nothing but sovereigns. It's a dreadful
loss to the party robbed, and its the smallest possible
gain to the thief. It's a poor game. I always come to
the conclusion that if a man does it he's got a hole in
his intellect somewhere. Show me a thief, and I'll show
you a born fool. And why, it's a trade as no man o' sense
ever stopped in.'
Well now," said Esden, who had endured this inter-
ruption patiently, "it seems to me that if this theft has
not been committed, as it may have been, in the hope of
a thumping reward, a reward may at least persuade the
gentry who are in it to return the property.
"That looks a bit like compounding a felony, Mr.
Esden," said Prickett.
"Well, yes," Wyncott admitted. "It does, a little.
What did you tell me," touching Prickett lightly on the
shoulder-"what did you tell me was Dr. Elphinstone's
estimate of the value of the gems?"
"Why, sir," returned Prickett, "he reckoned the
whole boiling of 'em at between thirty and forty thou-
sand pounds.
""-
"Call it thirty," said Esden. "Take the lower fork
of the estimate, and call it thirty. If you were in Miss
Pharr's place, do you think your sense of public duty
would be strong enough to prevent you from saving nine
and twenty thousand? Eh?"
Mr. Prickett smiled slowly.
"Well, sir," he said, "perhaps it wouldn't. I don't
know as I should be going too fur if I was to say as my
sense of public duty might go to pieces afore an economy
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
89
Sid
a quarter of that size. That isn't the Yard doctrine, as
you know, Mr. Esden, but simply speaking like a mortal
man."
CC
"Precisely," said Esden. "But the authorities couldn't
object to a reward of a thousand pounds being offered."
"Of course not," Prickett answered. In a case like
this a thief has got to trust a lot of people, and the bigger
the reward, the likelier some one of 'em is to round on
him. A thousand's a bit too much, though. Five hun-
dred would work it."
"Five hundred might induce an accomplice to split,'
said Wyncott, "but a thousand might tempt the thie
himself. Miss Pharr's chief anxiety will be to have the
jewels back again. Of course this is all between our-
selves, Prickett. We're talking like men of the world
now, and not like a pair of professional thief catchers.
I haven't had a chance of speaking to Miss Pharr, but
I'm pretty certain that that is what she desires, and if I
were you," said Esden, with a return of his old sly smile,
"I shouldn't object to the size of the reward. You may
nail the man before he can make up his mind.”
""
Prickett sat smiling, as if the prospect pleased him.
Then he sighed, half in resignation to the chances of a
blighted hope, and half in digestive comfort.
"We had better get back, Wyncott," said Arnold.
“The ladies are sure to be a little timorous to-night."
"I'll walk with you, gentlemen," said Prickett, "if
you'll allow me. Miss Pharr will have some papers for
me, and I want to catch the last train with 'em.
"Are you going up to town to-night?" Wyncott
asked him.
"Why no, sir," Prickett answered. "It's a wonderful
fine night. There's a full moon due in about half an hour,
and it'll be almost like daylight. I shall have a walk
round and take a look at the line of the country. Don't
neither of you gentlemen take a pot shot at me from the
winders."
Miss Pharr had the desired description of her jewels
90
▲ DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
ready when they reached the house, neatly copied four
times over, and Prickett having received the manuscript
made his adieu for the night and retired. Wyncott had
to submit to a repetition of the narrative he had already
heard, and unfolded his scheme for a reward. Everybody
agreed with him, and Arnold was for going up to town
at once with an advertisement for all the London dailies;
"but," said Wyncott:
✔
Give Prickett a day or two's law. Let us see if he
can do anything. It would seem to show a distrust in
the police to offer an independent reward so soon. Let
us wait a little. I have great faith in Prickett. They
could hardly have sent us a more competent man."
Mr. Prickett meanwhile had despatched his docu-
ments, and had strolled back towards the house on the
hill in the placid enjoyment of a rank cigar. The night
fulfilled his prophecy of it, and the moon, when it had
once risen above the tree-tops, lit up the landscape with an
almost tropical brilliance. The detective made a leisurely
tour of the grounds, following the lines of the outer wall,
and observing the various places of entry. He hung for
two or three minutes on a latchet gate, which admitted
to the front lawn, and noticed that the path which led to
it was completely sheltered by a high line of rhodo-
dendrons.
""
"They was all on that back lawn," he soliloquised,
"and if there was anybody in it beside the girl they'd
have to get into the house this side, probably at this very
gate. If she gave the signal when the coast was clear,
the party could have slipped along under the shelter of
them bushes into the house, and back again the same
way. Then the likeliest road would be along this wall.
Let's have a look at things."
He strolled along quietly, looking from right to left
with a vigilance so habitual as to have grown almost un-
conscious.
"That old Scotch party," he mused, "looks as if he'd
got a head on him. I shouldn't think as he'd be a very
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
91
easy sort to gammon, especially in his own line. Aphasia?
Agraphia? I wish I'd asked him how he spelt 'em. I
could ha' dropped a line to the Divisional Surgeon. I'll
ask him when I see him."
He came past the shelter of the wall which surrounded
the grounds, and found himself in an open field. From
the elevated spot he stood on he could see a black straight
gash in the earth a quarter of a mile away.
"That's a railway cutting," said he. "Not an un-
likely place for a cove to make for. Not across the open,
though. Where's the most shelter? There's that hedge.
The hedge had a deep ditch beside it, and the bright
moonlight, pouring full into it, showed that the rank,
damp grasses had been trodden down.
("
Joseph," said Mr. Prickett, in an inward voice of
solemn exultation, "you're on to something! I don't
know;” he added more soberly, "any village kid might
ha' done that. Children's fond of walking in ditches, and
getting into places where they've no business. Never
mind, Joseph. We'll follow it up and see if it leads to
anything."
It led at length to a beanfield. There was a gap in
the hedge, and Mr. Prickett, surveying the crop, could see
a fairly distinct, rather zigzag line across it, which might
have been made by the passage of a man.
"I suppose it's trespass," he said, "and wilful damage
to property. Never mind. Here goes."
He marched briskly across the field, keeping the line
in sight, and came across another hedge which shelved
diagonally towards the cutting. Here again was a ditch,
but the hedge threw it into dense shadow. Mr. Prickett
struck a vesta, and, kneeling down upon the grass, dis-
covered new traces of footsteps.
"This is just the route a man would take," he whis-
pered softly. "Sheltered all the way except across that
bit o' beanfield."
""
SO
He walked on smartly to the edge of the railway
cutting. The side was precipitous, and from top to bot-
:
·92
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
+
tom ran a bricked open drain; leading from the ditch to
a trench below. Beside the drain the earth was scored
as if by the passage of a heavy sliding body. Doubting
much if he would find a continuation of the track, the
detective launched himself carefully upon the declivity,
but, missing his footing at the first, shot downward at a
greater speed than he had counted on, and landed with a
shock at the bottom. For a second or two he was some-
what dazed, but recovering himself almost immediately
he sat where he had fallen, and smoked his cigar with as
impassive an air as if he had gone there in precisely that
fashion for no other purpose.
On a sudden a glint of light struck his eye and van-
ished. He had just been in the act of moving to take
an easier posture. He worked his head hither and thither
to catch the gleam again, and an improbable notion that
the light might have flashed from one of the lost gems
quickened his blood a little. He caught the light again,
and then, stooped down towards it, and with a long-
drawn inward whistle, picked up the object from which
the gleam had been reflected. The moonlight, broad and
clear as it was, did not satisfy him. He struck half-a-
dozen wax vestas in a bunch, and examined his find until
the lights burned his thumb and finger.
Reuben, old pal," he said, very quietly, "I think
you'll have something to say to this. Let me see. It's
half-past ten o'clock. A smart trap'll take me up to town
in an hour and a half. I'll try the 'Crown and Cushion,'
Reuben."
«،
-
:
}
With that, he remounted the bank, choosing a spot
less precipitous than that at which he had descended, and
made his way rapidly towards the village. Every now
and then he danced in his gait, like a pleased child, and
at length his inward eagerness so pricked him that he
laid down his head and squared his shoulders, and raced
across the fields at a pace of ten miles an hour.
Nearing the inn, he composed himself, and entered in
apparent quiet, though his brow was moist and his breath I
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
93
still came quickly. The landlord was standing in the
passage, and Prickett acosted him.
"I'm told, governor," he said, "you've got a famous
little bit of horseflesh in your stable. I want to get up
to London straight. I may want to get back to-night, or
I may not, but I must be there afore midnight. Do you
think the little 'orse can do it?"
"It'll cost you a sovereign," said the landlord.
"Good," said Prickett. "There you are. Short deal-
ings make long friends. Get him in as soon as ever you
can. I don't want to lose a minute.”
The landlord took the sovereign and bustled into the
back yard. In three minutes a light dog-cart, with a
slashing-looking mare in the shafts, was at the door.
"Nip in, sir," said the driver. "Where do you want
to get to ?"
((
Holborn," said Prickett, as he mounted.
"All right," the driver responded. "Land you there
in an hour and ten minutes."
-
Mr. Prickett had bestowed his find in his breast pocket,
and had carefully buttoned it up there. In the course of
the journey he laid his hand upon it a hundred times to
assure himself of its continued presence, and once he took
it out to examine it anew in the moonlight. In some
mysterious way the news of the robbery had penetrated
the village, and Mr. Prickett's occupation was already
known.
Found anything, sir?" asked the driver, looking
sideways at him.
"Yes, young man," said Mr. Prickett, drily, returning
the object to his pocket. I've found as there's nothing
more foolish than to tell your business afore you're sure
of it yourself."
CC
They sped along the broad white country road in
silence after this, until the yellow glare of the sky in
front betokened the lamps of London and when they had
actually entered upon the streets, clocks every here and
there boomed the half-hour. The dog-cart rattled on
94
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
until Holborn was reached, and there at a certain point
Prickett laid his hand on the driver's arm.
"Stop at the first court to the right. There's half-a-
crown for you. Use it gently, because you'll have to
drive home by yourself. I shan't want you again. Good
night."
He dismounted, and, walking up the court, turned
into the bar of an old-fashioned public house which found
shelter there, as if it had shrunk away from its newer
and more garish neighbours. He signalled the landlord
by a glance, and the man came forward.
"Mr. Gale here? Tool maker. You know."
"Yes, sir," said the landlord. "He's taking a glass
of ale inside. If he'd take it somewhere else it 'd please
me just as well, but he's used the 'ouse for twenty years
now, and I don't like to say the word."
"Tell him a party wants to speak to him," said
Prickett,
The landlord, shaking his head and sighing as one
who foresaw trouble obeyed this request, and Mr. Gale
presently appeared. He betrayed neither tremor nor
astonishment on seeing Prickett, but advanced with an
outstretched hand, and asked if his visitor would take a
drink. Mr. Prickett commanded a "small lemon with a
dash," and stood tranquilly to consume that modest bev-
erage.
<<
Reuben," he said, poising the glass in his hand and
eyeing its contents against the gaslight, as if they were
of soine rare and precious vintage, "if you've got a spare
five minutes you might as well give 'em to me. There's
a trifle in the way of business I should like to talk
about."
"I'm at your service, Mr. Prickett," Gale responded
civilly, and the detective, looking keenly sideways at
him, emptied his glass, set it on the counter, and moved
towards the door. "If you want to be private, you
might as well come to my shop as anywhere," said Gale.
When they came upon the court the detective took
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
95
the honest tradesman's arm in the most friendly and
familiar fashion, and Gale looked up at him with an
undisturbed inquiry, but said nothing. The shop reached,
Gale unlocked the door, and entered first. He lit the
gas, which sprang up with a shrill, spiteful sounding
song, and then passed behind his counter. Prickett,
closing the door, drew his find from his breast pocket,
and balanced it lightly in both hands.
(C
Did you ever see that afore, Reuben ?" he asked with
a voice of amiable badinage.
Gale, with a mild surprise, held out his knotted hand
for the object, and, having received it, scrutinised it
closely.
"I might ha' done, Mr. Prickett," he responded, " and
I might not ha' done."
There was a shadow of doubt and wonder on his face.
"Well, now," said Prickett, "the long and short of it
is this. That's your workmanship, Reuben."
•
"Maybe it is," said Gale. "I shouldn't be disposed
at present to take my oath it wasn't. It looks like part
of a special order, I remember. What about it, Mr.
Prickett ?"
"That's one half o' the tool," said Prickett, tapping it
gently with the extreme tip of his finger-nail," as did the
job at the Wootton Hill House this afternoon."
He watched his man like a cat, but Gale lifted a face
of innocent surprise.
"I haven't heard of it," he said. "It ain't got into
the evening papers."
<<
'Oh, of course you haven't heard of it," returned
Prickett in friendly banter. "That's why I thought I'd
come and tell you all about it. I knew you'd take a sort
of interest in it, Reuben."
(C
'Why, naturally," Gale responded. "In the after-
noon, did you say? The hour's unusual, ain't it, Mr.
Prickett? Is it a big affair? "
"It's jewels, Reuben," responded Mr. Prickett, "valued
from thirty to forty thousand pounds."
96
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
દ
My jingo!" cried Gale, unmistakably interested.
"That's a lift. Where was it?"
"Hill House, Wootton Hill. The residence of Mrs.
Wyncott."
Gale's glance fell towards the tool which lay upon
the counter. He took it in his hands and examined it anew.
"Wyncott?" he said, musingly. Prickett thought he
detected a little tremor in his wheezy voice. Wyncott?
Where have I heard that name afore ?"
66
¿
"There's just a chance, you know, Reuben," said
Prickett, playfully, "as a young gentleman as saved you
from a ten stretch the week afore last may put you in
for one at next assizes."
"Oh yes," said Gale, drawling on the words. "I
remember Mr. Wyncott Esden. He's a relation of the
lady's, maybe?”
(<
you?"
<<
He's the lady's nephew," said Prickett, "and I've
got the advantage of his assistance in the case. He's
retained for the prosecution, he is."
<<
ner.
Well, I wish you well, the pair of you," returned
Gale, laying down the tool with an odd decision of man-
"As for that there little bit of ironmongery, I
couldn't say anything, leastways not for certain. I
wouldn't take my oath it wasn't mine. I shouldn't like,
for sure, to say it was.
15
"All right," said Prickett. "You'll come quiet, won't
Come," said Mr. Gale, with cheerful submission.
"I'll come if I've got to come, of course. There's no need
for it, you know, Mr. Prickett."
"That's as maybe," Prickett answered.
"I can account for every minute of my time to-day,"
said Gale. "I've been down at my place at Lime'us dis-
charging goods as come by canal from Birmingham. I've
been there from nine in the morning until half-past seven
at night, in the presence of competent and reliable wit-
nesses, Mr. Prickett. I know no more about this job
than the babe unborn. Look here. What time was it?"
1
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
97
"Close on five o'clock, Reuben."
"Then," said Gale, "I'm safe again. Now I don't
care where I goes. From a quarter to five to half-past
five, me and Richards, the Customus man, and Mr. George,
the landlord of the 'Cup and Crown,' was standing at
the bar there, drinking some ginger-ale and havin' a dis-
cussion about this here new Irish Act as is to put down
patriotism."
"If that's the case, Reuben," returned Prickett, pick-
ing up the tool and buttoning his coat over it, as a signal
of his readiness to be gone, "you'll be a free nigger at
nine o'clock to-morrow morning. In the mean time we'll
try and make it easy for you. You ain't a family man,
I think? That's right. There'll be nobody to worrit
about you. Gentlemen as leads adventurous lives should
make it a point to keep single for the sake of the ladies,
Lord love 'em. Your little absences would ha' made the
average missus jealous."
Mr. Gale passed a sufficiently agreeable night at the
district police station, where he sat in friendly converse
with two or three officers who had nothing to do, and
were simply boring themselves to death before his arrival.
At about three o'clock he was, at his own request, accom-
modated with a cell, and there slept the sleep of conscious
innocence until nine. At that hour Mr. Prickett awak-
ened him with the information that his alibi had been
satisfactorily established, and that he was free to go.
"But, look here, Reuben," said Mr. Prickett persua-
sively, "it's all humbug your pretending not to know
that tool. They was talking about a reward last night,
and so large a sum as a thousand pound was mentioned.
Any information you might bring to me would be paid
for very handsome. You think it over, Reuben."
.cc
G
Gaga
I'll think it over," Gale answered, with his custom-
ary quiet. And to do him justice, he thought of nothing
else all day. He thought to such purpose indeed, that on
the following morning he left his shop unopened, and
started on a quest of his own.
98
▲ DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
X
MR
R. PRICKETT had risen at an unusually early hour
in order to visit Gale's witnesses at Limehouse, and
having taken nothing but a cup of coffee before starting,
found himself in admirable trim for breakfast. He had
put something of a brotherly warmth into his farewell
to his recent guest, and now sauntered homeward in the
yet fresh air of the August morning with looks full of
benevolent cheerfulness, as if his being able to set Gale
at liberty had been a joy to him. Mr. Prickett had his
residence for convenience' sake within a stone's throw of
Scotland Yard, where he occupied apartments in an un-
obtrusive and even shady thoroughfare. His way thither
led him past the District station, and as he sauntered by
its portals, a man in seedy habiliments and a white hat
emerged upon the street. This personage and Mr.
Prickett exchanged a single glance in passing, and the
detective's face clouded.
S

"Oh, Lord!" he groaned under his breath, "them
highlows!"
He went on his way with a certain air of petulance,
and reaching home, attacked his breakfast spitefully,
spearing his bacon as though it gave him personal offence,
and knocking his egg upon the head as if he had long
nursed a private grudge against it. He found no joy in
the police reports that morning, and the advertisement
columns appealed to him in vain.
Whilst he sat there dissatisfied, the maid of all work
appeared and announced that a gentleman had called to
see him.
"Ask him his business," said Mr. Prickett with unusual
asperity.
The girl retired, and after a pause of a minute or two
reappeared with the statement that the gentleman had
Leen sent from the Yard by Inspector Johnstone. On
?
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
99
this the detective demanded that his visitor should be
shown up. The man came in a burly, country-looking
fellow of about thirty, with an apple-cheeked face, a
sheepish eye, a pendulous lower lip, and an upstanding
peak of hay-coloured hair. His smile was friendly and
embarrassed, and for a time his hat seemed a burden to
him. He looked about the carpet for a spot to set it on,
and having placed it carefully in the middle of a square
in the pattern, seemed relieved at first, but in a while
repented of his choice, and set it in the middle of another
square.
Prickett had pushed his chair away from the table, and
had arisen. He stood now before the mantel-piece, filling
his pipe from a tobacco-jar, and regarded the new-comer
with no favour.
"Well," he said coldly, " what do you want?"
"Ah've seen Mr. Johnstone," said the visitor in a soft
north-country accent, which contrasted strongly with
Prickett's metallic town-bred tones, "and he sent me
here.'
""
"Did he?" said Prickett, as if he thought the worse of
Johnstone. "And what may you want, now you are
here?"
Ah've been in the fo'ce for the last five 'ear," replied
his guest, with a disarming smile. "Ah've had a bit o'
luck in the way o' business dahn at Manchester, and
ah've got a week's holiday. D'ye think, sir, as ah could
do anything in London ?
""
Might take a ticket back again," Prickett responded
(C
drily.
"Ah'll wait a while," the visitor answered. "Ah got
a bit o' brass out o' that Fielding case, and ah shall stop
my week anny way."
"What had you got to do with the Fielding case?"
demanded Prickett.
"Nothing, but manage it," said the other. The town
man stopped with a lighted lucifer half-way to the bowl
of his pipe, and looked at him with a new interest.
100
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"What's your name, young man?"
White's ma name, Mr. Prickett. James White.
Mr. Prickett set the match to his pipe, and drew
breath thoughtfully, keeping his eyes fixed on his guest.
Well," he said, "maybe it is. You ought to know.
But I shouldn't have thought it."
(6
At this dubious compliment to his personal aspect
James White smiled with a look of pleased humour.
The smile was as keen as his general expression was
fatuous.
cr
"I'm like the young woman in the song, Mr. Prickett,"
he returned. The northern accent had almost disap-
peared, and his grey eyes twinkled. 'My face is my
fortune, sir, she said.'"
"Sit down, White," said Prickett, growing suddenly
cordial. "I'm glad to see you. If my opinion's any good
to you, there hasn't been a smarter thing done this three
'ear than that affair of Fielding's.'
""
"Thank you, Mr. Prickett. I'd sooner have you say
that than anybody."
((
Well, that's very pretty hearing," Prickett answered.
"If you got a frugal mind, and don't want to waste your
time up here, I can make it worth a ten pound note to
you."
“What's the office?" White inquired.
"You've seen the morning papers? Well, I'm on that
Wootton Hill job. I've got a clue already. I've got the
tool it was done with, and I know the man as made it.
I laid him by the heels, last night, but I proved his alibi
for him, and I had to let him go. But the tool's his make,
and he knows who he sold it to. Now if the swag was a
commen handful he mightn't do more than write and give
his pal the tip, but it's thirty thousand pounds, and he'll
want halves. I've had a chap put on to shadow him-a
chap as I thought was smart-and I'll be hanged if I
didn't meet him an hour and a half ago in Holborn padd-
ling down the street in a pair of regulation trotter cases.
Everything else as innocent as you please, and the boots
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
101
And he's after one of the oldest hands in
to mark him!
London, and the leariest, bar none!"
"Well, that's a greenhorn's trick, to be sure," said
White.
.
"Green?" returned Prickett, disgustedly. "Water-
cresses ain't in it. Now maybe, White, you may think
it's Irish promotion to be put on to sneaking after the
Fielding record, but I tell you," he leaned forward to
make this more impressive, and tapped his companion's
knee with the tip of the pipe he was smoking, “the man
that undertakes to shadow Reuben Gale, and does it-
and does it, mind you-does as smart a piece of work as
the smartest man might ask to be put on to. I'd take it
on myself, but he knows me like his own born brother."
What I want is a London chance, Mr. Prickett,” said
the visitor.
(C
Well, you've got it," Prickett answered, "but you've
got to know your man. To look at him, and talk to him,
you'd think him as mild and harmless as a baby. He's
as deep as Garrick, and as cruel as the devil. He don't
know how to be afraid of anything or anybody. He's
very near done murder once, and if he thought it needful
he'd put a bullet in you as lieve as look at you.
""
"I read the case you was in with him," said White.
"That was pretty desperate. I suppose there was no
doubt he done it?"
(
PA
"Doubt ?" cried Prickett, with a sudden wrathful
flash. "Never mind," he added. "There's a fresh hand
dealt out, and we'll see who's got the cards.
You can
settle on to this job at once, White, if you care to take it.
You know London? All right. Stroll down Holborn
past Chancery Lane, till you come to the Stamford
Castle, licensed house, left-hand side. Gale's place is
opposite sign over the window tool-maker's shop.
You'll find a chap there, reddish moustache, white hat,
pretty battered. You'll know him by them thundering
boots. Bacon' says you, and if he answers 'Beans' you
ask him 'French?' He says 'Broad,' and he knows he's
102
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
off and you know you're on. Wait a bit. I've got three
full-length portraits of Mr. Reuben-front, back and
profeel. You'll know him again, I reckon?"
"Know him? Know him any wheres. Where shall
I find you if I pick up anything?"
Wire to the Yard. And now you'd better get off,
for there's no knowing how soon he'll start. The closer
you can stick to him the better. I wouldn't have him
draw a breath unwatched if I could help it, but don't you
try to overdo it. He'll give you clean away, if
him a shadow of a chance."
you offer
"I'll do my best, Mr. Prickett," the recruit answered
quietly, and with that he departed.
"That's better," mused Prickett when he was left
alone again. "It's a vallyable gift, such a mug as that
chap's got. He's almost as big a sell as Reuben himself.
Lord! how people do go round letting 'emselves be took
in by faces, to be sure!"
He sat for a while thinking hard, with his forehead
drawn into a tense knot between the eyebrows, and then
rousing himself, went out to dispatch a telegram to
Wyncott Esden.
"Found clue. Following it. Let me know when
girl Grainger can be spoken to.-PRICKETT, Scotland
Yard."
This done, he sought the divisional surgeon, who dis-
persed his doubts about agraphia and aphasia.
"If Dr. Elphinstone reads the case in that way,
Prickett, you may be sure he's right. He was a famous
nerve specialist when he retired from practice."
For the time being there was nothing more to be
done, but Mr. Prickett was accustomed to the conduct of
enterprises which demanded patience, and he was a
master in the great art of waiting. This time his
energies were not long unemployed, for before midday a
man came up from the Yard bearing a telegram from
Wootton, Hill, which asked his immediate presence
there.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
103
On his arrival he found the full family conclave
assembled. Everybody except Wyncott appeared mightily
serious, but the barrister wore a look of ainusement.
"This," he said to Prickett, handing him a broken
envelope, "arrived this morning. We want your opinion
on it."
Prickett took the envelope and inspected it gravely.
Then he drew from it a soiled and crumpled sheet of
paper and silently perused its contents.
"Respected Miss," the letter ran. "Greived I am to
the coare to aknolige, that my onely son was in this days
crime the stones is now in his, position thuogh long a
burdin to a fathers hart i had not lookt to find him gloting
on illgott ganes. he say respected miss Thuogh of good
education he will not yeild to A father's prairs & ristoar
the objecks of his crim without soMe ricomphence. he
will take a thousan and cryquits if agreeable respected
iniss in tomorrow standaards Agny collumn say this is
square to
A GREIVING FATHER.”
Prickett stood examining this singular document for
some time after it was evident that he had read it through.
"Well, Prickett," said Wyncott, smilingly. "What
do you think about it?"
"(
I think a good many things about it, sir,” he
answered. "It's bona fide up to a certain point. The
parties it comes from have got the stones, because this was
posted in London last night, before anybody but us here
knew as the robbery had been committed. But outside
that the letter's a flam."
((
What do you mean by that, Mr. Prickett?" Janet
asked him.
"C
Why, Miss," he answered, "if you'll take a careful
look at it you'll find the paper's been soiled and crumpled
after it was wrote upon. You can't write on paper that's
crumpled as much as that without the pen being a bit
guided by the creases. These stains ain't natural dirt.
104
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
They're coffee, they are, and they're put on afterwards.
You can see where they've run the ink a little."
"But what does all that lead to in your mind?" she
asked.
It leads," he answered, "to this, Miss: the party that
wrote this is trying to look ignorant and poor. It's a
false hand to a certainty. A party as was really poor
wouldn't want to take pains to show it. 'Education,'
'without,' 'father,' and 'respected' is all spelt properly.
A man wouldn't be likely to spell 'recompense' like this
person does and then know how to spell education'
He's watered his ink, you notice. I should say that
letter was wrote by a man better up in the world than
he pretends, that the bad spelling was done a purpose,
and that it was wrote in these printing letters with the
left hand."
:
"That's very shrewd criticism, Prickett," said Wyn-
cott," and I'm very much of your opinion. But it's apart
from the main question. These people-providing that
either grieving father or errant son is not a fiction-have
certainly got the jewels. Now Miss Pharr is quite willing
to pay the sum mentioned here to get them back again.
Well," returned Prickett, speaking with an air of
weight and solemnity, "if Miss Pharr will listen to my
opinion, she won't do anything of the sort at present."
<<
"My dear Prickett," said Wyncott, his sense of social
superiority seeming to assert itself for the first time,
"
you must not think too much of your own side in this
matter. I advised last night"-he turned to Miss Pharr
and addressed himself to her "that a reward should be
offered, and in Mr. Prickett's presence I proposed that it
should be large enough to induce the thief to return the
property. Now it would be obviously to Mr. Prickett's
advantage to keep the inquiry open, but I must ask him
to remember that it is obviously to yours to close it.”
"Excuse me, Mr. Esden," said Prickett, "but I don't
see that. Why do these parties write to Miss Pharr?
Because your guess last night was right. It's been done
th
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
105
for the reward. These people's pressed for money. The
way the job was done showed they was new to the game.
Anything more clumsy and unworkmanlike I never saw.
This letter shows that they don't know what to do with
the jewels now they've got 'em. A hand as knew his
way about could make five thousand certain. Give 'em
rope and they'll hang themselves. They'll be trying to
get 'em on the market, and we shall have 'em."
((
ވ
But, Mr. Prickett," cried Janet, appealingly, "I don't
want a prosecution if I can avoid it. You must not mind
my telling you how I feel. It was all through my wicked
vanity and folly that these poor people were tempted.
If I can only get the jewels back at the cost of a thou-
sand pounds I shall be glad. And perhaps if the poor
wretches had a sum like that it would place them beyond
temptation."
Mr. Prickett's smile at this was compounded of
respectful admiration, pity, and superior knowledge.
"You don't mean to say, miss, that you're took in by
this here grieving-father business? That's chaff, that is,
miss; mere impudence, and pretty cheeky, too."
""
"Oh!" said Janet, "I should be sorry to think so.'
Excuse me, miss," returned Mr. Prickett, with an air
almost fatherly, "but I should be very sorry not to think
I should pretty soon have to look out for another
profession if I did."
So.
"The Scotland Yard theory o' human nature in a case
like this," said Elphinstone, "is likely to be as just as
your own, Janet, if it isn't quite as gen'rous."
"Well, now, ladies and gentlemen," said Prickett, in
his most businesslike voice and manner, "I wired this
morning that I'd got a clue. As a matter of fact, it's a
clue as it would be a crime to waste. I didn't mean to
show it yet, because I wanted to make it as complete as
I could." He unbuttoned his frock coat slowly as he
spoke. "But still it's good enough to go on. There it
is. That's the tool the job was done with."
He moved towards the table and made as if he would
106
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW,
lay the tool upon it, but Wyncott, advancing, took it
from his hand. The eyes of the two men met, strangely;
Esden's dilated, Prickett's half closed with a swift yet
unperturbed inquiry. Then the barrister took the leather-
clad bit of steel in a hand so eager that it shook like a
vibrating spring.
66
What's that mean?' said Prickett's eyes, but he
talked on without interruption. "I know the man that
made it, and he knows the party he parted with it to."
Wyncott walked towards the window with the tool in
his hand, examining it by the way. Standing at the
window he cleared his throat with a dry cough. "When
I tell Mr. Wyncott Esden that Reuben Gale's the man as
made it, he'll know the kind of party that we've got to
deal with. He's a man as would sell his mother for a
sovereign if he couldn't get a guinea for her, but he'd
hold out for the guinea. He won't say anything yet be-
cause he's waiting for a reward to be offered, but he
promised me this morning he'd think about it. Now,
ladies and gentlemen, you oblige me to open up my mind.
If Reuben Gale once gets into the swim with the thieves
he'll know what to do with the property. He'll cry
halves, get the stones cut, and get 'em on the market with
next to no trouble. If you commission me to buy him
before he can get at the others you may see your own
again, but if you give him time to move it's all over."
"How do you know," Wyncott demanded, returning
from his place by the window, "that this is the tool?”
"It answers to the marks, sir," returned Prickett.
"Have you tried it?" Wyncott asked.
"No, sir. I had no need to. We'll try it if you like."
The two left the room and went upstairs together.
During their absence Elphinstone addressed himself to
Janet.
"Were I in your place, my dear," he said, "I'd just
leave myself in the hands o' the constituted authority.
I've formed a high opinion of this detective fellow. He
knows his business."
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
107
"I suppose," Janet answered, with a rueful little
laugh, "that we must cease to believe in the grieving
father."
"I think," said Elphinstone," you'd better leave Mr.
Prickett to dry-his tears. He'll certainly wipe his eye if
he gets the chance." This tiny jest was a little out of
the doctor's ordinary way. He seemed to feel a lively
joy in it—perhaps because of its very rarity-and
rubbed his hands and twinkled with an unusual com-
placency.
Prickett's right," called Wyncott, from the hall,
before he reached the doorway. "This is undoubtedly
the tool with which the burglary was committed." He
entered talking, and his manner was brisk and even a
little excited. "The man who made this tool," he said,
"is a client of mine, and only the other day I got him
out of a very serious position. He was very grateful. I
positively had the pleasure of dining with him after his
acquittal."
"Wyncott!" in a tone of extreme astonishment from
the old lady.
"Indeed I had! He came and sat down at the same
table with me at the Cock tavern. He wanted to give
me fifty pounds for my successful defence of him. I
think I may have some influence with him, and I am
going to propose that Prickett and I should see him to-
gether, and see what we can get, out of him."
"There's something in that," said Prickett, with his
head poised thoughtfully on one side. "There may be
somebody behind Reuben Gale to talk to, and if there
should be, the parties won't come anigh me. It'd be just
as natural to expect the crows to come and talk with the
boy as carries the gun."
"If Miss Pharr," said Esden, brightly and eagerly,
"would entrust Mr. Prickett and myself to negotiate with
this man Gale, we might, perhaps, save the jewels alto-
gether. It would be the depth of weakness to pay the
money to the actual criminals."
108
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
1
?
"You have carte blanche, Mr. Esden," cried Janet,
"But pray do all you can to avoid a prosecution."
"You hear that, Prickett?" said Wyncott.
"We'll
get up by the next train together and see what we can do."
It turned out that there was no train for nearly an
hour, and in the interval Wyncott seemed consumed by
an eager restlessness. He insisted on carrying Prickett
off with him, that he might learn the precise spot at
which the tool was found. Returning, with still nearly
an hour to spare, he ran up stairs to pack his bag, and
came down with it in a great hurry as if he had not a
moment to waste.
te
Ye're going to this business like a sleuthhound,
Wyncott," said the doctor. "I saw you last night, my
man."
CC
"Saw me?" asked Wyncott, turning swiftly on him.
Saw me where ?"
“Upon ma word, Janet," said Elphinstone, humor-
ously, "he's ashamed of his professional instincts. I,
watched 'm in the moonlight for an hour last night,
racing to and fro for all the world like a dog hunting a
lost scent."
"I beg pardon, sir," said Prickett, "but how about
that young woman?"
(6
Nothing to be done with her as yet," returned the
doctor. "That's an odd affeer altogether. She'll do no
earthly thing but weep, and we can't get her to take her
meals."
"She thinks herself suspected," said the heiress," and
she is wild at not being able to explain herself."
"I dare say that's how it is, Miss," said Prickett, with
an unfathomable face.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
109
XI.
As
S Wyncott Esden and Mr. Prickett drove out of
Chancery Lane into Holborn, the detective suddenly
thrust a hand through the trap-door overhead and
arrested the hansom.
"We've passed our man," he said, as he alighted and
tendered a shilling to the driver. "He's been out of
town-got country dust on his boots."
In effect, Mr. Gale was walking towards them, at a
distance of not more than a score yards. His head was
sunk in thought, and he carried his thumbs at his lips.
As he came near they saw that his teeth were working
at the nail, and he was evidently in a brown study.
Prickett drew back to let him pass, and Gale went by
unobserving.
"Reuben," said the detective quietly. He paused and
turned at this, with his mild brown eyes full on Prickett's
face. A second later he caught sight of Wyncott and gave
a start, but recovering himself in a second, touched his
hat. "I want another word or two with you," said
Prickett. Where shall we have it?"
<<
"I'm close at home, sir, as you know," Gale answered
civilly, "and at your service.'
(<
The three filed into the dingy shop, Esden leading,
and Gale stepping politely on one side until the visitors.
had entered. A boy stood behind the counter, and the
honest tradesman casting a glance at him remarked that
they could be private in his back room if they would
have the goodness to go on. He threw open a door and
again stood by to allow his guests to pass.
"While these gentlemen is here," he said to the boy,
I'm not to be disturbed on no account."
"Very well, sir," said the boy, with an awestruck eye
on Prickett, whose earlier acquaintance with his employer
had made him memorable.
110
}
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
tr
'Now, Gale,” began Esden when the door was closed,
"I daresay you can give a guess as to what brings us
here."
(C
Well, p'raps I might be able to give a guess, sir,"
Gale responded, with a waiting look.
"Prickett has told me everything that passed last
night and this morning," said Wyncott. He was very
persuasively businesslike in tone and manner. You've
had time to think it over. Now, was that tool of your
making?"
«Mr. Esden," said Gale, with his quiet-like eye up-
turned towards him; "I look to be dealt fair with, and
so far as I can go you can reckon as I'm with you."
"Come," said Wyncott, turning with a quick sigh on
Prickett, "that will do? Well Gale?"
"The tool's my make, sir, right enough. It's like
this, Mr. Prickett. Ive made three tools on that pattern
and disposed of all of 'em. I've been to the parties as
had the two first, and they've still got 'em. I haven't
had a chance for a talk to with the third party, but I've
dropped him a 'int, and I think I may be able to get a
word with him to-night.'
99
"Well, Gale," returned Esden, "I suppose its no use
trying to spur you beyond the pace you are resolved to
go at.
►
î
"I can't go no faster, sir," Gale answered, "but I
think I shall get there."
"Mind you, Reuben," interposed Mckett, "this
ain't a Dutch auction."
"Dutch auction, Mr. Prickett?" Gale asked, with an
almost superfluous air of innocence.
“You don't want two strings to your bow," said
Prickett, interpreting one parable by another.
"I shall make it my business, Gale," said Wyncott,
"to see that you are dealt with generously in this matter
if you are loyal. You owe me something. I think I
have a little claim on you already.'
"Mr. Esden," Gale responded, "deal square with me,
"
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
111
•
sir, and I'm firm. But I must make a bargain with you.
gentlemen. I mustn't be shadowed, Mr. Prickett. I'm
game to lend an' 'elping 'and in this affair, because Mr.
Wyncott Esden's in it, but I ain't going to plant Scotland
Yard on a man as may have something agen him, and
yet be innocent of this."
"Well, Prickett," said Esden, "can you see your way
to that?"
"I'd give something to be inside your head for half a
minute, Reuben," said Prickett, shaking his own head
doubtfully.
"Well, gentlemen," Gale answered, with his amiable
wheeze, "if I got that promise I should know as I could
trust it. Without it I shan't move a foot."
+
“Very well, then," said Prickett, resigning himself to
the inevitable with a grave alacrity, "you must have it."
"Have I got it?" inquired Gale.
1
"You've got it till twelve o'clock, midday, to-morrow,'
Prickett responded. "After that" He rose, nodded,
and put his hat on.
e
Nothing more to be said at present, then ?" asked
Wyncott, rising. "It will be safer for you, Gale, to bring
what information you may get to me rather than to
Prickett. You won't want to be seen in communication
with the police. I shall be in my chambers from ten to
twelve to-night."
"".
Prickett acquiescing in the arrangement, the barrister
and he went away together. Gale, left alone, sat with a
look of deep wonderment, and nodded to himself repeat-
edly.
"C
This," he said at last with a long slow breath,
"beats all."
His thoughts so worked upon him that he arose
involuntarily and without knowledge, and went pacing
to and fro within the limited confines of his room, with
his hands tucked under the skirts of his respectable frock
coat, and his face knit in a profound perplexity. Suddenly
a swift step sounded in the shop, the door opened, and
112
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
Wyncott Esden stood before him with a face like chalk.
Gale looking silently at him dropped into a chair, waved
Esden to another, and went as impassive as Death,
straightway. Esden closed the door and stood with one
hand on the chair Gale had indicated. There was silence
for a full minute.
((
Well!" said Esden, harshly. He spoke as if there
were ashes in his throat.
Well, sir?" said Gale.
“Damn it, man, speak out!" said Esden, passionately.
"What do you know?"
"Well, sir," Gale answered, not losing his smooth
humility for a moment, "I think I know enough. I've
covered a good deal of ground to-day, Mr. Esden." His
mild brown eyes looked deference and his voice was
huskily confidential and plaintive. "I'll tell you what
I've done, sir. First of all I went to your chambers and
found as you was out. Then I went down to Wootton
'Ill, sir, and had five minutes' conversation along with.
the station master. I found out as you come up to town
yesterday by the one thirty-five, and went down again
by the train as got there at eight three. Then I walked
on to Hemsleigh, and learned as a gentleman paid excess
fare from Wootton 'Ill by the four twenty-seven. He
carried a black bag, and he started off across the fields
towards Wootton. Then I walked back as far as Sandy
Park, which is the next station to Wootton on the Lon-
don side, and I found as the same gentleman had took
the up-train at five-thirty-the trains fitting in beautiful.
Per❜aps you may recall, sir, as the three station dodge
was a point against me on my trial. You smoothed it
over very pretty, that time."
<<
Well," said Esden, his colour coming and going, and
his voice sounding strange in his own ears.
CC
What does
all this come to?
CC
(
"Why, I think, Mr. Esden, sir, it comes to halves,"
Gale answered.
You see, sir, the jewels is said to be
worth from thirty to forty thousand pounds. Of course
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
113
it ain't to be supposed, sir, as they're worth that to us.
We might realize anything on 'em from four to six.”
"Perhaps we might," said Esden. "We shall not, as
it happens."
((
No, sir?" asked Gale, in a respectful wonder, "Why
not, sir?"
"Unlimited loo makes us acquainted with strange
bedfellows, Mr. Gale," said Esden. "If anybody had
told me thirty hours ago that I should wish to justify to
you any business intention I might form, I should have
been amused at the prophecy."
"I follow that, sir," said Gale, in his respectful
way.
"Since we are made partakers in the same iniquity,"
Esden continued, with a badinage so bitter that it made
him loathsome to himself," I may as well open my mind
to you. I will offer you that full and perfect candour
which if our positions were again reversed you would
deny to me. I did this job-I believe that is the pro-
fessional phrase, but you will forgive an amateur for any
possible partial lapse into respectable English-I did this
job for a special reason of my own. I happened to be
particularly hard up for money, and I did it for the
reward. If you suppose that your knowledge will drive
me one inch beyond my original purpose, you are very
much mistaken. At the worst I can send the jewels
back again and make a run for it. My friends will make
no scandal, and I shall not be followed."
"C
Well, you know, sir," said Gale, with a gently argu-
mentative reluctance, "it's simply chucking money away.
I know my way about, sir, and I could get them jewels
cut and get 'em on the market as safe and easy as kiss
my hand.'
""
Your experience and ingenuity will not be called
into play this time, Mr. Gale," responded Esden. The
bestial flavours of detection so stirred his gorge, that he
was sick at the very soul with pangs which felt almost
mortal. He needed his verbose and elaborated sneers for
114
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
1
medicine They yielded another sort of shame and pain,
and so half solaced the first.
"Very good, sir," Gale answered. "I should like to
know if any steps has yet been took, sir. Will you take
a seat, Mr. Esden? Mr. Prickett was talking about the
reward being made pretty large, He mentioned it this
morning, sir.
""
"This epistle," said Esden, producing the 'grieving
father's' letter and throwing it on the table, "reached
the owner of the gems this morning."
Gale stretched out a knotted hand and took up the
letter clumsily. He read it through with painstaking
and looked up with a grin. Esden had never seen him
smile before, and the honest tradesman's mirth brought
him a new repulsion. Gale had lost some half-dozen of
his front teeth, and his half-obliterated eyes, and creased
cheeks. and gap-toothed grin, made him quite ghastly.
He looked like some horrible old gargoyle, and Esden
staring at him, got his first intuition of the personality
which lay below that humble and smooth exterior.

✓
"That's clever, Mr. Esden," said Gale, "that's very
clever, sir, and I don't know as we could find a better
line to go on. Won't you sit down, sir? I shall make
a point of coming to see you to-night. sir, notwithstanding
this little talk. It'll be safest, don't you see, sir, in case
anything might turn up afterwards to show that I hadn't
been anigh you. In the meantime I shall make a call at
a likely house I know, as if I were making inquiries."
"Do you think," asked Esden, looking nervously over
his shoulder, "that you're being watched? Do you think
that Prickett will break his promise?"
"Oh, dear, no, sir," Gale answered. "Mr. Prickett's
square, sir. He's passed his word, and he'll keep it.
Every officer of his experience, sir, has had to make this
kind of compromise. But I shall make the two calls all
the same, Mr. Esden, and I shall take care to be able to
prove hereafter as I made 'em, No unnecessary risk has
allays been my motto, sir."
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
115
"Do you know Mr. Gale," said Esden, "that your
chance collaboration in this affair will make it very
difficult for me to be honest ?"
"Will it, sir?" Gale asked, with no betrayal of sur-
prise or humour. "As how, sir?"
"I shall have to work pretty hard to scrape together
your five hundred," answered Esden. "You will under-
stand, if you please, that I am not a thief. I am merely
a borrower-upon lines which I admit to be eccentric.
Every shilling of this money will be repaid."
<<
Rak
(
Well, sir," said Gale, with an air of reflection and
allowance, "I can understand as a gentleman may feel
that way. I'll make that little call, sir, for the look of
the thing, and I'll be with you to-night at ten. I've had
a fatiguing day, sir, and I'd rather get it over early.
Then you can go on, sir, and take my information to Mr.
Prickett. Gale,' you says, ' has screwed it all out of
the man he sold the tool to. That man,' you says, 'is
the same as the grieving father. Gale,' you says, ' under-
takes to have back the jewels in four-and-twenty hours
from now if the advertisement goes in to-morrow morn-
ing's paper. As for Gale,' you says, 'he can be trusted
to make his own terms with the grieving father.' Be-
yond that," he added, rising from his seat, "I don't fancy
there's anything to be said at present, Mr. Esden. The
wool seems drawn pretty well down over Joseph Prickett's
eyes this time, and I don't say but what the money's
pretty easy earned."
And with that these oddly-assorted confederates
separated for the time.
Meanwhile Mr. Prickett, having parted from his ama-
teur associate, strolled to the District station and there
gave instructions for the relief of Gale's watcher. He
left word that no new watch should be established until
further orders, and that White should follow him at once.
to his apartments. Then he walked homewards, musing
with some sense of disappointment on the turn affairs had
taken.
116
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"That thousand pounds," he thought, "would have
looked as pretty in my pocket as it will in anybody else's."
The money question apart, he was grieved to be
taken off the chase. The man-hunting instinct had
grown to be very much a passion with him.
.
"I could have had that grieving father," so he pon-
dered," and consoled him, if ten years' honest labour
could ha' done it. Reuben was certain to go palavering
with him. I should have had Reuben, too. It's deci-
dedly a pity. It's a nice job spoiled."
Carrying the weight of his disappointment with him,
he walked home so slowly that White entered almost on
his heels. The recruit did not seem to think it needful
to continue his countrified pretence.
Well?" said Prickett, by way of sole inquiry.
"Mr. Gale" returned White, with his deliberate north-
country tones a little quickened, "has been showing me a
very pretty run o' country. P'raps I'd better give you
the day as it passed, Mr. Prickett.
""
Prickett nodding in answer, White produced a small
pocket-book, and turned its pages over with a moistened
thumb until he found the place he wanted. His chief
leaned against the mantel-piece with his hands in his
pockets, and listened with a dry, uninterested air.
"I went on at seven to eleven," said White, consulting
his notes from time to time. Three minutes after, Gale
comes out and makes for the Temple, number nine, Elm
Court. He mounts to the top o' the staircase, and raps
two or three times. Then he comes down and asks an
old woman with a mop and a pail o' water if Mr.
Wyncott Esden's in town. There was the name of
Wyncott Esden on the door-post.".
CC
Go on," said Prickett. He drew a pen-knife from
his waistcoat, and began to trim his nails with it, with a
variety of head turnings and minute inspections.
(C
Next," pursued the northerner, purring equably
along, "he goes to Charing Cross station and takes train
for Wootton Hill."
<!
ļ
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
117
When Mr. Prickett was interested that look he wore
of being unsurprisable always deepened. It deepened
now, and he looked up at his companion with a face set
like a mask.
کی
"At Wootton Hill," White went on, "Gale had five
minutes' talk with station master, and then struck out
across the fields. It occurred to me that it might be
worth while to know what he knowed, so I took a turn
at station master myself. He was a bit rusty at first,
and I had to tell him it was Queen's business. That
oiled him, and he told me Gale had been making inquiries
about Mr. Wyncott Esden."
"Oh!" said Prickett. "What did he want to know
about Mr. Wyncott Esden?"
"He wanted to know what train he went up by, and
what train down by, yesterday. Station master told him
one twenty-five and eight three. Then Gale asked for
the next station down the line. He was told it was
called Hemsleigh, and had the way pointed out. I nips
after him-very pretty walk, shaded mostly--and Gale
gets into confab with station master at Hemsleigh."
"What about this time?" asked Prickett, making a
pretence of yawning behind his hand.
(C
Gale had been asking after a gentleman, clean
shaved, eyeglass, very swell and handsome. Prob'ly
wore a white hat, white wescut, and primrose gloves, he
said. Station master told him there had been such a
gentleman yesterday, by the four twenty-seven. Carried
a black bag, and paid excess fair first-class from Wootton
Hill. Gave up Wootton Hill ticket. Seemed to have
overshot the mark, and started back on it."
""
"Do you know what?" said Prickett, turning to the
mantelpiece to fill his pipe, and casting a backward
glance on White meanwhile, "you're a starting me on
the queerest Never mind. I'll tell you after. Go on.'
"Gale found out as the same gentleman was back at
Hemsleigh last night, asking if any suspicious character
was seen about with a parcel that afternoon."
1
118
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
15.
"James White," said Prickett, turning round and
stuffing the tobacco into the pipe bowl with a slow and
somewhat exaggerated energy, "you're a man as has seen
something. So am I. But all we've seen between us,
if it was rolled into a heap, wouldn't make a molehill by
the side of this. Jim along. What's the next move?"
"Gale asked for the next station on the London route
beyond Wootton Hill. Sandy Park. Got sent across
the fields. Short cut. About three mile. Same story
over again. Same gentleman took the five thirty up
train. That seemed to finish Gale's inquiries. He took
the next train for London, and I come with him in
another coach."
"That's all right," said Prickett.
him home again, of course?"
"Yes."
"You saw me with him after? Anybody call on him
between whiles?"
<<
"You shadowed
"No, you caught him on the way, seemingly. He
dropped in at a pub in Chancery Lane, and took a glass
of beer very slow and thoughtful. Took nearly an hour
over it."
J
Anybody call on him after I came away?"
"The gentleman you went in with came back again."
"No," cried Prickett, in a tone of intensest humorous
relish. "You don't mean to say as he went back again?”
"Went back, looking pretty queer and shaky," White
responded. Stopped about ten minutes, maybe, and
then come out again looking as if he'd had the 'orrors."
"Do you think Gale spotted you at all?" Prickett
<<
asked.
!
"Never set eyes on me but once, so far as I believe.
Platform at Sandy Park."
66
Well," said Prickett, with an unusually smiling and
amiable air, "I promised Gale I wouldn't have him
shadowed. I think I will though, now I come to think
about it. And I fancy as I shall reconcile my conscience
pretty easy too."
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
119
ܝ
"You want me to go on again?" White asked.
"Yes," his superior answered, "you'd best get back
again."
When White had disappeared Prickett fell to march-
ing up and down the room, and paused now and again
to rub his hands with thoughtful satisfaction.
"I couldn't understand Reuben's face one bit," he
murmured. "I can make it out better now.
He was
just full to the bung with admiration of that young
amateur's frozen cheek in running along with me. Why,
its a real pleasure to have a pair like that to deal with.
Lord love you, Mr. Wyncott Esden, we shall have them
chestnuts out o' the fire, but we shall have to wait to see
whose paws gets burned. It's a bit of a pity, too, to see
a smart young chap like that fooling his chances away.
Of course he does it very clever, but what's the use of
playing good whist when all the cards is against you?"
XII.
W
HEN Wyncott Esden left Gale's shop he walked on
blindly for a little while, neither knowing nor car-
ing in what direction he bent his steps. His whole sys-
tem of things had gone suddenly to pieces, and the crash
with which it had come about his ears bewildered him.
It is necessary to have some sort of scheme to live in. A
world of no principle, if it lasted but an hour, would
bring madness to its occupant. Indeed, the total absence
of a scheme could hardly mean less than death, for a
madman's mental plan is only distorted.
As a matter of fact, Esden was one of those people
to whom their own good opinion is second as an actual
necessity of comfort to the applause of others. He had
given himself ample occasion to think otherwise, and yet
at bottom he had always been somehow convinced that
he was a man of delicate honour. If he had been wealthy
he would have gone to the grave in that belief. And
120
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
even though his sense of honour had never been so in-
elastic as he thought it, he had certainly never stretched
it dangerously to his own opinion until yesterday.
He had not been altogether comfortable about J. P.'s
affair. He had employed his most charming and friendly
eloquence to entrap that feeble creature, but his glib
arguments had appeared less convincing to himself than
they had appeared to his confiding victim. Even in the
moment of his triumph he had not found it in his heart
to be proud of his victory. He had felt it to be a little
unworthy of him, too easy a game, as if a grown man
should have set his wits to the conquest of a child.
Now, beginning bit by bit to reconstruct his shattered.
habitat, he thought it quite bitter to remember that what
was best and kindest in him had lured him to his intoler-
able abyss of self-contempt. But for his pity for that
weak-backed scape-goat he could never have taken the
plunge. He had meant, of course, to take it with little
harm to himself. Standing on the solid rock of honour
he saw the waters of shame before him, and beyond them
another shelf of solid honour, a little lower down, per-
haps, but lofty enough to afford dryshod going, and use-
ful for all practical purposes. He was but to have taken
a dip and out again. He had certainly not counted on
being forcibly made free of the Dismal Swamp by any
monster native to it.
There are few things more curious in this strange
world than the complete blindness which afflicts the
shrewdest men when they survey the manifestations of
their own character. If Esden's temptation had crossed
him under circumstances which would have prevented it
from becoming more than a remote speculation, he would
have been honestly indignant at the notion that it could
ever have developed into a temptation at all. But when
he had entrapped J. P. into signing that bill he had known
himself guilty of a meanness. The proceeds of that bill
had gone to pay liabilities meanly accumulated, for it is
not the act of a man of honour to incur gambling debts
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
121
beyond his power to meet. These infractions of his ideal
had each cost him a twinge of conscience, but they had
not seriously shaken his belief in himself as a man of
honour. That facile mind of his, and his quick adapt-
iveness, had reconciled him to himself in almost no time
and even when he had descended to the depth of appro-
priating Miss Pharr's property, the act was hardly an
hour old before he had begun to justify himself.
Five minutes before its accomplishment the deed was
not so much as dreamt of. He had missed Wootton
Hill by pure accident, absorbed in painful thought. The
Boomer would have been a safe draw if he could have
found him, but malicious fate had ordered otherwise, and
he saw nothing before him but ruin and exposure. J. P.
would talk, the affair would come to the ears of Mrs.
Wyncott, Miss Pharr would learn of it, the golden visions
of the last few days would crumble. He had taken his
way across the fields from Hemsleigh in a state of almost
absolute despair.
Whatever Wyncott Esden wanted he wanted very
much indeed, and he always wanted it at once. He had
been used to consider this characteristic in himself as a
sign of mental concentration, an evidence of force. It
lent a certain wild impatience to his wishes, and really
did justify his opinion of it at times because it spurred
him on to their accomplishment. It brought an added
misery to him now, and he dashed himself against the
bars which he had himself so painstakingly forged and
fixed.
•
When he reached the house he had seen its inhabi-
tants gathered upon the lawn, and the memory of that
accursed tool of Gale's, and the fact that the jewels lay
so easily within his reach, had come upon him with a
rush which was at once horrible and irresistible. There
was something altogether diabolical, he thought after-
wards, in the manner in which the temptation was thrown
into his way, and in which all obstacles to the crime
seemed removed. He would not rob Miss Pharr. Honestly,
?
122
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
6
from the very bottom of his soul, he recoiled from the
mere thought of it. How could a man of his birth and
breeding endure to be a thief? But with the jewels in
his hands he could extract a loan, which should take the
shape of a reward. He would repay it scrupulously,
every farthing. The case was desperate-the time was
brief. Almost before he knew it, he was slinking guiltily
under the shelter of the hedges with the stolen jewels in
his dressing-bag. No, no. Not stolen. Borrowed!
He got back to his chambers in London in a mad
whirl of shame and guilt, and triumph and fear. The
reflection of his own face in the glass there horrified him,
and he had to spend an hour in an effort so intense, that
at times it grew hysterical, to control his shaken nerves.
After all, he found his natural mental processes his own
best medicine. There had been no theft, but merely an
abstraction. The jewels would go back again when the
reward was paid. His very dexterity in rescuing them
would count with the heiress as a point in favour. Then,
whatever sum might be saved after the payment of his
most pressing obligations should be rigorously hoarded.
He was rising fast, and after his successes of last term
would be able to command in reasonable measure the
the prices of the brain-market. He resolved to live like
an anchorite, and to work as he had never worked before.
Anyway the thing was done, and of all follies in the
world that of crying over spilt milk is the least profitable.
He wrestled with his self-contempt as he had done afore-
time, and almost persuaded himself that he was blame-
less. He was even conscious of a vague but irritating
impatience with some half-apprehended out-side personage
who was too stupid to agree with him. Once more, to
change the simile, he had embarked upon a comfortless
voyage but the sea looked likely to be smooth enough,
and anyhow-vogue la galère !
The discovery that he had lost one-half the tool shook
him a good deal, but he remembered the course he had
taken across country to Sandy Park, and determined to
*
▲ DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
123
hunt for it. Even if he did not find it there was nothing
in it to connect him with the crime. Whatever other
defects marred his character, he told himself that he
suffered from no want of courage
It would be quite
time to be afraid of danger when
loomed in sight.
When he wrote the grieving parents etter, and smeared
and crumpled the paper afterwards, he was sensible of a
certain grim humour in the situation, and he accepted
this as a sense of self-possession and sang-froid. He
resolved to get himself entrusted with the negotiation, and
the thought that he would not find the other party
difficult to deal with, actually made him smile. There
was a flavour of bitterness in it all, but the thing, being
begun, had to be gone through with, and in a few months
he would buy back his own opinion by repaying the
money. The loan was informally negotiated, to be sure,
but as for calling it a theft, or being too hard upon him-
self in his own judgment, that was mere weakness.
Upon these lines he had compounded with his own
nature easily enough, but his enforced partnership with
Gale was horrible. Gale was a low scoundrel, an habitual
criminal, and but that Wyncott had seasoned his loathing
of him by a humorous contempt, he would have found
his first private interview with the rascal scarcely toler-
able. And now that his partnership with Gale made his
own plan doubly difficult, there were moments when it
seemed less impossible to return the jewels and plead for
terms with the people whose conf dence he had outraged
than to consummate this hideous marriage of interest.
Gale's partnership made the whole thing look like a
maniac's nightmare.
But, as he walked, his num ed mind began to move
again. The ignoble comedy, of which he was to have
been the sole actor and the only audience, had to be
played out to the end with all ossible changes of part
and cast. But, he began to ask himself, after all, did
Gale's knowledge greatly matter? The reward would
certainly have to be shared with him, and it would need
124
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
a proportionately longer time to repay Miss Pharr. He
was in the fellow's hands to that extent, but when Gale
had once got his share of the reward their connection
would be ended, and the mere opinion of such a brute
could matter little. This affair once concluded, they
would never meet again. He would suffer no intimacy,
and endure no further extortion. It was likely enough
that Gale might threaten, but he could only hurt Esden
by incriminating himself. Things were not so very bad
after all.
-
By the time he had arrived at this characteristic sum-
mary of the situation he found himself at the Marble
Arch. He called a cab, was driven to his club, and dined
there. He was a great favourite there, as elsewhere, and
half the clubmen who still remained in town felicitated
him on his conduct of his last case. It had been a good
deal of a cause celebre, and one or two of the daily papers
had given Esden high credit for his share in it. He had
been hailed as a rising luminary, and it had been prophe-
sied of him that he would shine afar. What with the
society of his intimates, a bottle of sound claret, and his
own practised power of ejecting disagreeable thoughts, he
grew quite jolly and voluble, and at last drove off in a
feverish heat of factitious high spirits to keep his appoint-
ment with Gale. This brief respite brought its inevitable
reaction, and he felt wretched enough as he mounted his
staircase in Elm Court, and lit the gas in his sitting-room.
He closed the inner door, and then, stepping with
exaggerated caution, went into his bedroom and drew
down the blinds. Returning, he lit a candle, and shading
the light with his hand stole back to the bedroom, glancing
involuntarily from left to right, as if in dread of some
hidden presence. Then, setting the candle on a chest of
drawers, he unlocked the great travelling-trunk in which
he had deposited the jewels. His heart knocked at his
ribs, and his hands shook as they groped their way past
many neatly-folded articles of clothing until they reached
the bottom of the trunk. Then he gave a sudden gasping
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
125
•
cry, and fell to emptying the chest so wildly that he
covered half the floor of the room with its scattered con-
tents. The plain morocco case was gone!
{
How long he knelt there he could not have told. He
seemed blind and dumb and altogether empty, and when
he first came back to himself he was sweating and trem-
bling from head to foot, and ragged patches of variously
coloured light were floating before his eyes. Slowly as
these fiery patches faded, one fixed object impressed itself
upon his senses. It fascinated him even before he recog-
nized its nature. He took it with a shaking hand. An
envelope. There were marks upon it. He read them
slowly. and their meaning penetrated slowly to his mind.
"W. Esden, Esquire." He stared at the word, kneeling
still, until quite automatically he broke the seal, and
unfolded a piece of paper.
"Respected sir," he read there. "The stones are quite
safe in my hands. I have a plan to make everything
square, and I am not going to have a chance like this
wasted.-Your obdt. servant, R. GALE."
He did not altogether understand, but he knew vaguely
that he was horribly entrapped. His first awaking seemed
singular, even to himself. Holding the note in one hand
he took the candlestick in the other, and waded across
the garments he had scattered about the room into the
adjoining chamber. There, by the aid of the gaslight, he
re-read Gale's brief note, with a futile and dreamlike feel-
ing that the clearer light would help him to understand
it better.
The first thought that came definitely to his mind was
that he had become unescapably a felon. He realised
that so clearly that he would have had a poignant pity
for any other man so situated. Then on a sudden his
mind cleared, and he knew that the wretch he would
have pitied was himself. At this he groaned, in a mingled
rage and shame, and at that very instant a knock sounded
126
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
*
without. He moved swiftly in answer, and threw the
door open with so much violence that it half recoiled.
Gale wormed himself into the little passage, and backed
against the door until the snap of the hasp told him it
was secured. Esden stood threateningly over his visi-
tor, the pallor of his face and the savage gleam of his
eyes noticeable even in the semi-darkness of the hall.
tr
"I see you got my note, sir," said Gale, with his
husky, apologetic wheeze. His left hand went with a
deliberate business-like gesture to an inner-pocket of his
respectable frock coat. For anything his face, voice or
manner indicated he might have been seeking for a
pocket-book or a handkerchief, but the deliberate left
hand brought out a revolver, and transferred it to the
deliberate right. "I hope, Mr. Esden," said Gale, "that
there isn't going to be no sort of trouble betwixt you and
me, sir."
He kept his harmless brown eyes on Esden's face,
and edged apologetically round him.
"The stones is perfectly safe, sir," he said, as he
backed into the room, "and honour between thieves has
always been my motto, Mr. Esden. You can trust 'em
with me as safe as you could the Bank of England."
If there was any one manner which could have
seemed more horrible than another to Mr. Esden's mind,
Gale might have chosen his own of malice aforethought.
The visitor spoke from within the sitting-room, and
Esden, with his hands twining his hair, leaned his fore-
head against the hall. Then, as if some will independent
of his own inspired him, the barrister plucked his wits
together and marched into the room.
(C
My good sir," he said quietly, though a sick cold
tremor at his midriff had an effect upon his voice, and
made it shaky and spasmodic, "my good sir, you have
counted without your host."
(C
Perhaps. sir," Gale answered mildly. "I don't see it
as yet, Mr. Esden, if you'll excuse me saying so.”
"Then," said Esden, with a throbbing voice, "you
▲ DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"
127
shall see it. What I did I did for a purpose, and nothing
that you can do-you had best understand me clearly-
nothing that you can do shall hurry me beyond it."
Gale, seeming suddenly to remember his hat, removed
it from his head and set it on the table.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, indicating it with a
little wave of the revolver.
"I took those jewels," said Esden, forcing himself to
quiet, "because I wanted money, and because I thought
that I could take them safely. I knew a reward would
be offered, and that the negotiations would be trusted to
my hands. I meant to repay the reward, and I mean it
still. If it should come to a question of making a clean
breast of it and taking my chance at the next assizes, or
to entering into a criminal partnership with you, my
mind is made up already. If the jewels are not returned
to me within an hour, I shall take a hansom down to
Wootton Hill and tell the story. Before doing that I
shall wire to Scotland Yard that the stones are in your
possession."
Whilst Esden spoke Gale had gently sidled into a seat,
and the barrister, at the moment at which he had an-
nounced his desperate intention, had flung himself into
another. The honest tradesman, without verbal answer,
cocked a mildly enquiring eye at the note which lay
almost beneath his hand upon the table. He read it
slowly, as if unfamiliar with its contents, and then,
crumpling it into a ball, set it between his teeth and
began to masticate it with much the air of a rum-
inating ox.
(C
'It'll be as well,” he explained, when he had reduced
the paper to a pulp, "not to 'ave anything about to tell
stories. You see, Mr. Esden," he pursued, respectfully
chewing the cud and toying abstractedly with his revol-
ver, "that wouldn't be, if you'll allow me the liberty to
say so, anything like what you might call a reasonable
game. I shouldn't like to boast of my advantages with
anybody, Mr. Esden, and least of all with a gentleman as
128
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
I owe so much to the efforts of. But, you see, sir, if I
might be allowed to put it plain "-here he swallowed the
paper pellet with a gulp-" I might p'int out, sir, as be-
tween a man armed and a man unarmed, argument is not
level, so to speak. Besides, sir, your bird is in the bush
and mine is in the 'and. I don't want to say anything
but what is civil and respectful, but if you was do what
you propose, Mr. Esden, what is there to injure me from
going to Mr. Joseph Prickett of Scotland Yard, and say-
ing, Joseph, I'm tired of being suspected and wanted.
Mr. Wyncott Esden was the gentleman as I given that
tool to. Mr. Wyncott Esden comes to me along o' you
this afternoon and makes a bargain with me under your
very nose, and then to-night he brings me the jewels and
asks me to get 'em on the market for him. But being
sick of being 'unted and suspected, here they are, and I
shall look to the lady to do the fair thing by me.' Now,
Mr. Esden, sir, I put it to you, what is there in the 'ole
wide world to prevent me from doing such a thing as
that?"
"You may do what you like," said Esden, desper-
ately. "If the jewels are not back in an hour from now
I shall wire to Prickett and I shall go down to Wootton
Hill and tell the story. I give you one minute to make
your mind up.'
He rose as he spoke, and advancing to one of the
windows laid a hand upon the fastening. Gale following,
interposed himself between Esden and the window,
shouldering his companion unceremoniously on one side.
I beg your pardon, Mr. Esden," he said, in a tone
curiously quick and arbitrary, "but I wouldn't do that
if I was you."
"I only wanted air, you fool!" Esden answered
angrily.
甘
​"You'll do without air for a little while, sir," Gale
responded, with a dogged resumption of his former
respectful tone. "You go and sit down in that there
chair again. I'm sure as you and me can get through
A DANGEROUS CATSF AW.
129
(C
this here business without quarrelling. An 'en is a stupid
sort of a fowl, ain't it, Mr. Esden? and even an 'en has
the brains not to cackle before she's laid her egg. Bite
first, and bark when you've done it, that's always been
my motto. Suppose I was to give you a minute to make
up your mind, sir? Suppose I was to give you five, Mr.
Esden? There's neither of us in an 'urry. Suppose you
say five? You sit down and think it over, sir.
""
You ate that note," said Esden, in a miserable,
unavailing rage, "to destroy the only evidence I had
against you."
""
CC
Why, yes, sir," Gale returned, distorting his face to
scratch with the more convenience at one of his little bits
of side whisker, "that was what I done it for. We said
five minutes, didn't we?"
He pulled out a bulbous watch, and nursed it in the
palm of his left hand. In the dead silence which fell
upon the chamber the watch seemed to tick as loudly as
an eight-day timepiece. Esden, leaning back in his chair
with an expression of sullen resolution, was so empty in
heart and mind that he found nothing better to do than
to count the tickings. He got consciously to fifty, and
there his mind sank into a momentary swoon of oblivion.
A minute later he found himself back again. A hundred
and ten, a hundred and eleven, a hundred and twelve.
The unobtrusive little mental sentinel once set on duty
had gone on listening and counting without further order.
Esden gave an irritated groan and changed his posture.
The sentinel went off duty, and the entrapped man
stared his future in the face until Gale's wheezy voice
aroused him.
་

"Good evening, Mr. Esden. I'll get up to Scotland
Yard at once, if that's your meaning. I needn't waste
time by going back for the stones, because in the mean-
time you might be amoving. While I think of it,
though, these two doors as leads into the 'all both locks.
on the outside. I'll see to them, and take the keys along
with me."
F
130
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"Tell me what you want," said Esden. There seemed
to be no fight left in him, and he saw that he was
trapped beyond hope of escape.
<<
Why, that's being reasonable, sir," Gale answered.
He had resumed his hat, and had risen from his seat, but
at Esden's confession of yielding he uncovered himself
and sat down again, drawing his chair a little nearer to
the table with a manner grown confidential.
"Of course,
sir,” he said, leaning across the table, and speaking in a
husky whisper, "it was quite reasonable in you to make
up your mind to send 'em back again. As for that, a
gentleman in your position might as well nobble the
griffin outside as steal them stones. You wouldn't know
what to do with it when you'd got it. But with me, you
see, Mr. Esden, it's quite different. In my hands they'll
be just like so much ready money, and I couldn't find it
in my 'art to part with a chance like that you given me."
"What do you want to do?" groaned Esden.
Why, sir, if you come to that," Gale answered, with
a respectful severity. "I want to do the reasonable, com-
mon sense thing. How could a man 'ope or expect to
prosper as threw away a chance like this? Between
them jewels and the reward, I should think as there's six
thousand safe to be divided betwixt you and me."
"The reward!" Esden gasped, half rising from his
66
chair.
s
(C
'Why, Mr. Esden," said Gale, speaking on unmoved,
a thousand pound-and that's the sum as has been
talked about—is a considerable 'andful of money. I've
been thinking the 'ole thing over, sir, and without a little
sum of ready money to set to work with we should have
to chuck away the swag for half its value. I've got it
all planned out as clear as daylight, and it's as easy as
breaking eggs, and as safe as whipping 'em."
"I don't know what devilish plot you've hatched,”
Esden cried, rising in new revolt, "and I refuse to listen
to it. Do what you will, go where you will, tell what
tale you will, I go back to plain honour and honesty and
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
131
take my chance. I may sell my soul some day, God
knows! but I will not bring it to market to a brute like
you. I will not be dragged from crime to crime, and
from baseness into baseness, Go! You have my last
word. Go, and do your damnedest."
He flung himself back again into his chair, folded his
arms, and sat stock still. His brain was giddy with remorse
and shame, and rage and terror. Bnt after this passionate
declaration he felt, in spite of all, as if he were half a
man again.
"Very well," Gale said calmly. "It's a bit of a pity,
both for you and me, but if it is to be so, so be it,. But
I'll just say one respectful word to you, Mr. Wyncott
Esden, afore I go, because you touch me on a tender
point, and I've got my feelings as much as if I was a
gentleman. You talk about me dragging you into crime,
sir. Now, that's neither fair or reasonable, and I shall
'ope as you'll withdraw them words. It's just what I
might ha' said myself to you. When I was a-standing
in that there dock, Mr. Esden, I made a solemn promise
to myself as if I got off I'd done my last bit of night
work-my last bit of any sort of work, barring honest
labour. I begun to see as the cross game wasn't good
enough. I am getting old, for one thing, and my nerves
ain't what they used to be. There was never no real
need to waste lead on that there butler, and five years
ago I should never have dreamt of it-no, nor yet two
years ago! I'd swore off that's what I'd done, afore the
jury said 'Not guilty,' and there warn't a day till yes-
terday as I didn't say 'No' to it, though I'ave'ad a
pretty 'andsome 'eap of chances offered to me. But in this
case the thing's done already, and if you won't take the
chances, Mr. Esden, you'll have to take the consequences.
I'm a poor man, and I ain't going to fly in the face of
Providence."
He had grown mournfully reproachful, and his manner
indicated clearly that Esden's conduct was a disappoint-
ment to him.
5
}
132
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"It's a million to one," he went on, rising and moving
a step or two towards the door, "as your friends won't
prosecute when they know. I shouldn't altogether like
it if I thought they would. I don't think as a smart
gentleman like you would ha' been such a fool as to a-done
it a-purpose, but your dropping that tool, Mr. Esden,
might have made it very awkward for me if I couldn't
have accounted for every minute of my time yesterday
afternoon. It was a breach of confidence, sir, to use that
tool at all. That's what it was. It was a breach of con-
fidence, Mr. Esden. It wasn't at all the kind of thing as
might be looked for in a gentleman, and I won't say as I
don't nurse a little bit of grudge again you for it."
"Oh, stop this filthy prating, man!" cried Esden,
writhing in his self-contempt. The phrase Gale had
used as to the chances of his friends, forgiveness of him
had illumined his mind like the sudden lighting of a torch
in darkness. He saw in the glare of that new light the
vast wave of shame that rose up to engulph him. He
was inspired to panic, and was ready to spring to any
refuge.
"Sit down again," he said. "Tell me your plan."
XIII.
MR
R. PRICKETT, who sat in his shirt-sleeves and
slippers for coolness' sake, was at breakfast next
morning with a letter propped up against the teapot be-
fore him. From time to time, as he worked his solid and
reflective way through a substantial meal, he turned to
the letter and read a line or two of it. He would not
allow his appetite to be disturbed, but it was plain that
the epistle puzzled him a great deal. Even when his
meal was over he forgot to light his pipe when he had
filled it, and seating himself in an arm-chair he read the
letter through for the fifth or sixth time. It was dated
from Wyncott Esden's chambers, and read thus:
▲ DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
133
"Gale has been here this evening according to promise,
but I am sorry to tell you that my interview with him
has proved wretchedly disappointing. I am afraid that
Miss Pharr will not only be compelled to yield to the
grieving father's exactions, but will have to communicate
with him through the advertising columns of the 'Stan-
dard.' Gale is quite powerless to help us. He has been
to the man whom he suspected, and has discovered that
the tool supplied to him is intact. He can only con-
clude that a fourth implement has been made from his
model, and that he was deceived by its resemblance to
his own handiwork. I thought at first that he might be
standing out to secure terms for himself. Perhaps it
would be as well for you to see him and form your own
opinion upon that point, though, for my own part, I am
pretty well convinced that he is as disappointed as I am.
He told me that he had hoped to stand well with the
police by reason of his behaviour in this affair, and
assured me that he had solemnly sworn to himself to go
straight, before the jury said 'Not guilty. That may be
as it may, but it is certain that he must lose by profess-
ing ignorance, and I see no reason to doubt his bona fides.
Unless I hear from you to the contrary I shall insert an
advertisement in to-morrow's paper. I think ‘A Griev-´
ing Father.-Honour Bright.-Address, W. E., Esq., Ox-
ford and Cambridge Club. That will be enough. If you
care to see me, I shall be in till noon.
""
(C
Well, really," said Mr. Prickett, "I think I should
care to see you; and I think I'll have a look at you at
once. A pretty cool game you're playing, Mr. Wyncott
Esden, and a pretty dark game it would ha' been, if I
hadn't lighted on the half of Reuben's jemmy. But then
I did, ye see, and that makes all the difference."
((
He took his coat from the back of a chair, and walking
slowly to a sideboard, laid his hand upon a clothes brush.
I think," he murmured, smiling slowly and drily to
himself, "I think I see through it. Gale is to be made
to look as if he was clean outside of it, but he is to get
134
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW
his share of the reward all the same, and Mr. Wyncott
Esden, alias the Grieving Father, the other. We'll try
and be in at the distribution, Joseph, whichever way it's
done. They won't be such fools as to try a cheque, nor
yet notes, I should fancy, and if it's gold they've either
got to meet or have a go-between. I've got plenty to
nail Mr. Esden on already, but I won't spoil sport. He's
having a lark with you, Joseph, this smart young criminal
barrister is. Now you go in, my boy, and have your
lark along with him, and see who comes out upper-
most."
With that he began to brush his coat with great
vigour, and having struggled into it, arranged his cuffs,
collar, and neck-tie at the mirror, passed a silk handker-
chief with much tenderness round his glossy silk hat, and
walked leisurely Strandward, putting on his smart yellow
gloves as he went. In due time he reached the Temple,
and mounting smilingly the stairs which led to Esden's
chambers, knocked at the door and waited, with his face
suddenly grown as impassive as a wall. A middle-aged
laundress answered to his summons, and Esden, hearing
his voice in inquiry, called to him to enter.
Prickett obeyed, and paused with a look of concern
as he saw Esden lying on the sofa with his face half
swathed in linen wraps.
"Humbug!" he thought within himself. "But shook
at the notion of facing ine. Wants to have something
else to put it on to, in case I notice it.”
None the less he inquired with friendly seeming soli-
citude the reason of this sign of his host's indisposition.
"Toothache and neuralgia," said Esden, drawing
aside the bandage. "Look here." One side of his face
was quite dark and swollen. "If I am sleepless or wor-
ried the confounded thing often gets at me in this way,
and sometimes makes me a spectacle for days. There's
a beastly draught in my bedroom, too, which makes the
thing worse than it would have been.".
He had passed a dreadful night, but the physical pain
For
}
$
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
135
awakened—as it not infrequently is in men of nervous,
sensitive organization-by his mental troubles, had been
almost welcome to him. He hailed it now, at least, for
he felt his nerves so shattered that without it he would
have been powerless to hold a screen between Prickett's
calmly inquiring eye and his own spiritual miseries.
Prickett, at the sight of the blackened and swollen jaw
and temple resigned his first opinion, and decided that if
this were the result of worry the cause must have needs
been remarkable.
(C
you
If ain't able to talk about this affair now, you
know, Mr. Esden," said Prickett sympathetically, "there
is no reason in the world why I should wish you. It
seems as if we'd come to a standstill for a minute. I've
had inquiries made the whole neighbourhood round, and
can't get news of any suspicious-looking character being
seen about at the time."
"Oh!" said Esden, sitting up and propping his sore
head gingerly on the palm of his hand, "I'm quite well
enough to talk. Anything that interests me drives the
pain away. Gale's square, I think. You see," he added,
he has as strong an inducement of self-interest to be
honest as he has to be dishonest. He could share the
reward by telling what he knows just as well as by hid-
ing it. Then I see no reason to doubt him when he says
that he is anxious to get into your good books."
(C
Well," Prickett assented, with a look of having con-
sidered the theme all round, "that sounds reasonable
enough. He might be working on the party's fears, but
then it's evident that whoever done that job hasn't got
many fears to work on. It was done in daylight, and
pretty bold and resolute."
"I should say the blackguard's plucky," Esden
groaned.
It was of course Mr. Prickett's cue for the present to
be to the guilty Esden absolutely what he would have
been if Esden had been all he tried to seem. It would
have been natural to have directed all reasonable sus-
A
136
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
picion towards Gale in the latter case, and the detective
was by far too cunning to neglect it now.
I don't say, Mr. Esden," he remarked, with an argu-
`mentative air, "that Gale isn't playing the straight game
this time. As a matter of fact, I think he is, but I
wasn't so blooming green neither as to let him do what-
ever he liked last night without knowing pretty well
what he was up to. I promised him I wouldn't have
him shadowed, but on my way home it came into my
mind that I was doing rather a foolish kind of thing. If
you'll believe me, Mr. Esden, it almost turned me sick
when I thought about it. There was I, leaving Reuben
to work on the man as probably had the stones in his
possession, giving him free leave as like as not to work
up a plan for getting 'em on the market, and going halves
in what they sold for, instead of merely splitting the
reward."
"By Jove, yes!" cried Esden, "that was an over-
sight."
"I should think it was an oversight," said the
duplicious Prickett, with face, voice and manner expres-
sive of his self-contempt for having made it. "A prom-
ise is a thing as I abhor to break, Mr. Esden, but last
night I had to do it. I know the man as Reuben went
to, and I know that neither him nor yet his set was
active the day before yesterday."
66
Lucky," thought Esden to himself, "that Gale made
that pretended call." He shook to think on what gos-
samer threads his own safety seemed to hang. If Gale
had come straight to him without making that astute
and self-protective pretence, suspicion might have fixed
on him a claw not to be loosened. Even whilst the
wheel this thought set whirling in his head was still spin-
ning, he had wit enough to know that no man but him-
self and Gale could tell how much he merited suspicion,
but his nerves were all on edge, and his will was un-
strung, as the thought was nothing less than fearful to
him.
KA
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
137
"So I conclude, you see," pursued Prickett, "that
Reuben knew no better, and was doing his best for us.
But all the same, he's a little bit more than slippery, Mr.
Reuben is; and I don't want to have him any deeper in
the know than I can help.”
"I suppose," said Esden, shaking inwardly a little at
his own daring, "that you'll keep an eye upon him ?
""
""
"Lord bless your soul! What for, sir?" Prickett
answered. "He's shot his bolt. There isn't a suspected
man in London, not of Reuben's standing anyway, as we
don't keep an eye on more or less. I mean to go down
and have a talk to him, but I don't think he's in it. The
grieving father's the only lay to go on for a compromise.
Of course, if we waited we should have a chance of nail-
ing 'em when they began to move, but if the thing is to
be kept quiet, sir, I don't see anything for it but to put
in that advertisement. That'll get it over pretty soon.
Now Mr. Prickett, in pursuit of that unsleeping prac-
tice of mental photography of which he boasted, had
allowed his eyes to wander with their customary inquiry
over every visible inch of the apartment he sat in. His
habit served him well in one case, he was sure, and he
fancied that it might serve him as well in another if he
could find means to employ a test of it. Point the first
was simple, and was open to any casual eye or any
searching and suspicious investigation. It was neither
more nor less than a flat bruise on the jamb of the door
which led to Esden's bedroom. The indentation was
quite shallow and flat, and it had flat edges to it, as if
made by the pressure of a small crowbar, finely finished.
It was in fact identical with the mark upon the wooden
cornice of the cupboard in Miss Pharr's bedroom.
(C
"An experiment?" thought Prickett. Was he fool
enough for that?" His face betrayed nothing, and his
eye never once travelled back to the sign he had dis-
covered.
Point number two was a little more complex and
inventive. On the table stood a massive electro-plated
138.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
writing-stand, with a great square glass inkstand in it,
filled with dark violet ink. On the mantel-piece, pushed
half behind a turned wooden vase of spills, was a common
penny bottle marked "Blue-black Writing Fluid,” and a
pen lay beside it.
"If I might take the liberty, sir,” said Mr. Prickett,
rising, "to take one of these 'ere sheets of paper, I'd write
out that advertisement and drop it at the office now."
"Certainly," said Esden. "I can think of nothing
better to be done, and if you approve of it, it had best be
done at once."
Prickett, with a half-sheet of paper in his hand, saun-
tered to the mantel-piece, took up the pen that lay there,
dipped it, and formed a single initial "A" upon the paper.
The ink was pale, and had evidently been watered.
Prickett, with his immovable quiet face, looked into the
mirror which stood before him, and caught Esden's glance
reflected there.
6
"Shall we spell grieving' as the cove himself does,
sir?" he asked. "Ile spells it 'ei,' but I suppose he'll
understand it if we put it right for him."
Esden fell back upon the sofa with a groan. For one
minute his nerves had been so strung that their tension
was unbearable, but Prickett had evidently noticed
nothing, as, indeed, why should he? and he was at ease
again; except for the physical pang his nervous tremor
had occasioned.
--
"Let us preserve our self-respect," he said, trying to
smile. "Let us spell correctly."
'All right, sir,” said Prickett, bending anew above the
paper.
He wrote and read out the words--"A Grieving
Father.-Honour Bright.-Address, W. E., Esq., Oxford
and Cambridge Club," and having waved the paper to
and fro in the air, he folded it, and bestowed it in one of
the pockets of his sprigged white waistcoat. "I'll leave
that as I go down," he said, "and I suppose the affair will
come to a finish pretty soon. It's a bit of a pity, though,
sir, ain't it ?”
****
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
139
<<
"What is a pity?" Esden asked, in a voice of impa-
tient pain. He was really suffering, and felt a fierce
gladness and relief at his own pain. Without it he would.
have feared at every moment lest he might betray himself.
'Why, from my point of view, sir," Prickett urged,
"it would certainly have been a good deal prettier to
nail the thieves. It would have paid me better, every
way. I can't help thinking, sir, as it's weak-minded to
act as we're a-doing. It's against the law, as we both
know very well, though of course it's as common as day-
light. But with a bit of patience, it's a hundred to one
we should have had 'em. And now they get off scot-
free, with a thousand pound in their pockets. It's a bit
hard lines to have seen a chance like this, to have been
actually put on the job, and then for it all to come to
nothing. But it's the way of the world, sir. Sweets and
bitters, and a lot more bitters than sweets."
""
"You may be pretty sure you won't be neglected,
Prickett," Wyncott answered. "I shall make it my
business to point out to Miss Pharr that without your
consent she could not have adopted the course you have
taken.
"I am very much obliged to you, I'm sure, Mr. Esden,"
Prickett answered, with sardonic imperturbability. "You
will let me know, sir, when you get an answer from this
party”—tapping at his waistcoat-pocket-" when it comes
to actual negotiations and you've got to meet the folks
you're dealing with, I may be able to give you a tip or
two."
(C
Very likely," Esden answered, with assumed care-
lessness and inward thanksgiving. "I'll write to Miss
Pharr this afternoon and tell her that the advertisement
will appear."
When the time comes, sir," said Prickett, pursuing
his confidential and unsuspicious policy the more keenly
now that his last reg of donbt had vanished; "when the
time comes you'll find as the parties won't take notes for
fear of being traced by 'cin afterwards. They'll want
140
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
gold. Now that makes the negotiation dangerous. You
can't trace a sovereign like you can a note. This griev-
ing father dodge might be neither more nor less than a
bold stroke to get a thousand pounds as well as the
jewels. Don't you go unarmed, Mr. Esden. I've got a
beautiful little revolver, a Tranter, no prettier thing
going. I'll bring it down with me, if you will name a
moment when I can call. Say to-morrow morning?"
"By all means, Prickett," Esden answered. "I am
greatly obliged to you for the suggestion. I might never
have thought of it myself. Bring it down by all means.
I shall be in till midday."
Prickett took his leave, respectfully sympathetic for
the neuralgia and toothache, and walked soberly down-
stairs, and soberly on into Fleet Street. There he made
a call at a gun-maker's shop, and was received by the
man in charge with a cordiality not unmixed with wor-
ship.
(C
Called about the revolver, Mr. Prickett ?" the shop-
man asked him when their greetings were over.
"You'll
find it work as smooth as a watch now, sir."
CC
'I want a word with you in private," Prickett an-
swered, and the man, leading him to an inner_room,
closed the door and motioned him to a seat. "I want
that revolver," pursued Prickett in an undertone cau-
tiously measured, "to be loaded with half a dozen cart-
ridges that won't fire. You can either take the powder
or the fulminate out of them, but I want 'em to look as
good as gold."
This particular gunmaker may have been used to
curious orders. He expressed no surprise at Prickett's
command, but undertook it smoothly, and shook hands
with his customer as he went away.
Prickett's unmoved exterior may possibly have be-
lied his internal sensations, but whether with care or
difficulty, he kept the look of one who is bound upon the
average everyday business of his life. He dropped in
gravely at the advertisement office of the Standard, and
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
141
there copied the inscription he carried in his waistcoat-
pocket, paid the sum demanded of him, entered the
amount in his pocket-book, and then walked on to Gale's
shop in Holborn.
Gale was behind his counter, looking, if anything, a
trifle more respectable and mild than usual, faultless in
linen, and scrupulously clean shaven.
((
Morning, Reuben," said Prickett, with the manner
of one who is chastened by defeat.
"
Good-morning, Mr. Prickett," Gale returned in a
voice which was the very sympathetic echo of the
other's.
(C
This is a bit of a disappointment for you, ain't it,
Reuben?" he asked.
(C
Well, I won't say that, sir, not yet," Gale_answered.
"I can see as you've eard from Mr. Esden. I gave him
a call last night, and told him what had happened.
About them there tools, now. You know, Mr. Prickett,
I can't tell one from another. What's to prevent this
last chap from havin' borrowed a similar tool of my make
from a pal? If so be as it should have happened as he
should have heard as I was a-making inquiries-
""
"Why, there's something in that, to be sure," returned
Mr. Prickett. It would be hard to say how much he
relished every cunning shift and stratagem upon the
other side. Perhaps the fountain of humorous perception
tasted the sweeter to him because he did not dare to
allow the escape of a solitary bubble. "I like to hear
you talking like that, Reuben, because I must admit that
that sounds square. I don't say I shouldn't have thought
of it myself. I don't even say I didn't. But, all the
same, I ain't sorry to hear you own as much. But if
you
still think you've got a chance of doing anything, I've
come to tell you as it's got to be done to-day. I shan't
tell you why, because it's no business o' yours to know
it, but after to-day this share'll dry up. If you hadn't
been so greedy, Reuben, you might ha' done something.
You fixed your mind on getting all you could lay your
142
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"
claws on, and so you don't get anything. Now what's
the tale you pitched to Mr. Wyncott Esden? You want
to stand well with the police?”
(C
Really, Mr. Prickett," Gale responded in a mild
astonishment of self-defence, "I don't see how I could ha'
done more than I have done."
r
Don't you?" Prickett answered with simulated
disgust. Well, I'll tell you. You might ha' took me
into confidence. So and So and So,' you might have
said, 'is the three chaps I made the tools for. Now, in
place of setting them colloguing together, and giving
them a chance among 'em to replace that missing joint,
we'll go at 'em altogether simultaneous, so to speak, and
the man as can't produce his is the man to talk to.' The
young lady as owns these jewels don't want a prosecution.
You and me might very well have been partners in this
matter, but you was too greedy, and that's all about it.
You're like the monkey as got his hand into the jar and
tried to fetch out too much at a time. You've lost your-
self two or three hundred, and you've lost me two or
three hundred, and that's all the good your selfishness
has done you.”.
It's never been my way, Mr. Prickett," Gale wheezed
at him, "to set your people on to any body. It wasn't
greed, Mr. Prickett, it was only because I wanted to do as
I'd be done by. That's always been my motto."
<<
c.
t
J
>
'Specially with butlers," Prickett answered acidly.
"Now, Mr. Prickett," cried Gale, "I beg your pardon,
sir, but I cannot 'ave that kind of talk. I was found
Not guilty' by a verdict of my countrymen, and that
ought to be enough for any man.
""
"Perhaps it had, Reuben," Prickett answered, "per-
haps it hadn't. Perhaps you was lucky; perhaps you
got the reward of your merits. But there's no two ways
about this; you've bungled the present business through
being too graspin'. You've put me out of the way of
making a pretty fair handful of money, and you've lost
what you might have made yourself.'
""
X.
-
A DANGEROUS CATSPAŴ.
143
Gale protested against this view of things, and urged
his cause with an interior satisfaction which rivalled
Prickett's own. They were a well-matched couple, and,
but for Prickett's actual knowledge, neither could have
gained a featherweight's advantage over the other.
"All right, Joseph," said Gale to himself when his
visitor had left him. "You've got the needle a-stirring
about already, It'll be a little sharper in the course of a
day or two."
For his part Prickett went away with an expression
carefully tuned to melancholy. Even in the freedom of
the streets he preserved this dejected aspect. It would
never have done to run the risk of any chance gossip
taking the news to Gale that Joe Prickett had left him
radiant.
XIV.
MOR the two days which followed immediately on the
theft of the jewels, life at Wootton Hill House was
naturally somewhat distracted and disordered, but on the
morning of the third the post brought to Miss Pharr in-
telligence which she found of so comfortable a nature
that, for her at least, the affair of the burglary shrank into
its proper episodical proportions, and no longer threat-
ened to absorb the whole of life and thought as it had
done.
"My dear Miss Pharr," wrote Esden. "The chase
upon which Prickett and I started yesterday has resulted
in nothing. Prickett is still confident that if the thieves
should attempt to dispose of their booty he would be able
to trace them, and to recover at least a portion of it, but
he admits that the cheapest and swiftest method will be
to deal with that rascally correspondent of yours. I am
decidedly of the same opinion, and. accepting the carte
blanche you gave me, I have already sent Prickett with
an advertisement intended to catch the eye of the 'Griev-
144
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
ing Father.' You may be almost absolutely sure that in
two days from your receipt of this letter the stones will
be once more in your possession. It is a misfortune as
it stands, but it might have been so much more serious
that your friends may really congratulate you. The
thieves will not, of course, enter into communication
with the police, and you will see by the advertisement at
or near the top of the Standard's second column that the
Grieving Father' is invited to correspond with me.
19
(
This letter, read aloud at the breakfast table, sent
everybody to the agony column, and the ladies looked at
the innocent-seeming announcement with romantic thrills,
thinking how much it covered. There was an advertise-
ment just above it which stated that Jack was dying for
news of his own Heart's Queen, and that the old address
would find him. There was another below it requesting
the golden-haired lady who alighted at Shepherd's Bush
at five twenty to communicate at 231 Vigo Street with
the gentleman who carried an umbrella with an agate
knob.

"Even there," cried Janet, her grey eyes widening as
if to take in the whole scope of the world's possible
villanies," may be covert assignations from burglars to
their comrades."
The ladies tremulated deliciously. The crime began to
take an air of romance. The gardener slept in the base-
ment of the house for its extra safety, and the local
officer was pampered to keep an special eye upon the pre-
mises. With these precautions the feminine inmates of
the house felt no more sense of danger than was just
agreeable. They had fallen into a habit of peering singly
into cupboards and under beds in the daytime, and they
made the like perquisition in a bevy at night before
retiring to rest. Miss Pharr was the only one who suf-
fered, and she bore her loss so bravely that the others.
had no heart to reproach her. For her own part she was
so glad at the prospect of escaping so lightly, that to lose
a thousand pounds in such a fashion as was proposed
看
​A DANGERO US CATSPAW.
145
looked to her like the making of a most glorious
bargain.
Wyncott's letter was not the only one which arrived
for Janet that morning. There lay for awhile untouched
beside her plate a missive addressed to her in the easily-
recognised characters of the "Grieving Father." She eyed
it with distaste, and perhaps might not have opened it at
all, but for a dreadful suggestion from Edith.
"The wretch may have changed his mind, my dear,"
she said. "He may write to say that the jewels are dis-
posed of already."
At this Janet laid reluctant fingers upon the envelope,
and hastily tore it open. The writer intimated that he
had looked in vain in that day's paper for an answer to
his former letter. "Please look sharpp," he added. "My
son wil not wate longer than Fryday morning."
<<
'He has seen the advertisement before now," said
Arnold. "He would probably be up at four or five o'clock
in the morning to get a copy of the paper at the office.
Wyncott may have a letter from him in an hour or two
at the club, and will wire us the news directly."
"Well, Janet, lass," said the old Doctor, "a thousand
pounds is a thousand pounds; but you're not ruined by
it, and ye're lightlier through the bes'ness than we might
have hoped to see ye. Wyncott's right when he says
that after all your friends may well congratulate ye.'
"I don't deserve to be congratulated at all," Janet
declared, stoutly adhering to her original view of the
question. "I am quite rightly served for my own silliness
and vanity, and I am sure that I beg everybody's pardon
with all my heart for the trouble I have given them.”
"In that case," said the Doctor, "I'll just get back to
my interrupted operations, and, indeed, I'm bold to make
confession that I've not been actually idle all the time.
I'm getting auld, Janet, and I've not much time to waste,
either for science or pleasure. I've been working in my
own room, printing, and a beautiful light I've had for it.
If you're in want of further lessons, Edith," he continued,
146
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
-
twinkling slily at the old maid, "I'll be ready for ye in
my studio in half an hour."
Edith responded to this invitation by a half-repressed
smile, which looked as if it might have had a meaning in
it. The Doctor withdrew to his own quarters, his saga-
cious grey brows twitching, and his kindly grey eyes
twinkling with some hidden sense of humour. Beside
his bed-chamber the old gentleman had had rigged up for
himself a room in which he could carry on his beloved
processes. It was cleared of furniture except for a pair
of kitchen tables and a chair or two. One of the tables
was covered with flat enamelled pans full of water, and
the other bore a litter of negatives and apparatus. He
pottered about here for a full half of his time, as happy
in the pursuit of his favourite occupation as a child, and
produced results sometimes of wonderful delicacy and
beauty.
ܢ
"I should have thought," said Janet, when he had
disappeared, "that you, Edith, were beyond taking lessons
from anybody, even from Doctor Elphinstone."
"Perhaps," the old maid answered, newly struggling
to keep down that obdurate smile which would come to
the surface, "I may be able to give him lessons, though
his vanity would never allow it."
""
Before the time appointed had expired she knocked
at the door of Elphinstone's work-room, and, being bidden
to enter, obeyed, and closed the door somewhat mysteri-
ously behind her. The old gentleman was in his shirt-
sleeves, and had his lean, brown arms bared to the elbow.
His hands were dripping, and as Edith approached him
he took up a towel to dry them.
.
"I've neither chick nor child, nor kith nor kin, as I
was telling ye last night when your mother broke in upon
us,” he began. “I've meant, ever sence the two lads were's
high as that table, that if the two of them should last out
my time, I'd divide my worldly belongings between them.
But at my time o' life, having resisted the wiles o' your
sex for seventy years, I'm not going to fall a vectim now."
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
147
"Now in what sense, Dr. Elphinstone," Edith demanded
are you asked to become a victim ?"
"(
tr
Ï've been a sturdy contemner and enemy of your
wiles and ways my long life long," returned the Doctor,
"and it's like a wumman's impudence to think she can
turn me from my path by just wheedling her finger
at me."
"But who wants to turn you from your path?" she
asked, with a humorous desperation.
66
"Miss Wyncott's self," the Doctor answered. Ye
want to make a match-maker o' me in my auld age-I
that have fought on the side of single-blessedness, and
maybe bled for the cause! I'll not say that I haven't
been scratched for it years ago. And now I'm to turn
recruiting agent for the other side.'
""
"Surely," said Edith, "you don't advocate the uni-
versal extension of our principles?"
""Twould make but little differ if I did," he answered.
“The wisest advocacy the world ever listened to would
have but little effect in that direction. I'll just tell ye
what I'll do. I'll go so far and no farther. I'll tell the
lad what my intentions are. But mind ye, if Arnold
knows it Wyncott knows it. I'll tell the both o' them,
and acquet my conscience of the whole match-making
concern. When I'm gone they'll have something like
three thousand a year to divide between them. and a lad
that has a profession between his fingers, and brains in
his head, and fifteen hundred pounds a year to his name,
can marry any woman and feel independent, though she
were richer than the Queen o' Sheba. Ef Arnold wants
the lass," he went on, with a humorous snappishness,
"why doesn't he tell her so? And if she wants him,
Lord, my dawty, they're a heap shyer than they used to
be if she can't find a way o' shewing him."
Edith had approached this question originally with
all imaginable cunning and reserve. She had never
expected or intended to do more than to drop the merest
feminine hint, but the doctor's shrewd eye had pierced
148
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
to the heart of her manoeuvre, and the old man had
spoken straightway with a thoroughly Scottish candour
and impatience of subterfuge. So they were now, he
and the old maid, in full plot together in Arnold's behalf.
The old medico respected the young clergyman's inde-
pendence, and indeed there was an old-world story, buried
and forgotten for almost everybody by this time, that
Elphinstone himself had been kept single by much such
another scruple. He liked Wyncott well, as most people
did, but he respected the parson most highly, and was
more willing to lend him a helping hand in his love
affairs than he was to assist the other. He thought
Wyncott little likely to stand in need of prompting. He
was not a young man who would lose anything by the
mere failure to ask for it.
•
"I'll find a chance to drop him a word," said the
Doctor, and having secured so much, Edith retired radi-
ant with hope for her two protégés. Elphinstone found
no chance until after luncheon, and then, finding Arnold
on the lawn, he took his arm, and invited him to a stroll.
'I've got a little something to say to ye, lad," he said
"and we'll have it out afoot. We'll have a walk up to
the wood together and talk by the way. It's a lovely
afternoon, and none too hot for exercise."
6C
ܚ ܪ ܕ
Arnold assenting, they set out together, but the
intended friendly confidence was not to be broached that
afternoon, for no sooner had they come upon the high-
way than they discerned the figure of Mr. Prickett, who
was approaching at a business-like pace. He walked up
to within a yard of them, and then pausing, touched his
hat with a gloved forefinger.
"I'm glad to have met you outside, gentlemen," he
said. “I'd rather if possible not see the ladies just yet.
I've something particularly serious to say, and I should
like to say it where we can't be observed or over-
heard."
They were both a little surprised by this exordium,
and each was conscious of a chill-something which was
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
149
almost fear, though, after their different fashions, they
were as courageous as most men.
"We'll be private enough," said the Doctor, "if we
cross yon stile and get into the fields.”
They moved in silence until they had reached the
middle of a thirty-acre fallow. They stood upon a little
eminence there, and there was not a soul in sight.
"Gentlemen," said Prickett, looking from one to the
other, "the object I'm supposed to come down here for is
to get a cheque from Miss Pharr to pay the sum demanded
by the party that stole the jewels. Now that might
look as if this affair was coming to an end. As a matter
of fact, it's only just beginning. I must tell you gentle-
men beforehand, that what I'm going to say is going to
be a heavy blow to you. I think you can both stand it,
but it'll take pluck, mind you, gentlemen, and it's got to
have it."
There was something so fateful, assured, and solemn
in the man's manner, that the hearers were afraid before-
hand, though neither had a guess of what he feared.
"There's no good to be got by beating about the
bush, sir," Prickett continued, addressing himself to
Arnold. The Doctor noticed a sort a respectful pity in his
voice and manner, and wondered at it. "The plain truth
of the matter is, gentlemen, both," said Prickett, linger-
ing with a visible reluctance before he took the plunge,
and flashing a glittering eye from one pale and attentive
face to the other and back again, "the plain truth of the
matter is, gentlemen, that the person signing himself a
Grieving Father' is Mr. Wyncott Esden.
""
Arnold shot out both hands, and gripping Prickett by
the lapels of the coat, shook him passionately to and
fro without a word. Elphinstone's kindly old face had
gone as white as death, but he laid a hand on each of
Arnold's wrists and pulled at him persuasively.
"There's no use in that, lad," he said, with a catch in
his voice," no use in that."
No, sir," said Prickett, quietly and sadly, "there's
"
([
L
150
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
no use in that. No offence on my side, sir," he added, as
Arnold dropped his hands and stood half aghast and half
enraged before him. "I don't wonder as you're hit by
it. I was hit myself; but I'm telling you the God's
truth, neither more nor less. Mr. Wyncott Esden and
the "Grieving Father" are one person.
""
Arnold," said the old man shakily, "let me do the
talking here. I've h'ard you very highly spoken of, Mr.
Prickett, and I presume that you cannot have fallen into
so terrible an error except upon what must look like
strong evidence. Let us hear it."
<<
66
Well, gentlemen," said Prickett, with the same
relentless pity, "if you'll do me the honour to follow me,
here's the case. To begin with, it may be known to you
or it may not, that Mr. Wyncott Esden is up to his eyes
in debt, and a good deal troubled by his creditors. He's
got heaps of paper on the market that he can't meet.
Next, gentlemen, he was one of the few people as knew
about the jewels, value and whereabouts. Next, on the
afternoon of the robbery, when Mr. Wyncott Esden pre-
tended to be in town, he was in the neighbourhood at
the very minute when the job was done."
"In this neighbourhood!" eried Arnold. "What do
you mean?"
Prickett, before replying, drew a scrap of paper from
his pocket and placed it in Arnold's hands.
"There's a list of the trains Mr. Wyncott Esden
travelled by that afternoon, sir. He paid excess fare
from Wootton Hill to Hemsleigh when he came down,
and he went up with a first-class single from Sandy
Park to town again."
aka
The two gentlemen stared at each other and at
Prickett in a horror-stricken amaze.
66
You can prove this?" said Elphinstone.
re
Yes, sir," said Prickett, "I can put the station
masters in the box if need be. When I showed Mr.
Wyncott Esden the tool the job was done with he took
it, well-as well as any man could hope to take it—but it
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
151
shook him dreadful. When I proposed to visit Reuben
Gale, who made the tool, he offered to go with me, as
you remember. He made what amounted to a bargain
with Gale in my presence; as clever and bold a thing,
gentlemen, as I ever knew in my experience.
Gale was
being watched, and after Mr. Wyncott Esden and me
had left him, Mr. Esden went back alone. My man tells
me that he came out again ten minutes after, looking as
if he'd got the horrors. I was in his chambers yesterday
morning. and I wrote that out of a common penny bottle
! of watered ink as stood upon his mantel-piece."
handed his draft of the advertisement to Elphinstone.
He
(C
If you'll compare that, sir, with the "Grieving Father's'
letter, you'll find as that's the ink its wrote in. One
thing more; the tool the job was done with was tried on
the sitting-room door in Mr. Esden's chambers. I saw
the mark yesterday, and it corresponds exactly."
"Great Heaven!" groaned Arnold, suddenly. "I re-
member! There is some horrible conjunction of circum-
stances here. Wyncott will explain it all.”
"You remember?" said Elphinstone. "What do you
remember?"
"The broken door in Wyncott's room," Arnold an-
swered. "The lock was shattered. He began to tell me,
laughingly, of a droll souvenir from a client in connection
with it, but he was interrupted twice, and never finished
the story."
"When was that, sir?" asked Prickett.
"It was the day," said Arnold, turning upon Elphin-
stone, "on which he received my aunt's invitation to
spend the vacation down here."
"Then it was the day after the trial of the man Gale,”
said Elphinstone. His white face went still paler as he
spoke.
"The tool was Gale's make, sir," said Prickett, "and
it might have got into Mr. Esden's hands quite innocent
that way."
"
Wyncott can explain everything," cried Arnold
(C
132
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
with a sick sinking at his heart which belied the courage
of his words. "There is only one thing to be done. It is
intolerable that a man of honour should rest for an hour
under such a suspicion as this. We will go to town and
see him and hear his story."
re
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Prickett, "but that
won't do. There's the question of the stolen property.
One of the things is to get Miss Pharr's jewels back.
You must understand, gentlemen, that when Mr. Wyncott
Esden went into this thing he went into it alone. He
was probably tempted of a sudden, because if he'd meant
to do it when he got the tool he'd be altogether too fly
and clever to try it on his own door, where anybody
might see the traces. It's as plain as paint as it was done
for the reward-and it's as like as not, it's likelier than
not-that he'd have it in his mind to restore the reward,
anonymous, when he'd pulled round. That's how I read
the case, at least. But now, gentlemen, Reuben Gale is
in the business. Reuben Gale has got the young gentle-
man under his thumb, and when any gentleman has
been tempted into crime and finds himself matched with
a confederate like Reuben Gale, he gets the seven-leagued
boot on.
There's no more desperate criminal in London,
gentlemen, and if you wait this out you'll see what it
means. I should bet a million to one, if I had got the
money, that Reuben means to have the jewels and stick
to the reward as well. Mr. Esden isn't such a fool as to
have the stolen property about him. If you can get at
him now you'll close his mouth, and if you'll leave it to
me we'll have the money and jewels both back again."
"I won't believe this hideous story," broke in Arnold.
“I have read of cases which looked as black, or blacker,
where the accused man's innocence shone out at the end
as clear as daylight."
"That has happened, gentlemen, no doubt," said
Prickett, “and of course it may happen here. I should
be very glad to see it happen, but it'll come out by wait-
ing, and by waiting only for a day or two. In the mean-
-
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
153
time, gentlemen, suppose it turns out as I believe, I
should like to have my instructions straight and clear
beforehand. Suppose it becomes my duty to arrest M.
Wyncott Esden, what am I to do?"
(C
Surely," gasped Elphinstone, "that doesn't depend
on us?" He seemed to see a gleam of hope.
(C
Nobody is compelled," Prickett answered, "to give
a criminal in charge. You can take a man in the act, and
let him go, if you're inclined to be merciful, and want to
hush the thing up. Anything short of murder can be
kept quiet."
"Then for Heaven's sake," said Elphinstone, "if the
thing's anything more than a nightmare, keep it quiet."
"Will you undertake, sir, to get me them instructions
from Miss Pharr ?
"}
"You know, in any case," Elphinstone returned, "that
Miss Pharr is willing rather to pay a thousand pounds
than have a prosecution. How much more willing is she
likely to be if it turns out that a personal friend—a man
she trusted-a gentleman-oh Lord! it's just too horrible
for belief."
"For Heaven's sake, Prickett," Arnold besought the
man in a passion of entreaty, "don't make it necessary
for us to assail Miss Pharr's ears with this horrible sus-
picion."
"I was Miss Pharr's guardian," said Elphinstone,
tremulously," until a year ago. She has been like my
own child this eighteen years. I wouldn't break her
heart with such an infamy if I could save her from it by
spending every penny I have in the world. Go and give
the villain his cheque, and tell him the whole thing's
known, and bid him fly."
"That'd be all right, sir, if Gale wern't in it. But
Gale is in it, and we can't tell where the stones have got
to. We shall have to wait and nail them, sir, when we've
proved complicity beyond a doubt. I think, sir, consid r
ing all the circumstances, that I can undertake to keep it
quiet if you two gentlemen give me your authority alone."
음
​154
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"You speak," said Arnold, with a manner half wrath-
ful, half despairing, as he turned on Elphinstone, “as if
this mere chain of suspicion were as fast forged as truth
could make it."
?
"Ma dear lad,” said Elphinstone, "I don't know what
to think. God help us all! I'm afraid-sore, sore afraid!
Everything seems to point one way. I can't forget how
I saw him racing hither and thither in the moonlight.
Was he searching for the lost half of that tool?'
"That's how I read it, sir," said Prickett. "I wouldn't
go back to the house just yet awhile, gentlemen," he
added. "You'll try to be as natural with the ladies as
you can, of course. They won't get nothing out of me,
I'm sure. I've got a letter from Mr. Esden asking for the
cheque; he gave it me this morning. I'll go up and
present it, and get back to town."
((
Is it necessary," Arnold demanded, 'to go on with
that abominable comedy?"
m
"That's just what it is, ain't it, sir?" Prickett an-
swered sympathetically. "It's got to be gone on with
all the same."
~
""
He took his leave there, and the two gentlemen stayed
behind, wondering and horror-stricken. When at length
they dared to make up their minds to return they were
still shaken, and Elphinstone was in actual need of sup-
port for the first hundred yards or so. But he feared so
much lest his broken aspect should excite comment and
conjecture that this dread actually seemed to strengthen
him, and by the time he had reached the gate he was
almost himself again.
"Come up with me to my room, lad," he said, “and
sit with me awhile. I've need of society, and I dare not
face the others."
✓
They ascended the stairs, and locked themselves in
the old man's disordered workroom.
"I mounted that this morning," said the doctor, touch-
ing with a tremulous white finger a photograph which lay
beside him. 'D'ye mind it? It was taken at the very
(6
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
155
time when that sinful deed was a-doing. We little
thought as we stood happy and laughing there that that
poor fool, God forgive him, was handing over his soul to
auld Horns."
I "I won't believe it," said Arnold gloomily, “until I
know. I won't permit myself even to doubt Wyncott's
honour. I know him better."
His brave words were worth nothing to him, and his
struggles with his own inward certainty were vain. He
took the photograph mechanically in his hands, and
stared at it almost without seeing it, and his soul was
bitter within him. A great monocle which the old
gentleman used for the critical examination of his work
lay near at hand. He took it up in a miserable vacancy.
and toyed with it. He looked at the photograph through
it, with that interest in trifles which men feel in the
supreme blind misery of a great shock. On a sudden he
rose with a loud sharp cry, and Elphinstone looking up
saw him swaying to and fro as if he were about to fall.
The old man sprang to his feet and sustained him, and
Arnold guided by the helpful hands sat down again like
one dazed.
cr
What is it?" asked the Doctor, anxiously.
Arnold's eyes had suddenly gone haggard. He turned
them with an unforgettable look upon the old man, and
answered in a voice of shocking unconcern:
"It's all over. His face is there. Behind the rhodo-
dendrons."
Elphinstone's shaking hands clutched the glass and
the photograph, and he half stumbled across the room to
the window. For a little while he shook so that the
swaying glass and trembling picture showed him nothing.
But in a while he braced himself for the search, and
found fixed there by a witness no less certain than the
sun itself, the face of Wyncott Esden, full of stealth and
guilt and fear.
He looked up, meeting Arnold's glance, and the two
stared at each other hopelessly.
156
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
;
Q
i
XV.
i
C
TE
relief afforded to the Wootton Hill household by
the arrival of Wyncott Esden's letter extended its
influences to the maid Grainger. Prickett, turning things
over in that shrewd mind of his and constructing the
living, breathing crime from the few dry bones of evi-
dence in his possession. like a moral Cuvier, still had his
suspicion of her as being in some sense the criminal's
accomplice. Her fellows of the household looked darkly
on her, and even in her first need of service had attended
her unwillingly. It was not unnatural that a set of
ignorant domestics should look upon 'her loss of speech as
a mere impudent ruse to avoid questioning. To their
minds, as in the minds of more instructed people, agita-
tion was a sign of guilt. A skilled practitioner at the
keyhole carried the news of the proximate recovery of
the jewels into the domestic quarter, and the public mind
there grew easier about Grainger, more lenient and less
disposed to suspicion.
The girl herself felt this change in the moral atmos-
phere, but found no relief in that of itself. The light-
ening of her burthen came with the discovery that her
fellow domestics had ceased to watch her. Being strong
and healthy, and of a resolute character, she had suf-
ficiently recovered from the physical shock of her fall to
proffer a renewal of her duties within eight-and-forty
hours. Her mistress had repulsed her offer with suffi-
cient gentleness. Grainger evidently understood with
perfect clearness everything that was spoken in her pres-
ence, but her own inability to answer cost her acute
anguish, and her unavailing attempts to speak resulted
often in bursts of bitter weeping. The very character of
her malady might have seemed to explain these rages of
grief in a woman of vivacious temperament, but Elphin-
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
157
;
stone was a good deal puzzled by them, and watched the
case with interest.
She sat in the servants' room a few minutes after
Prickett's departure from the house. The practitioner of
the keyhole, without giving herself the pains of revealing
the source of information, told her interested she-com-
rades how that Mr. Wyncott Esden was in correspond-
ence with the thief, that Prickett had received a cheque
for a thousand pounds to hand to him, and that the stolen
property was to be brought back again. Hearing this,
Grainger wrung her hands together hard, and rising,
walked from the room, red-eyed and pale. She went to
her own bedchamber, and kneeling there in an attitude
of complete abandonment, with her arms thrown at full
length across the chest which held her few belongings,
cried without control, her whole figure writhing and
shaking with the extremity of her mental pain. This
paroxysm over, she rose in a wretched quiet, washed her
eyes with fair water, and stood looking out upon the
peaceful country which lay stretched before her. She
rested there for a considerable time, until, stung by a
new access of grief, she knitted her fingers together with
a groan.
"Merciful Heaven, what shall I do? What can I do?"
Had she spoken? Had her thought grown articulate
again? She stood amazed and almost terror-stricken, and
her own voice still seemed to linger in her ear, distinctly
syllabled. She seized a summer mantle of black lace and
hurriedly adjusted it about her shoulders, tied on her
bonnet with fingers so tremulous that she could scarce
command them, drew on her gloves, assured herself
that her meagre purse was in her pocket, and having
done all this with a feverish, self-hindering haste, stole
from the room with a forced air of languor, and went
slowly down the stairs. She passed from the house,
walked lingeringly along the skirt of the rear lawn, and
rounding the line of rhododendrons slipped through that
wicket gate over which Prickett had leaned at the begin-
` 158
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
!
ning of his moonlight search. She was all on fire with
impatience, and would in spite of fecbleness have
run as if for life, but for her terror of being seen and
stayed.
The landscape lay at peace, the broad trees sleeping
on their own shadow in the hot sunlight, and the road
dazzling to her dazzled senses. The world seemed so
silent and so wide and solitary that a fear weighed upon
her like that of the past night. She might have been
a prisoner for a year, familiar spaces had grown so vast,
and she felt so alone and so unaccustomed to be free.
Suddenly a burst of childish chatter greeted her ear,
and round the bend in the road came half a dozen village
children romping one with another. One sturdy solemn
urchin of four or thereabouts walked bareheaded in the
road, intent upon a stick of liquorice, solemn and phleg-
matic as an old man. The others danced out of sight,
and Grainger, dropped on one knee, regardless of the dust,
reached out her hands to the child with a suppressed but
passionate longing in her face.
"Come to me, darling, won't you?"
Had she really spoken? She could not tell. The
child looked at her with an Oriental gravity and made
no answer.
"Dear little boy, do come to me. Won't you dear?
Won't you?"
"No!" said the child, "I 'on't."
The girl sprang to her feet and clasped her hands.
"Thank God!" she said, "thank God!"
The child went on unmoved, as if she were common-
place in his experience. She dared to quicken her pace a
little now, and, making for the railway station, saw far
off the steam of an approaching train, slow with distance,
Looking fearfully round, and seeing nobody who recog-
nised her or was known to her, she went on with a step
more and more hurried. The booking-office was open,
and she stood before it in such a terror lest her recovered
power should again have slipped from her that she
|
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
159-
was unable to form the words she sought for even in her
mind. A rustic hustled her aside, and demanded a third-
class return ticket for London. Those were the words
she wanted. She feared to lose them again, and repeated
them under her breath whilst the man slowly counted his
change. She asked for her ticket, and was understood
and served. Then she waited on the platform till the
train came up, and entered a third-class compartment in
which one cleanly, apple-cheeked old country woman sat
alone.
۔۔
The local train ploughed its slow way townwards,
lounging idly through open fields or flower strewn cut-
tings, and pausing at every station. Again and again the
girl turned to address her fellow traveller, and froze at
the fear that she could but produce an inarticulate sound.
At last fear itself spurred her, and she spoke timidly.
"A beautiful day, ma'am."
The only response was a stare, and Grainger fell
back in her seat with knitted hands and terror-stricken
countenance.
“Eh ?” said the woman.
"A beautiful day, ma'am," Grainger repeated despera-
tely, uncertain whether she really spoke the words.
<<
Speak up," the old woman answered, "I'm a bit
hard of hearing."
Grainger spoke again in a louder tone, and the old
woman sent a momentary chill to her heart by staring
harder at her than before.
(C
Beautiful day?" said the old woman, "and, lawk a-
mussy me! what's that to make a fuss about?" she
muttered in her own corner after this, and cast suspicious
glances at her travelling companion.
"Please don't be afraid of me," said Grainger, leaning
towards her. Can you hear me ?
<<
"Law bless us! Hear you? Yes."
"I had an accident," the girl said with outwardly
subdued intensity. "It took my speech away. I am not
certain if it is back again. I have something so impor-
160
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
$
R
tant oh, so important-to say in London, and I am
afraid that I may not be able to say it."
"Is that it, poor dear creetur?" said the old woman
reassured, and growing motherly and sympathetic on the
instant. "Don't you worrit. Your speech is as plain and
right as ever it needs to be. You keep quiet and you'll
be all right, my dear."
The girl leaned back with a sudden gush of silent
tears, and thence up to London she and her companion
talked at intervals. ´ Arrived at Ludgate Hill she alighted,
and made her way hastily to the Temple. She mounted
the long flight of stairs which led to Wyncott Esden's
chambers there, and, having knocked at the door, stood
panting, with both hands above her heart.
Esden opened the door, and confronted her with a
look of wonder. His left eye was still discoloured from
his attack of neuralgia and toothache, and what with that
and his strange look of sleeplessness, his face bore so un-
usual an aspect that it frightened her.
"You here!" he said gruffly, " what brings you here?"
She stood panting for a second or two in silence, and
he made a motion as if he would have closed the door,
but at that she darted into the passage, and seized his
arm with both hands.
("
"God has given me back my speech again," she said,
and I have come to warn you.
""
"To warn me?" he answered, changing colour ever
so little. "I suppose I should be grateful for the interest
that would seem to express, but, upon my soul, I don't
know what you've got to warn me about.”
Her wild eyes scared him, and he avoided them. She
slipped one hand backwards to the door and flung it to.
The other hand still rested on his arm, and shook so that
it communicated its own strong tremor to him.
Wyncott," she said in a dreadful whisper, "I saw
you leave the room."
He fell back so swiftly that his head came into sharp
contact with the wall
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
161
:
"The room! What room? Are you mad?”
"Miss Pharr's room," she answered. "I saw you with
the morocco case.
""
""
:
}
He tried to answer, but his tongue clove to the roof
of his mouth, and he could find neither thoughts nor
words. She was clinging to him with both hands again,
and her awful avowal once made, she let her face fall
forward on her hands and wept. They stood so for a
long time-how long neither of them could have told,
and at the last he made a motion to leave the little hall.
She freed him at once, and followed him into the sitting-
room. He sank there on to the sofa, and sat with averted
face, staring blindly out of the window, and, except for
the girl's sobbing, there was silence. The ruin was the
ruin of an empire; the stillness, the stillness of a desert;
and he alone survived some mad catastrophe of fate to
listen to that lonely noise of mourning. Well, it was no
affair of his. Frankly, he cared nothing.
She stole towards him step by step, and suddenly
falling upon her knees, she took the hand which hung
nervelessly beside him.
((
Wyncott," she said brokenly," a gentleman—a man
of honour-
She could say no more for tears, but the words pierced
him to the soul. Their sting woke him into life and con-
>ciousness, and he started wildly up and went pacing to
and fro about the room like a madman. She knelt awhile
where he had left her, and then rising up suddenly as he
had done, confronted him anew, and clung to him with
passionate beseechings.
"You will send them back-the cheque as well! You
will be honest—you will be honourable! Oh, my heart,
my heart! I loved you so I would have died for you!
Nobody knows-nobody shall ever know, but you will
send them back! You will be honest! You never meant
it, dear; you were tried hard, I know you must have
been! The devil tempted you!"
She held to him and fawned upon him, and smiled.
162
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
with a piteous beseeching. Heart-breaking little womanly
wiles found their way into face, and voice, and gesture,
and he stood silent before her with bent head, dumb with
shame and overwhelmed.
"I can't," he groaned at last, "I can't."
"You can, dear! To be honest!" She tried with
that heart-breaking smile to catch his eye, to lure him to
his own soul's safety.
"I can't," he said again, "I'm tied-bound hand and
foot. I'm in the hands of the cursedest villain in the
world."

He broke into execrations so horrible that for a while
he frightened her, cursing Gale from head to foot, and
from skin to soul. This mad outbreak eased him, and
when it had died down to a wrathful silence, he dropped
into an arm-chair. She, with recovered courage, was
stealing once more towards him when he turned upon
her with a forced calm and spoke.
"Sit down. You know part of it, you shall know the
rest."
He told his story, not extenuating anything, but
rather taking a miserable pleasure in his shame, as in old
times those would do who were supposed to be possessed.
He related drily the story of his defence of Reuben Gale,
that scoundrel's gratitude, the curious souvenir he gave,
his own indebtedness, J. P's. importunities, the advent of
the wealthy friend in London, that tragic missing of the
friend, his chance passing by the Wootton Hill station,
his alighting at Hemsleigh, his discovery that the house
was apparently empty, the sudden temptation that
assailed him, his yielding to it, his enforced visit to Gale,
his bargain with him, and so on to the second theft of
the jewels.
His hearer listened wide-eyed and quite silent save
for a sob now and then until he came to this. Then with
a little cry of fear and pity she slipped from the seat and
knelt beside him, letting her forehead fall upon his knee
and searching for his hand. He gave it her and went on
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
163
drily, with no sign of being moved at all, except that
once or twice there was a harsh sound of ticking in his
throat, as if some mechanism was obstructed there.
"Gale came that night," he said, " to this room, and told
me that he must have the jewels and the reward as well,
and we are to divide them both between us."
"No," she said, drawing his hand between her own
face and his knee, and resting her hot, wet cheek upon it.
The voice was tired and fond, and seemed to express a
surety that she had saved him, and that the projected
crime was done with.
"I am to meet him," he went on, "in a ramshackle
old house he has the key of, a condemned, deserted pla
to-morrow night, pretending that I am going to pay the
thief his price and to get back the jewels. I am to give
the detective the address in a closed envelope, and if I
do not come back in an hour, he is to look for me. He
will find me tied and gagged, and the money will be gone.
I am to have my clothes torn and the rest of it, and I am
to say that I was set upon by three or four villains in the
dark, and served in that way. Then," he concluded,
with change of tone, "if it's twenty years hence, I sup-
oose I am to murder Reuben Gale."
You won't do it, Wyncott," she said, in the same
tired and tender tone, still resting her face upon his hand.
"Yes," he answered, "I shall do it, but I shall have
the blackguard's life for it."
(C
i
"You can't do it with me there, Wyncott," said the
girl, "and I shan't leave you unless you kill me too. I
came to save you, dear, and I shall do it. God gave me
back my speech on purpose. I shall have the right to
love you in my way, and how could I if you were to do
this thing? Think of it, dear. If you break clear of
him and tell the truth, you can be happy almost in a
day. Why, anybody may be tempted, darling. Bring
back your self-respect again. A little shame to pay so
great a shame-an hour to pay a lifetime, Wyncott."
In the renewed eagerness of her prayers she had
164
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
arisen, and now bent above him with both arms round
his neck, vainly striving to look into his face.
"Think of it, Wyncott, dear. Even if I didn't know
of it. If nobody knew. To be tied for life to such a
wretch as that. Always to know that he had beaten you
and frightened you."
At that Wyncott Esden rose, slowly and strongly, and
put her hands away from him.
Thank you, Polly," he said, "that will do. I'll tell
the truth and shame the devil, and Reuben Gale shall find
that I'm a dangerous catspaw."
XVI.
IF
F Esden's crime and his repentance alike seemed sud-
den to himself, there were in each case influences at
work upon which he had not counted. No honest man
turns rogue upon a sudden, and no honest man grown
rogue returns to honesty by a simple impulse. One
might say pretty truly that the two races of honest and
dishonest do not mix at all, but there is no need to speak
with scientific accuracy. A thousand shifts and dodges,
lies, supplenesses, and evasions had prepared him for his
fall, and had worked in him without his knowledge. And
since the committal of bis crime a thousand shocks of
shame and pride had acted on his spirit. Perhaps if his
master and tempter had even been a gentleman, Esden
would have experienced a repulsion less active and pro-
found. As it was, his sense of breeding had been more
tender than his conscience. He might glaze the matter
over to himself as best he could, and he had really come
to the conviction that he was no more than a borrower.
But the loan had been contracted under conditions so
eccentric that it needed but little to transform it into
theft. Anybody's detection of the act would have done
for him as much as this, and Gale's knowledge served as
well as another's. In Gale's eyes he was a thief. He
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
165
had admitted to himself that this insane complexion
would be put upon his act by any creature who became
aware of it. It was only he who could tell on what a
basis of honour his abstraction of the jewels was devised.
It is curious and will continue curious to the end of the
chapter, to see how a man not absolutely a fool can fool
himself; can accept at his own hands a paradox so mad
that he would feel his intelligence insulted if another
offered it; can lie to the one creature in the world who
best knows the truth, and can have the lie believed.
Gale's knowledge made a thief of him not only theo-
retically or by the force of an ignorant opinion, but to
his own apprehension, and however he might have
struggled against it, to his own intent. There are many
sorts of pride, and Wyncott Esden was not an atom less
sensitive about his own good opinion because he had a
load of meanly acquired debt, or because he had en-
trapped a feeble friend into a dangerous service. His
enforced companionship with Gale grated horribly against
every fibre of his soul and body. It stabbed his personal
sense of dignity to the heart, and slew it outright a
thousand times a day. But, as when, according to Mil-
ton, the steel passed through the vitals of the celestial
warriors it brought only the mortal anguish, and not the
mortal release, his self-respect stood there to suffer death,
and suffered it, and yet was there to suffer it again, and
so on countless times throughout the loathsome tragic-
comedy of the last three days.
At first the thought of another's knowledge had
seemed the supreme possible punishment, but his part-
nership with Gale had taught him otherwise. Of two
evils, says philosophy, choose the less. This is a piece of
obvious wisdom, but it was perhaps easier to see it and
to say it even for the first time than it often is to put it
into practice. It is as unnecessary a piece of vocalised
wisdom as any in the world, and as unhelpful. A way-
faring man, though a fool, would not err therein if Le
could help it, but the plaguey part of the business is to
Add
166
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
:
discover which of the two evils is the less, to go without
a hundred and sixty pounds or to entrap the poor J. P.,
for instance? to let J.P. suffer or to turn borrower on
those eccentric lines? to take his share of shame and be
quit of Gale by a word of repentance, or to plunge deeper
into the morass of crime in the hope of finding a hiding-
place? The poor mortal, let him be never so erring by
nature, will choose what seems the lesser evil. Nobody
wants to suffer beyond the necessary.
G
Flogged backward by shame and conscience, and
flogged onward by fear and need, Esden had had but a
sorrowful time of it. Shame and conscience were al-
ready gaining ground when the girl he had once tried to
fool came to their aid, and put an end, if not to the fight
itself, at least to the uncertainty in which its issues were
involved.
But there was more gall for him to drink. He must
make his confession either by letter or by word of mouth,
and must make it speedily. Then came the question-
To whom to make it? To Miss Pharr directly? In-
tolerable and impossible. To his aunt? To Edith?
Equally or almost equally intolerable. To Elphinstone
or Arnold? Could pride, however humiliated, stoop so
low? To picture himself as he was, even at his least
harmful intent, imaged truly in the mind of any one of
them, was in itself a punishment which he felt to be more
than equal to his deserts. The horror with which its
bare contemplation inspired him seemed at times, even
when the fight was virtually over, to drive him back to
his criminal companionship with Gale.
No philosopher has yet dug down so deep into human
nature as to come upon the ultimate springs of will. It
happens, far oftener than not, that the final and irrevoc-
able decision is taken without the actual knowledge of
the actor; and it is in these moments when will seems
dormant that the crucial and pregnant acts of life are
performed. When Esden had grown so tired of all this
fighting and buffeting to and fro that he felt incapable of
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
167
action, he did in utter lassitude what he could not do by
force of resolution.
1
Prickett, for his own purposes, had handed to him the
cheque which had been entrusted to him by Miss Pharr.
Esden had already driven to the bank, and had trans-
muted the strip of paper into solid gold. If he had never
let fall in his flight that fatal bit of evidence which
Prickett had found in the railway cutting, all might have
gone so well and smoothly with him. The money had
actually lain under his hand when Grainger had arrived
with the news of her participation in the secret. He took
the gold half mechanically now from the drawer in which
he had placed it, and laid it in its two neat firmly packed
canvas bags upon the table. He opened one of them,
and counted out a hundred and sixty pounds from it. He
had fallen from his own esteem mainly for that, and
would have that at any price, whether he could repay it
or no. He even felt a glow of spurious heroism in think-
ing that he would save his feeble friend at his own
proper cost. He refastened the bag and made up the one
hundred and sixty pounds into a compact brown-paper
parcel, which he sealed and surrounded with a pencilled
note. Then he enfolded the package with a sheet of
brief-paper, resealed it and addressed it, and for extra
security tied about it a piece of red tape. Then he put
the remainder of the gold into a small black handbag,
and tossing his hat on negligently, went out and down
the stair. As he walked towards Fleet Street he met a
commissionaire, and, entrusting the packet to him, bade
him carry it to its address and await an answer. He
gave the man a half-crown for his trouble, and told him
that the response might be left in the letter-box of his
chambers. Then he went gloomily on into the street,
hailed a hansom, and demanded to be driven to Prickett's
private lodgings.
The detective was at home and alone, in high good
humour, when Esden's name was taken into him.
"Show the gentleman up, my dear," said Mr. Prickett
168
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
to his housemaid, smilingly. "What's the new game?”
he asked himself. "Ain't there enough dust in your eyes.
already, Joseph ?"
He laid down his pipe, and advancing to the door of
the room stood there in readiness to receive his visitor.
The visitor strode past him without uncovering, and
dropped upon the table a black bag, which fell as solidly
there as if it had contained a pair of dumb-bells.
"Shut the door," he said, "I have something to say
to you. There are eight hundred and forty pounds in
gold in that bag. I hand that over to your care, and "
he clenched his teeth hard for a moment, and rocked to
and fro ever so little as he stood with his hand grasping
the back of a chair, and facing Prickett without look-
ing at him-"I give myself in charge."
At this, for once the unsurprisable stood surprised,
and for all his readiness a second or two went by before,
he could find a word.
(C
Well, sir," he answered, when he had gathered his
wits together, "that's the best way out of it, beyond a
doubt.'
""
1
He was as cool again as if he had expected this denoue-
ment from the first.
"Sit down, Mr. Esden," he said quietly, placing a
chair. Esden obeyed, very much after the fashion of a
mechanical figure whose springs are set in motion. "I
got my orders this afternoon," Prickett said, seating him-
self on the opposite side of the table, " and they was to
the effect that when things came to a head there was to
be no taking in charge at all.”
Wyncott lifted his eyes and stared at him. The
upper and under lids were of a leadenish brown. The
rims were red with two or three nights of sleepless misery.
and the eyes themselves had gone almost colourless.
"You knew?" he asked, in a leaden, uninterested
way, as if it had mattered less to him than to anybody
in the world.
"Why, yes, Mr. Esden," Prickett answered, with a
L
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
169
respectful commiseration in his voice. "I had the case
so far clear that I went down to Wootton Hill to-day to
know what I was to do when the pinch came. If you'll
excuse me for saying so, sir, I'm very glad and very much
relieved indeed, for your own sake, as you've seen fit to
take this course. I don't want to take any liberties, Mr.
Esden, because of the position you've happened to put
yourself into; but I've always took a respectful and a
friendly interest in you, if you'll allow the word to pass,
since I first set eyes upon you. Feelings can't be allowed
to interfere with business, sir; but I was very sorry to
have to track you down, and I'm very glad that the job's
took off my hands. You're free to go, sir, and I shall
have great pleasure in reporting what has happened. Of
course, we shall expect you to serve our turn to the ut-
most of your ability, and not to spoil our game with
Reuben."
66
I am free to go?" asked Esden, in the same weary
and uninterested tone.
"Such was my in-
"Yes, sir," Prickett answered.
structions."
"Who gave them?" Wyncott demanded, staring at
the table.
"Dr, Elphinstone, sir, and Mr. Arnold Esden."
Wyncott sat silent for a minute, and removing his
hat, passed a handkerchief across his forehead.
played a tattoo on the table with his fingers.
He
"What made you follow me?" he asked, looking down-
wards. It seemed, in some dim way, worth while to
know. Not that he greatly cared, or seemed ever likely
to care again, for anything.
"There was a variety of clues, sir," Prickett responded,
as if he thought the other's curiosity perfectly legitimate
and natural. "There was the journey down to Hem-
sleigh, and up from Sandy Park. There was your manner
when I showed the tool to you. There was your talk
along with Gale when I was by. There was your going
back to him when I was gone. There was the ink in
170
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
your chambers as the letter was wrote with.
There was
the mark of the same jemmy on one of the doors in your
room. There was a variety of things, Mr. Esden."
"Ah!" said Wyncott, when he had sat in stony silence
for a long time after this enumeration, "I was a fool."
(C
Prickett shook his head in mournful affirmation of
of this statement, but made no verbal answer to it.
You've brought back part of the money, it seems,
Mr. Esden. But the jewels is the main thing. Where
are they?"
"Gale stole them from my chambers," Esden answered,
without looking up. Really, now that the thing was done
it seemed to matter scarcely at all. The conflict was
over, and the shame seemed to have gone with it, and all
his cares. There was a very heavy weight upon him,
though it seemed as if another carried it and he were
sorry for him-the weight of a dull, blind stupor, that
was all.
66
By George," said Mr. Prickett, "that chap's got his
father's own luck. It seems no matter what he does, as
if there was never any nailing him. We've got him now
on toast, and he gets off it, and walks about scot free with
his hands in his pockets, as if nothing had happened."
They let him go also?" Esden said.
"To save my
?"
reputation, I suppose
"I suppose so, sir."
<<
66
:
Well, they count without me. I shall give Gale in
charge myself, so soon as I leave this place."
tr
Well, you know, Mr. Esden," said Prickett, "I've got
my instructions to act on, and I'm going to act on them.
They are to keep this dark, and dark it's going to be
kept. I don't say as the ladies and gentlemen interested
ain't keeping it dark in part for your sake, but they're
doing it a good deal for their own.
13
"Do you mean to tell me," asked Esden, lifting his
eyes to Prickett's face with a new and deadly light in
them, “that Gale is to go free?"
"What's to be done, sir?" Prickett answered.
!
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
171
"Whichever way it goes you and him has got to travel to-
gether. Suppose you was allowed to slip and Gale was
collared. How much better would that make it for the
ladies and gentlemen as is left behind?"
Wyncott was not thinking of the ladies and gentle-
men who were left behind. It did not even occur to him
to remember that he might have thought somewhat too
little of their interest all along. At bottom, whatever
courage he continued to summon was hysteric enough,
but on the surface he looked doggedly resolved,
(c
Whatever happens," he said, with a savage concen-
tration, "Gale will not go free."
"I don't see," Prickett answered, "but what he's got
to. You and him is tied too close together, Mr. Esden. I
don't suppose as you are for cutting your own nose off to
spite your face, and that's what it would have come to if
you went for Gale. Between you and me," Prickett
added, "you can't want him much worse than I do. You
took him out of my hands only a day or so ago, so to
speak, and I've been watching him this five years. If
he'd have got through all right with this job, and come
safe through with it, he'd never ha' done anything more
on this side of the water, whatever he might have done
in the United States of America. But now that this
job's dropped through, he'll be at it again to a certainty,
A nibble like this will only make him hungry, and even
them as wishes him the worst can afford to wait for the
next move he makes."
"What do you mean," asked Esden, "by what he
might do in the United States?"
<<
Why," Prickett answered, "naturally, he's going
there. Or, at least, he means to. He's got his ticket
ready, and he's got a ticket for a pal, a cutter of precious
-stones-what do you call him?-a lapidary. He's off by
Saturday's boat, if he gets the chance. Only you see he
won't, just as it happens to happen.”
(<
The infernal villain!" said Esden, forgetting even
his own shame in his wrath at this discovery. "He gave
172
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
me a rendezvous for to-morrow night, when he was to
take half the money for the reward.'
""
"Ah!" said Prickett, with a momentary smile, "that
was the game, was it? I thought it might be, and I sup-
pose the understanding was as he was to bring half the
profit of the stones when they was cut? Really now,
upon my word Mr. Esden- Prickett's pity for his
companion's simplicity was hardly to be expressed in
words. "Lord, Lord! To think as you should ha' been
took in by that for a moment. Upon my soul and honour
now, there really seems to be no end to it."
He threw himself back in his chair, and seemed to
survey human stupidity at large. He shook his head at
it reproachfully, and then nodded at it in resigne
despair.
"I suppose, sir," he continued, with a gentle mourn-
fulness, "there was some kind of fake got up for a sham-
struggle?" Wyncott cast a single glance at him, and
said nothing. "Ah!" said Prickett in the same tone,
accepting the glance as an affirmative, "I thought so.
And you was to be found tied up, and all that sort of
thing gagged with your own handkerchief most likely.
Dear me! Well, well!"
""
""
-
<<
Do you think," Esden demanded fiercely, "that I am
going to let the beast who tried to fool me in that
degrading way get off without a scratch ?"
"It's galling, sir," Prickett admitted. "No doubt it's
very galling. But I don't see what you're going to do,
all the same.
"If they refuse to prosecute him," said Esden, darkly;
I'll do for him what he did for the butler. I'll put a
bullet into him."
<<
"Not you," said Prickett, with a good-tempered
allowance, tinctured by a little scorn. You think so.
now, and I won't say but what it's natural. But that's
no more your lay, Mr. Esden, than it's mine." He dis-
missed the theme at once. You might tell me where
that rendezvous was to have been held. It's some retired
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
173
and quiet spot, of course, and I want to take him quiet if
I can, and have no rumpus."
You may take him how and where you like," said
Esden, bitterly, "it will make no difference to me.
>>
He described the place in which the shameful farce
Prickett had defined was to have been played. Midway
between the western end of Holborn and Piccadilly Cir-
cus stood a group of houses already half demolished to
make space for the Shaftesbury Avenue. A friend of
Gale's had bought all the locks, keys, and door handles
in the block, and Gale had free access to the deserted
buildings, and could employ it without fear of being sus-
pected. Esden indicated the house and the chamber in
which the meeting had been arranged to take place, and
surrendered the key which was to have secured his own
admission.
“Thank you, sir," said Prickett, pocketing the key.
He had hardly suffered himself to depart for a moment
from the respectful attitude he would have preserved in
Mr. Wyncott Esden's presence, if the interview had hap-
pened before a stain had fallen upon the social superior's
reputation. "If you happen to have anything in the
way of a private seal about you, sir," he said, "we'll
fasten up this little handbag, and I'll take it down to
Wootton Hill at once."
Esden detached a seal from his watch-chair, and
threw it on the table, and Prickett, having rung the bell,
called for a candle, hunted up a piece of sealing-wax from
a drawer of odds and ends, and sealed the bag with great
particularity.
"You can't do any harm except to yourself and your
friends by meddling," he said then.
"But I hope you
won't try to interfere with Gale. It'll make no differ-
ence to my game if you do. He'll never try to leave the
country without having the stolen property about him,
and I've got him there." He laid his thumb upon the
table, and held it strongly down, with his eye fixed on
Laden's. "I've got him there at any moment. So what I
:
174
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
say to you, Mr. Esden, I say for your own good. You've
got off lucky, and that's as true as the four gospels.
Don't you spoil your fortune, and don't you take this too
much to heart. Lord love you, Mr. Esden! you ain't the
only gentleman in the world as ever made a fool of him-
self, nor you won't be the only one as done well after it.
Bless your little heart alive, sir, I could tell you things
about a lot of people. You take Lord John Russell's tip,
Mr. Esden. You rest and be thankful.”
((
·
With that Mr. Prickett rose, took his glossy hat from
a peg behind the door, and brushed it with scrupulous
care. He drew on his gloves with painstaking exactness
and nicety, and taking up the bag, stood ready to depart.
"I suppose I have a right to defend myself," said
Esden, with a hang-dog self-despite. His emotions had
begun to wake again, but they were over-tired, and
neither his shame nor his scorn were very painful to him.
You'd better tell them the whole truth if you tell them
at all. Gale gave me that tool as a souvenir, and when
the laundress packed my things it got sent down to
Wootton Hill by accident. I passed Wootton Hill station
by accident last- Monday, and never thought of doing
what I did until I found the house empty and the chance
occurred to me in a second. I've taken a hundred and
fifty pounds to meet a bill which a poor devil of a friend
backed for me three months ago. I meant to take that
and no more. As soon as I could have managed it I
should have sent back the thousand pounds anonymously.
I was willing to pay Gale half the reward to keep him
quiet, though I should have had to live like a pauper for
a year to pay back his share of it. He wasn't content
with that, but I don't mean," Wyncott added, with a
miserable sense of futility in the words, "to be forced
into crime by him or any blackguard like him.”
ܢ
"The gentleman who gave you the bill was hard up,
I suppose?" said Prickett.
"It would have ruined him," Esden answered," to
lose the money. He has a sick wife and six children,
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW,
175
and I think he's the feeblest fool under Heaven this
minute."
"Well, sir," said Prickett, "I shall lay all that before
them, and if I can help it it shan't lose anything in the
telling."
There was little more said between them. They
walked to Charing Cross together, and parted at the sta-
tion gates.
+
i
XVII.
BY
this time the summer dusk was falling, and Prick-
ett, alone in his compartment of the train, aban-
doned himself to a twilight philosophy in keeping with
the influences of the hour. It is perhaps hardly worth
while to say that he was not a sentimental man by na-
ture. But in spite of his profession he was a friendly
creature, and he had long felt an admiring liking for
Wyncott Esden. In the whole world-wide range of
intellectual endearment there was no sort of capacity or
power so fitted to appeal to Prickett as the kind of clever-
ness which the young barrister displayed. He had had
quite a worshipful recognition for that plausible genius
of Esden's, his agile readiness, and soft persuasive bril-
liance. In his respectful way, for he was a high Tory in
his heart, and thought a prodigious deal of people of
good family, he had felt almost fatherly towards Esden
for this two or three years past. They had worked, at
the beginning of their acquaintance, on the same side,
and had formed as much of a friendship as Inspector
Prickett was ever likely to claim with a man so far above
him in social status.
MA
It soothed him to remember that if on his former
journey that afternoon he had carried a message of pure
distress and pain he was at least bringing something of
a sedative for it now. Years of business experience had
taught him to be as hard as nails about the woes of
176
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
common criminals, and had toughened his sympathies for
suffering friends. But in this case the trouble sat upon
his own doorstep, and his interest in the affair of Woot-
ton Hill was as much personal as professional.
He had grown to be a familiar figure at the little
rural station, and his business in Wootton Hill was as
well known as if the crier had proclaimed him. The
station master was ingratiating and friendly. Prickett
was to the full as amiable as he, but was shrouded in
impenetrable mystery. He shook off the inquiring sta-
tion master easily, and walked straight on to the house.
There Elphinstone and Arnold were in private consulta-
tion, and Prickett succeeded in reaching them without
the ladies being made aware of his presence. This was
all very well for the moment, but it had consequences, for
some five or six minutes after his entry Janet heard of
it, and, eager to know if any new complications had
arisen, ran upstairs to the Doctor's workroom.
Both Arnold and the Doctor had been terribly put to
it to maintain such a demeanour at the dinner table as
should excite no curiosity or comment. They did their
loyal best, and failed. Pressed by three excited feminine
curiosities at once, the Doctor was forced to admit a new
development in the history of the affair. He declined
absolutely to say a word beyond this, but was badgered
into declaring that the jewels would be returned on pay-
ment of the reward. In face of this the ladies could
think of no possible reason for gloom, and when left to
themselves got into a state of vivid excitement, guessing
and wondering left and right. In the midst of all this
Janet learned that Prickett had arrived, had sent in his
name to "the gentlemen" specially, and was then
closeted with them in Dr. Elphinstone's workroom.
Now when all was said, the jewels belonged to Miss
Pharr, and the detective for the time being was in Miss
Pharr's employ. Janet conceived that she had a full
right to a share in any mystery which might arise. She
and she alone paid the piper. Surely she had a right to
¡
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
177
look on at the dancing. And when all allowances have
been made for exaggeration, women are not much less
curious than men.
She had only heard the news of Prickett's arrival a
minute ago, when she raced upstairs in some exuberance
of spirit, bent on a half-humorous, half-serious assertion
of her rights. But when she reached the landing some-
thing seemed to lay a warning hand upon her; one of
those feelings of premonition which, when realised, dis-
pose even the sanest minds to superstition. What, she
thought, if Arnold and Elphinstone were hiding some-
thing from her which it would be terrible to know, and
would be best left unknown? An odd fear fell upon her
and she hesitated almost at Elphinstone's door. Within
the room a voice was murmuring indistinctly, in a level
narrative tone, and she guessed it to be Prickett's.
"Confesses?" Arnold's voice broke out. "Oh, Wyn-
cott! Wyncott!'
""
Ma
At this, without so much as knowing of her impulse,
she dashed at the door, seized the handle and stood in
presence of the three. Prickett, standing behind a bare
table in the centre of the room, with the light of a lamp
full upon his face, looked up at her gravely, with the ex-
pression she had often remarked in him, at once impres-
sive and alert. Both his hands rested upon a small bag
of black leather. Arnold and Elphinstone stood on either
side of him, and looked at her as she stood suddenly
arrested in the doorway.
"Darling!" cried Arnold, advancing swiftly towards
her, "you must not stay here."
He had no knowledge of the word he used, nor had
she for the time. It came back to both of them after-
wards; but for the moment there were other things to
think of.
"
..
She closed the door behind her and stood with her
shoulders leaning against it.
""
"I did not mean she said stammeringly. "I did
not know-
¿
178
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
"Pray, pray leave us," said Arnold.
"There is some reason for this strange agitation,” she
answered, breathing with difficulty. Her limbs were in
a violent tremor, and she had found it difficult to stand
upright. "If I have a right to know it you must tell
If I have no right to know it, I will go."
me.
Elphinstone was aghast, and had dropped back into a
chair, which fortunately stood behind him. The shock
with which he fell into it shook the room. Arnold
seemed half beside himself, and Prickett alone retained
his self-possession
"You will tell me, sir," she said, turning upon him.
"If it is anything relating to the robbery, I have a right
to know it, and you need not be afraid to tell me."
"Allow me, miss," said Prickett, advancing and offer-
ing his arm. She accepted it. and he led her to a chair.
"It was the wish of these gentlemen that you should not
be pained."
"I have no doubt that they meant kindly," she
answered, breathing quickly, and looking round upon
them with a pale but resolute face. "Sit down, Mr.
Esden. Tell us, sir, if you please," she turned again to
Prickett, "what you came to tell."
Arnold dropped his forehead upon his hands and sat
with his face hidden. The Doctor shifted his posture
with the air of a man recovered from a sudden fear and
grown ready to face it. Prickett returned to his place
behind the table, and, laying both his hands anew upon
the black bag, leaned forward a little like a lecturer and
spoke.
"With your permission, miss, and yours, gentlemen,
this is the history of what has happened."
He told the story through, with brevity and clearness,
dwelling on the sudden nature of the temptation which
had assailed the criminal, the humane nature of the main
reason which seemed to have pushed him into crime, his
repentance, and the retribution he had made. Wyncott,
holding the brief for another in his own place, could
hardly have done better, for Prickett had in this case all
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
179
!
those sentiments which it was the barrister's art to feign-
the personal interests, the candour, the genuine pity, and
the faith in the better side of things. Scotland Yard
turned counsel for the defence.
-“He's dreadful broken down," said Prickett, “and I
shouldn't wonder if he did himself a mischief. The
gentleman that backed the bill for him is in very low
water. Six children and a sick wife, and business in the
City about as bad as it can be. It's a painful affair all
round, but it's a family party, so to speak, and it can be
kept quiet. Dr. Elphinstone and Mr. Arnold Esden, Miss,
were in favour of keeping it dark, and so I suppose are
you?"
Janet was crying by this time, but controlled her
tears to listen. She stole now and again a sidelong look
at Arnold, and his shamed and broken attitude struck
her to the heart. It seemed harder upon him than any-
body. She could not think angrily or with scorn of
Wyncott. His fall from honesty horrified her, but she
felt it, as so many women would have done, in a reflected
rather than a direct and personal way. It could be
nothing less than hideous for Arnold, so delicately sensi-
tive in honour, so lofty in all his thoughts and hopes and
aims, to find one who had been like a brother to him
turned thief.
<<
A
This, Miss continued Prickett, lifting his hands
from the black bag and allowing them to fall again, "was
handed to me a couple of hours ago by Mr. Wyncott
Esden. Its contents is reckoned to be eight hundred and
forty sovereigns, Mr. Esden sealed the bag at my re-
quest with his own private seal, as a matter of business,
and now-as a matter of business likewise-I should be
obliged if the seal was looked at.”
He offered the bag to Arnold, who glanced at it and
nodded; then to Elphinstone, who put up his pince-nez
with a trembling hand, and examined the seals with un-
necessary closeness to conceal his agitation.
"That being right," said Prickett, "I may as well
P
180
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
break these seals and hand you, Miss, what belongs to
you."
He suited the action to the word, and producing the
two canvas bags laid them upon the table.
"Dr. Elphinstone," cried Janet. "Arnold Help me!
Tell me what I am to do."
They arose at this appeal and approached the table
indeterminately. One of Arnold's hands went out
towards the gold, but drew back hurriedly, as if he
feared to touch it.
"He had better go away," said Janet. "We could
never bear to look at him again, and he could never bear
to see us. Arnold, go to him! Speak to him! Take
that horrible money with you, and make him take it
and go away, and promise never to be heard of any
more."
"It's the best way out of it," Elphinstone said.
"Y'ere a good creature, Janet, as I always knew. We'll
just arrange that between us later on. I'm not long for
this world's sorrow, and I'd meant the half of what I
have to go to you misguided idiot. Ye'll have to bear
the load of it yourself now, Arnold, such as it is, and we'll
spare that much to the puir fool anyway."
He waved his hand towards the money on the table,
and then took to walking the room in a profound dejec-
tion.
"You will go?" Janet asked, turning appealingly
towards Arnold.
"Yes," he answered. "I thank you with all my
heart, and I will go. Are you ready, Mr. Prickett ?"
Prickett, answering by a mere nod, gathered up the
money, replaced it in the bag, bade Miss Pharr a respect-
ful good-evening, and followed Arnold from the room.
The clergyman took up his hat and gloves in the hall,
and led the way in silence down the drive.
"It's kindly meant, sir," said Prickett, when they
had reached the solitude and silence of the road. "It's
beautifully meant. But Mr. Wyncott Esden has got his
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
181
pride on edge, sir, so to speak, and I don't think he'll
take it."
"He will have to take. i.," Arnold answered sternly.
They finished their walk in silence, and, having hung
about the station without a word until the train came
up, they travelled in silence up to town and drove to
Wyncott's chambers. The self-confessed criminal opened
the door at Prickett's knock and drooped his head at the
sight of his cousin. He blushed scarlet and then went
pale again, and entering before his visitors sat down in
an arm-chair. At a sign from Arnold, Prickett closed
the door.
"It was our desire," said Arnold, "to keep the truth
you have confessed to from Miss Pharr's ears, but she
has surprised our secret. It will rest with us. She
sends you back this money, and bids you go and trouble
""
(<
**
us no more.
"I shan't trouble you any more," Esden answered.
But I shan't take the money. I am not such a cur as
that.
در
"You will take what punishment and humiliation is
imposed upon you," said Arnold, in a cold and dreadful
scorn. "You will take this money and go. Listen, if
you please, and understand. We, whom you have
shamed beyond any hope of forgetfulness, are not
disposed to accept any further shame at your hands.
We will not accept the shame of your lingering here.
We will not accept the shame of your social failure here-
after or your poverty in another country. This is not
offered in any spirit of revenge. We protect ourselves
against you, that is all. You have given us the right to
protect ourselves against you, and we will exercise it."
"You can give me in charge if you like," said Wyn-
cott." I've made up my mind to do it for myself."
"You are not satisfied," Arnold asked, "with the
shame and misery you have brought on us already?"
"Oh!" Wyncott answered in grim self-hatred, "I'm
satisfied, if you are." He arose and walked into his bed-
182
DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
room, and Prickett's eye followed him watchfully and
warily. There was a moment's silence and then Wyn-
cott's voice sounded with a loud quaver in the tone-
"Good-bye!" Then there was a clicking explosion like
the noise made by the firing of a percussion cap, and
then another and another.
A
Prickett dashed into the bedroom, and Arnold fol-
lowed; for a moment there was a wild struggle in the
half darkness, and then the two tore Wyncott back into
the light. He was bleeding from a chance scratch upon
the face, and he held a revolver in his hand.
That's your handiwork!" he cried wildly, turning
his desperate face on Prickett.
"Yes, sir," said the detective quietly. "That's my
handiwork. I had the powder took out of the cartridges.
Now you take it easy. Nobody wants to hurt you.”
Wyncott made one tremendous struggle to free him-
self, but Prickett tripped him by the heels with lightning
swiftness, and but for Arnold's grip he would have fallen
headlong. As it was the fall wrenched his arm badly,
and the intense pain quieted him.
С.
"Now you sit down there, if you please, sir,” said
Prickett, planting him on the sofa. Try to move, and
I'll find a way to stop you. Upon my word, I am ashamed!
No more pluck than that? I always took you for a
thoroughbred. Ain't you got no respect for your own
good name? Ain't you got no pity for your friends?
Why, it's simply sickening, this is. It's contemptible.
That's what I call it. If this gentleman likes to talk to
you he may, but I'm sure I don't want to after such an
unmanlike exhibition."
He gave Arnold a quick persuasive glance and gesture
and passed him with a whisper.
re
Ill see to his razors.
He's ripe for anything."
With that he slipped into Wyncott's bedroom, and,
having lit the gas there, found the razor case and pocketed
it. He made a further search, but finding nothing which
could be put to dangerous uses, went back into the sit-
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
183
ting-room. Arnold was sitting before his cousin and had
taken his lax right hand in his own. Prickett nodded to
him approvingly.
“He'll do a lot more on that lay than on the other,'
he said inwardly. "Gentlemen, both," he added aloud,
"I'll just step back into the next room, and have a look
into the evening.'
""
"
Arnold glanced up at him, but Esden gave no sign.
The detective winked and nodded encouragement, and
then withdrew, closing the door behind him.
"Take this money now, Wyncott," said Arnold, when
they had sat in silence for a time. "Accept that humili-
ation for the sake of those whom you have shamed and
injured. Go away and make the best of the talents God
has given you. Try to make atonement for the past, and
if in time to come you can throw this burden from your
shoulders, the payment will be accepted with pride and
joy. But take it now and let that be the first sign of a
true repentance. You cannot repay us for our pain by
sinking-you may by swimming.
""
Arnold felt a convulsive grip from the hand he held
in his own, and responded to it by a firm strong pressure.
There were many things he was disposed to speak of,
and to a younger man, or one more ignorant, he would
have uttered his mind, in the words his office gave him
a right to use. But he was certainly none the worse a
man, and possibly none the poorer as a clergyman, because
his delicacy kept him silent.
you!"
"You will go away?" he asked at length, after long
silent thinking. "And try?"
"And try?" A grip of the hand was
the sole answer to either question, "And do what we
desire?" There was a pause after this, and the question
had to be repeated, but in the end it met the same answer
as the others. "I have your word of honour for all this?"
Yes," said Wyncott, in a voice hardly audible. “I
shan't see you again. Good-bye."
(C
<<
Good-bye, Wyncott. God help you! God bless
184
▲ DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
They parted in that fashion, and Arnold entering the
bedroom drew Prickett towards him.
("
Stay with him a little." The detective nodded
"You're a good fellow, Prickett. Shake hands. Good-
night."
Whether a clergyman ought to think the better of a
sinner for attempting suicide may be left for the present
as an open question.
But it is certain that Wyncott's
desperate resolution had changed his cousin's mind to-
wards him. At least it showed the depth of his despair,
and despair is so terrible a thing that few men can bear
to look at it unmoved.
XVIII.
G
YALE, meanwhile, regarded himself as one of the hap-
piest men alive. At the thought of what his senti-
ment of gratitude towards Wyncott Esden had done for
him, he was more than half disposed to turn virtuous
altogether. It was simply glorious to have made so rich
a haul as the result of one good impulse. If he had been
a common insensible criminal he would have left his
defender unthanked-would have offered him no sou-
venir, and so would have had no clue to guide him to the
future which now lay in his hands. Gratitude was a
moral virtue, and gratitude had done this for him. He
would cultivate the rest of the moral virtues-when he
could afford them.
That time was not yet. It never so much as occurred
to him to sell so valuable a merchandise as his silence for
less than he could get for it. To commit burglary on a
man who could not complain of the offence was a plea-
sure he had never before tasted, and to be able harm-
lessly to confess the act was something of a pleasing
novelty also. But Gale had been respectably brought
up, and had beliefs which might have been called reli-
gious, if they had ever formed themselves into any sort
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
185
of law for him. He meant to take those beliefs into
serious consideration when he and Miss Pharr's jewels
were safe in New York, and he pictured himself in the
near future as a highly respectable, well-to-do citizen,
who took a considerable interest in chapel discipline, and
was very fairly regular in attendance on the means of
grace.
The prospect was alluring, and he took pains to reach
it. To live in clover, and at the same time to study the
economies of eternity and doctor his immortal soul—
what could any man ask better?
Amongst his acquaintance-which, like Mr. Weller's
knowledge of London, was extensive and peculiar—was
a certain bankrupt and hungry rascal who had once been
in high repute as a lapidary. He was a skilled work-
man, and was respected as an expert in gems, but he had
broken trust, had passed half a dozen years in jail, and
could find no employment. Gale had his thumb upon
this fellow, and the man had for so many years been
accustomed to fear him that his services might be re-
tained with a perfect sense of security.
Reuben found this personage in even worse circum-
stances than he had believed him to have fallen to. He
provided him with a decent suit of clothes, promised him
a passage to New York, and undertook to find him pay-
ing employment on the other side of the Atlantic. All
these circumstances the watchful James White, who had
by this time enlisted the services of a familiar from
Rotherham, reported to Prickett as they transpired.
Another circumstance reported by the watchful White
was the purchase by Gale of a belt purse of somewhat
unusual dimensions, divided into compartments. This
article had to be made to order, and was to be ready
without fail on the afternoon of Reuben's arranged ren-
dezvous with Wyncott Esden. The last item of informa-
tion White sent to Prickett on this question was to the
effect that the belt had been finished and called for by
Gale, who had taken it home with him.
•
S
186
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
Keen and experienced as he was, Gale was altogether
out-manoeuvred, and when he set out to the empty house
with the stolen gems bound snugly about his body, and a
small bag containing the simple necessaries for his
voyage in his hand, he walked towards one of his
captors, whilst the other patiently dogged his foot-
steps.
It was nearly nine o'clock, and the shades of evening
had fallen earlier than usual, for the sky was dense with
cloud. An hour earlier a coppery tinge had been re-
flected upon the face of all wayfarers from the threaten-
ing sky. Now the glow had faded, and the clouds hung
dark and seemed to touch the house-tops. The sparse
gas lamps glimmered here and there, revealing old hulks
of timber and the raw ends of houses, from which their
companions of many years had been newly rent away.
Parts of the road were dangerous with open foundations,
or difficult with mounds of building refuse, loose piles
of brick and slate and rafters. Gale knew his way
and steered a steady course. The spy, wary and noise-
less, followed in his rear.
The two were midway through the wilderness of
wrecked houses when the threatened storm first broke.
One or two heavy drops had given warning, when the
whole sky opened into flame, and the thunder crashed
with awful suddenness and nearness. The wind rose at
once as if it had been held in a leash and set free at this
loud signal, and the rain came down in a sheet. Gale
bent his head and ran, and the watcher followed heedless
of his footsteps now that their noise was drowned by the
roaring wind and rain.
The burglar made for a house which stood far back
across a waste of rubbish heaps, and pushing open the
door, stood for a moment to wipe the rain from his face.
Then he mounted the darkened stair deliberately, with
the sure foot of custom. Halfway up he paused and
listened. There was a noise behind him..
"Hillo!" he said. "That you? You're late."
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW,
187
"No, Reuben," answered an unexpected voice above
him, "we're full in time."
A ray of light from a dark lantern flashed suddenly
in his face, and, for the second, half-blinded him. The
following footstep mounted swiftly. The trapped villain
thrust his hand into the pocket of the light dust coat he
wore, clutched a revolver there, and without waiting to
withdraw it, fired through the cloth in the direction of
the light above him. Then he turned, and seeing full in
the line of light a grim visage straining swiftly up at
him out of the lower dark, he fired again.
"Look out, Jim !" roared Prickett from above, and at
the same instant he leaped from the landing, lighting full
on Gale and falling with him. The thunder broke again
at that very second of time, but a third shot from the
revolver was audible even then. The thunder rolled
away, and there was a dead silence.
"Anybody hurt?" said Prickett, picking himself up
with difficulty from the landing.
"C
(C
I'm in two or three pieces somehow, White re-
sponded, "but the main part's here seemin'ly. Upsey,
daisy, governor! You've knocked him silent, master!"
Keep a hand on him," said Prickett. "He's as wily
as Satan and as strong as a lion. I dropped the glim
before I jumped. I'll get upstairs for it, and will have a
look at him. Jim, I'm blowed if I ain't broke my arm.
If you've got to hit that chap while I'm gone, you hit
him hard, my lad, and say I told you."
"He won't want no hitting," White answered, as his
superior crawled up the stairs. "Gaffer!" he cried
in a changed voice, "I can't so much as feel him
breathe."
"Look out for him if he's foxing," Prickett called
back. "Here's this blessed lantern standing straight on
end, and blazing away as if it knowed as it was wanted.
That's a bit o' luck.”
He came down the stairs groaning and limping, and
generally exaggerating his own mischances with a view
188
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW,
to the temptation of the prisoner in case he should be
shamming.
"Better get the darbies on him while he's quiet, Jaries.
We shall have to do a bit o' searching, and it'll be all the
easier if he comes to again."
He flashed the light upon Gale's face, and with a quick
cry knelt beside him. The burglar lay full length, with
one arm crumpled up behind him.
(C
'He's paid all this time," said Prickett, solemnly.
"He's as dead as a door nail.”
The morning papers brought a new and dreadful fear
to the three guests at Wootton Hill. Janet rose from
the breakfast table with a cry, and Mrs. Wyncott and
Edith hurried wildly after her as she ran from the room.
She stood in the hall like a statue of misery, with the
journal she had been reading clutched convulsively in
both hands.
"The man-
(C
-
There is blood upon them," she cried.
one of the men-is killed."
They brought her back to the room and tried to soothe
her, but they knew nothing of her main fear. Elphin-
stone and Arnold alike understood it, when they in turn
came to read the article which had so terrified and
shocked her.
It was headed "Desperate and Fatal Encounter with
a Burglar," and related the manner of the death of Reu-
ben Gale, and the discovery upon his body of the jewels
which had been stolen from Miss Pharr. Arnold and the
Doctor held a hasty consultation on it, and the young
clergyman rushed up to town at once to consult Prickett.
That worthy personage was in bed with a broken arm,
and was ordered to keep quiet for a day or two on guard
against feverish symptoms.
"You needn't be alarmed, sir," he said, when Arnold
explained his errand. "Mr. Wyncott Esden's name doesn't
come into this any more than yours does. There'll be an
inquest, and I shall have to tell what happened at the
time, but I shan't have to go outside it. I went to meet
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW.
189
(
Gale from information received.' That's the form, and
the coroner won't try to get behind it. If my chiefs ask
me any more about it I shall tell 'em again what I said
last night. There were two in it,' says I, 'but the other
was a new hand, and he got conscience-struck, and came
to me and split.' You needn't have any fear at all, Mr.
Wyncott Esden's name won't show."
In the event it proved so. Wyncott Esden went out
to New South Wales, and practised at the bar. A year
later Mary Grainger followed him, and they two were
married. There are not many wives who have so terrible
a knowledge of their husbands, but she uses hers as
Wyncott uses his own knowledge of the past.
Speaking for myself, in spite of my knowledge of the
whole story, I am not sure that I would not sooner trust
Wyncott Esden at this hour than many more who have
led fairly blameless lives. It does not happen to all of
us to stand by as spectators of the earthquake which
rives the soul, and to look into the awful abyss that opens
there. He who has looked once, and has been mercifully
saved from falling, desires to look no more. Happy they
who have no need to be shaken over that appalling gulf.
And happy, likewise, they who, having need of the terror,
look once into its depths, and are set back on sound land
again with wholesome life-long fear implanted in their
hearts
·
[THE END.]
THE HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
Prince of Abyssinia
CHAPTER I.
Description of a palace in a valley.
YE who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and
pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that
age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies.
of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to
the history of Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia.
Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty emperor, in whose
dominions the Father of Waters begins his course; whose
bounty pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over
half the world the harvests of Egypt.
According to the custom which has descended from age to
age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was con-
fined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters
of Abyssinian royalty, till the order of succession should call
him to the throne.
The place, which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had des-
tined for the residence of the Abyssinian princes, was a
spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every
side by mountains, of which the summits overhang the middle
part. The only passage by which it could be entered was a
cavern that passed under a rock, of which it has long been dis
puted whether it was the work of nature or of human industry.
The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and
the mouth which opened into the valley was closed with gates
of iron forged by the artificers of ancient days, so massy that
no man could without the help of engines open or shut them.,
JJ
B
RASSELAS.
-
From the mountains on every side, rivulets descended that
filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a lake
in the middle, inhabited by fish of every species, and frequented
by every fowl whom nature has taught to dip the wing in water.
This lake discharged its superfluities by a stream which en-
tered a dark cleft of the mountain on the northern side, and
fell with dreadful noise from precipice to precipice till it was
heard no more.
The sides of the mountains were covered with trees, the
banks of the brooks were diversified with flowers
5; every
blast shook spices from the rocks, and every month dropped
fruits upon the ground. All animals that bite the grass or
browse the shrub, whether wild or tame, wandered in this ex-
tensive circuit, secured from beasts of prey by the mountains
which confined them. On one part were flocks and herds feed-
ing in the pastures, on another all the beasts of chase frisking
in the lawns; the sprightly kid was bounding on rocks, the
subtle monkey frolicking in the trees, and the solemn elephant
reposing in the shade. All the diversities of the world were
brought together, the blessings of nature were collected, and
its evils extracted and éxcluded.
·
The valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabitants with
the necessaries of life, and all delights and superfluities were
added at the annual visit which the emperor paid his children,
when the iron gate was opened to the sound of music; and
during eight days every one that resided in the valley was re-
quired to propose whatever might contribute to make seclusion
pleasant, to fill up the vacancies of attention, and lessen the
rediousness of time. Every desire was immediately granted.
All the artificers of pleasure were called to gladden the festivity;
the musicians exerted the power of harmony, and the dancers
showed their activity before the princes, in hope that they
should pass their lives in this blissful captivity; to which those
only were admitted whose performance was thought able to
add novelty to luxury. Such was the appearance of security
and delight, which this retirement afforded, that they, to whom
it was new, always desired that it might be perpetual; and as
those, on whom the iron gate had once closed, were never suf-
fered to return, the effect of longer experience could not be
known. Thus every year produced new schemes of delight,
and new competitors for imprisonment.
The palace stood on an eminence raised about thirty paces
above the surface of the lake. It was divided into many squares
or courts, built with greater or less magnificence, according to
RASSELAS.
.
the rank of those for whom they were designed. The roofs
were turned into arches of massy stone, joined by a cement
that grew harder by time, and the building stood from century.
to century deriding the solstitial rains and equinoctial hurri-
canes, without need of reparation.
This house, which was so large as to be fully known to none
but some ancient officers who successively inherited the secrets
of the place, was built as if suspicion herself had dictated the
plan. To every room there was an open and secret passage,
every square had a communication with the rest, either from
the upper storeys by private galleries, or by subterranean pas-
sages from the lower apartments. Many of the columns had
unsuspected cavities, in which a long race of monarchs had
deposited their treasures. They then closed up the opening
with marble, which was never to be removed but in the utmost
exigences of the kingdom: and recorded their accumulations
in a book, which was itself concealed in a tower not entered
but by the emperor attended by the prince who stood next in
succession,
CHAPTER II.
The discontent of Rasselas in the happy valley.
HERE the sons and daughters of Abyssinia lived only to
know the soft vicissitudes of pleasure and repose, attended by
all that were skilful to delight, and gratified with whatever the
senses can enjoy. They wandered in gardens of fragrance, and
slept in the fortresses of security. Every art was practiced to
make them pleased with their own condition. The sages who
instructed them told them of nothing but the miseries of public
life, and described all beyond the mountains as regions of
calamity, where discord was always raging, and where man
preyed upon man.
To heighten their opinion of their own felicity, they were
daily entertained with songs, the subject of which was the
happy valley. Their appetites were excited by frequent enu-
merations of different enjoyments; and revelry and merriment
was the business of every hour from the dawn of morning to
the close of even.
These methods were generally successful: few of the
princes had ever wished to enlarge their bounds, but passed
IO
RASSELAS.
their lives in full conviction that they had all within their reach
that art or nature could bestow, and pitied those whom fate
had excluded from this seat of tranquillity, as the sport of
chance and the slaves of misery.
Thus they rose in the morning and lay down at night,
pleased with each other and with themselves; all but Rasselas,
who in the twenty-sixth year of his age began to withdraw him-
self from their pastimes and assemblies, and to delight in soli-
tary walks and silent meditation. He often sat before tables
covered with luxury, and forgot to taste the dainties that were
placed before him; he rose abruptly in the midst of the song
and hastily retired beyond the sound of music. His attendants
observed the change and endeavored to renew his love of
pleasure; he neglected their officiousness, and repulsed their
invitations, and spent day after day on the banks of rivulets ·
sheltered with trees, where he sometimes listened to the birds
in the branches, sometimes observed the fish playing in the
stream, and anon cast his eyes upon the pastures and moun-
tains filled with animals, of which some were biting the herbage,
and some sleeping among the bushes.
This singularity of his humor made him much observed.
One of the sages, in whose conversation he had formerly de-
lighted, followed him secretly, in hope of discovering the cause
of his disquiet. Rasselas, who knew not that any one was
near him, having for some time fixed his eyes upon the goats,
that were browsing among the rocks, began to compare their
condition with his own.
66
What," said he, "makes the difference between man and
all the rest of the animal creation? Every beast that strays
beside me has the same corporal necessities with myself; he is
hungry and crops the grass, he is thirsty and drinks the stream,
his thirst and hunger are appeased, he is satisfied and sleeps;
he rises again and is hungry, he is again fed and is at rest. I
am hungry and thirsty like him, but when thirst and hunger
cease I am not at rest; I am, like him, pained with want, but
am not, like him, satisfied with fulness. The intermediate
hours are tedious and gloomy; I long again to be hungry, that I
may again quicken my attention. The birds pick the berries or
the corn, and fly away to the groves, where they sit in seeming
happiness on the branches, and waste their lives in tuning one
unvaried series of sounds. I likewise can call the lutanist and
the singer, but the sounds that pleased me yesterday weary me
to-day, and will grow yet more wearisome to-morrow. I can
discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted
RASSELAS.
11
with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted.
Man surely has some latent sense for which this place affords no
gratification; or he has some desires, distinct from sense,
which must be satisfied before he can be happy."
،،
After this he lifted up his head, and, seeing the moon ris-
ing walked towards the palace. As he passed through the
fields, and saw the animals around him, "Ye," said he, are
happy, and need not envy me that walk thus among you, bur-
dened with myself; nor do I, ye gentle beings, envy your feli-
city; for it is not the felicity of man. I have many distresses
from which ye are free: I fear pain when I do not feel it; I
sometimes shrink at evils recollected, and sometimes start at
evils anticipated. Surely the equity of Providence has balanced
peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments."
With observations like these the prince amused himself as
he returned; uttering them with a plaintive voice, yet with a
look that discovered him to feel some complacence in his own
perspicacity, and to receive some solace of the miseries of life
from consciousness of the delicacy with which he felt, and the
eloquence with which he bewailed them. He mingled cheer-
fully in the diversions of the evening, and all rejoiced to find
that his heart was lightened.
CHAPTER III.
The wants of him that wants nothing.
On the next day his old instructor, imagining that he had
now made himself acquainted with his disease of mind, was in
hope of curing it by counsel, and officiously sought an oppor-
tunity of conference; which the prince having long considered
him as one whose intellects were exhausted, was not very will-
ing to afford : " Why," said he, "does this man thus intrude
upon me; shall I be never suffered to forget those lectures
which pleased only while they were new,and to become new again
must be forgotten?" He then walked into the wood, and com-
posed himself to his usual meditations; when, before his thoughts
had taken any settled form, he perceived his pursuer at his side,
and was at first prompted by his impatience to go hastily away;
but being unwilling to offend a man whom he had once rever-
enced and still loved, he invited him to sit down with him on
the bank
12
RASSELAS.
*
The old man, thus encouraged, began to lament the change
which had been lately observed in the prince, and to inquire
why he so often retired from the pleasures of the palace, to
loneliness and silence? "I fly from pleasures," said
" said the
prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely
because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my
presence the happiness of others." "You, sir," said the sage,
'are the first who has complained of misery in the happy valley.
I hope to convince you that your complaints have no real
cause. You are here in full possession of all that the emperor
of Abyssinia can bestow; here is neither labor to be endured
nor danger to be dreaded, yet here is all that labor or danger
can procure or purchase. Look round and tell me which of
your wants is without supply; if you want nothing how are you
unhappy?"
(6
"That I want nothing," said the prince, nor that I know
not what I want, is the cause of my complaint. If I had any
known want, I should have a certain wish; that wish would ex-
cite endeavor, and I should not then repine to see the sun
move so slowly towards the western mountain, or lament when
the day breaks, and sleep will no longer hide me from myself.
When I see the kids and the lambs chasing one another, I fancy
that I should be happy if I had something to pursue. But,
possessing all that I can want, I find one day and one hour ex-
actly like another, except that the latter is still more tedious
than the former. Let your experience inform me how the day
may now seem as short as in my childhood, while nature was
yet fresh, and every moment showed me what I never had ob-
served before. I have already enjoyed too much; give me
something to desire.”
The old man was surprised at this new species of affliction,
and knew not what to reply, yet was unwilling to be silent.
"Sir," said he, "if you had seen the miseries of the world, you
would know how to value your present state." "Now," said
the prince, "you have given me something to desire; I shall
long to see the miseries of the world, since the sight of them is
necessary to happiness."
RASSELAS.
13
CHAPTER IV,
The Prince continues to grieve and muse
At this time the sound of music proclaimed the hour of repast,
and the conversation was concluded. The old man went away
sufficiently discontented, to find that his reasonings had pro
duced the only conclusion which they were intended to pre-
vent. But in the decline of life shame and grief are of short
duration; whether it be that we bear easily what we have
borne long; or that, finding ourselves in age less regarded, we
less regard others; or, that we look with slight regard upon
afflictions to which we know that the hand of death is about to
put an end.
The prince, whose views were extended to a wider space,
could not speedily quiet his emotions. He had been before
terrified at the length of life which nature promised him, be-
cause he considered that in a long time much must be endured;
he now rejoiced in his youth, because in many years much
might be done.
This first beam of hope, that had been ever darted into his
mind, rekindled youth in his cheeks, and doubled the lustre of
his eyes. He was fired with the desire of doing something,
though he knew not yet with distinctness either end or means.
He was now no longer gloomy and unsocial; but, consider-
ing himself as master of a secret stock of happiness, which he
could enjoy only by concealing it, he affected to be busy in all
schemes of diversion, and endeavored to make others pleased
with the state of which he himself was weary. But pleasures
never can be so multiplied or continued as not to leave much
of life unemployed; there were many hours, both of the night
and day, which he could spend without suspicion in solitary
thought. The load of life was much lightened; he went ea-
gerly into the assemblies, because he supposed the frequency of
his presence necessary to the success of his purposes; he re-
tired gladly to privacy, because he had now a subject of thought.
His chief amusement was to picture to himself that world
which he had never seen; to place himself in various con-
ditions to be entangled in imaginary difficulties, and to be
engaged in wild adventures; but his benevolence always
14
RASSELAS.
terminated his projects in the relief of distress, the detection of
fraud, the defeat of oppression, and the diffusion of happiness.
Thus passed twenty months of the life of Rasselas. He
busied himself so intensely in visionary bustle that he forgot
his real solitude; and, amidst hourly preparations for the var-
ious incidents of human affairs, neglected to consider by what
means he should mingle with mankind.
One day, as he was sitting on a bank, he feigned to himself
an orphan virgin robbed of her little portion by a treacherous
lover, and crying after him for restitution and redress. Sc
strongly was the image impressed upon his mind that he started
up in the maid's defence, and ran forward to seize the plun-
derer, with all the eagerness of real pursuit. Fear naturally
quickens the flight of guilt. Rasselas could not catch the fugi-
tive with his utmost efforts; but, resolving to weary, by per-
severance, him whom he could not surpass in speed, he pressed
on till the foot of the mountain stopped his course.
Here he recollected himself, and smiled at his own useless
impetuosity. Then, raising his eyes to the mountain, "This,"
said he, "is the fatal obstacle that hinders at once the enjoy-
ment of pleasure, and the exercise of virtue. How long is it
that my hopes and wishes have flown beyond this boundary of
my life, which yet I never have attempted to surmount!"
Struck with this reflection, he sat down to muse; and re-
membered, that since he first resolved to escape from his con-
finement, the sun had passed twice over him in his annual
course. He now felt a degree of regret with which he had
never been before acquainted. He considered how much
might have been done in the time which had passed, and left
nothing real behind it. He compared twenty months with the
life of man. “In life,” said he, “is not to be counted the
ignorance of infancy, or imbecility of age. We are long before
we are able to think, and we soon cease from the power of act-
ing. The true period of human existence may be reasonably
estimated at forty years, of which I have mused away the four
and twentieth part. What I have lost was certain, for I have
certainly possessed it; but of twenty months to come who can
assure me?”
The
The consciousness of his own folly pierced him deeply, and
he was long before he could be reconciled to himself.
rest of my time," said he, “has been lost by the crime or folly
of my ancestors and the absurd institutions of my country; I
remember it with disgust, yet without remorse: but the months
that have passed since new light darted into my soul, since I
*
RASSELAS.
""
formed a scheme of reasonable felicity, have been squandered
by my own fault. I have lost that which can never be restored
I have seen the sun rise and set for twenty months, an idle
gazer on the light of heaven: in this time the birds have left
the nest of their mother, and committed themselves to the
woods and to the skies: the kid has forsaken the teat, and
learned by degrees to climb the rocks in quest of independent
sustenance. I only have made no advances, but am still help-
less and ignorant. The moon, by more than twenty changes,
admonished me of the flux of life; the stream that rolled before
my feet upbraided my inactivity. I sat feasting on intellectual
luxury, regardless alike of the examples of the earth, and of the
instructions of the planets. Twenty months are passed, who
shall restore them?
15
These sorrowful meditations fastened upon his mind; he
passed four months in resolving to lose no more time in idle
resolves; and was awakened to more vigorous exertion by
hearing a maid, who had broken a porcelain cup, remark, that
what cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.
This was obvious; and Rasselas reproached himself that
he had not discovered it, having not known or not considered
how many useful hints are obtained by chance, and how often
the mind, hurried by her own ardor to distant views, neglects
the truths that lie open before her. He, for a few hours, re-
gretted his regret, and from that time bent his whole mind
upon the means of escaping from the valley of happiness.
CHAPTER V.¨¨
The Prince Meditates his Escape.
He now found that it would be very difficult to effect that
which it was very easy to suppose effected. When he looked
round about him, he saw himself confined by the bars of nature,
which had never yet been broken, and by the gate, through
which none that once had passed it were ever able to return.
He was now impatient as an eagle in the grate. He passed
week after week in clambering the mountains, to see if there
was any aperture which the bushes might conceal, but found all
the summits inaccessible by their prominence. The iron gate
he despaired to open; for it was not only secured with all the
powers of art, but was always watched by successive sentinels,
IU
RASSELAS.
and was by its position exposed to the perpetual observation of
all the inhabitants.
He then examined the cavern through which the waters of
the lake were discharged; and, looking down at a time when
the sun shone strongly upon its mouth, he discovered it to be
full of broken rocks, which, though they permitted the stream
to flow through many narrow passages, would stop anybody of
solid bulk. He returned discouraged and dejected; but, hav-
ing now known the blessing of hope, resolved never to despair.
In these fruitless searches he spent ten months. The time,
however, passed cheerfully away in the morning he rose with
new hope, in the evening applauded his own diligence, and in
the night slept sound after his fatigue. He met a thousand
amusements which beguiled his labor and diversified his
thoughts. He discerned the various instincts of animals and
properties of plants, and found the place replete with wonders,
of which he purposed to solace himself with the contemplation,
if he should never be able to accomplish his flight; rejoicing
that his endeavors, though yet unsuccessful, had supplied him
with a source of inexhaustible inquiry.
But his original curiosity was not yet abated; he resolved
to obtain some knowledge of the ways of men.
His wish still
continued, but his hope grew less. He ceased to survey any
longer the walls of his prison, and spared to search by new
toils for interstices which he knew could not be found, yet deter-
mined to keep his design always in view, and lay hold on any
expedient that time should offer.
CHAPTER VI.
A Dissertation on the Art of Flying.
AMONG the artists that had been allured into the happy
valley, to labor for the accommodation and pleasure of its in-
habitants, was a man eminent for his knowledge of the me-
chanic powers, who had contrived many engines both of use
and recreation. By a wheel which the stream turned he forced
the water into a tower, whence it was distributed to all the
apartments of the palace. He erected a pavilion in the garden,
around which he kept the air always cool by artificial showers.
One of the groves, appropriated to the ladies, was ventilated
by fans, to which the rivulet that ran through it gave a con-
stant motion; the instruments of soft music were placed at
RASSELAS.
17
proper distances, of which some played by the impulse of the
wind, and some by the power of the stream.
This artist was sometimes visited by Rasselas, who was
pleased with every kind of knowledge, imagining that the time
would come when all his acquisitions should be of use to him
in the open world. He came one day to amuse himself in his
usual manner, and found the master busy in building a sailing
chariot: he saw that the design was practicable upon a level
surface, and with expressions of great esteem solicited its com-
pletion. The workman was pleased to find himself so much
regarded by the prince, and resolved to gain yet higher honors.
Sir," said he, "you have seen but a small part of what the
mechanic sciences can perform. I have been long of opinion,
that, instead of the tardy conveyance of ships and chariots,
man might use the swifter migration of wings; that the fields of
air are open to knowledge, and that only ignorance and idle-
ness need crawl upon the ground.”
This hint rekindled the prince's desire of passing the moun
tains: having seen what the mechanist had already performed,
he was willing to fancy that he could do more; yet resolved to
inquire further, before he suffered hope to afflict him by disap-
pointment. “I am afraid,” said he to the artist, "that your im-
agination prevails over your skill, and that you now tell me
rather what you wish than what you know. Every animal has
his element assigned him; the birds have the air, and man and
beasts the earth.' So,” replied the mechanist, fishes have
the water, in which yet beasts can swim by nature, and men by
art. He that can swim needs not despair to fly; to swim is
to fly in a grosser fluid, and to fly is to swim in a subtler. We
are only to proportion our power of resistance to the different
density of matter through which we are to pass. You will be
necessarily upborne by the air, if you can renew any impulse
upon it faster than the air can recede from the pressure.
""
66
"But the exercise of swimming," said the prince, is "very
laborious; the strongest limbs are soon wearied; I am afraid
the act of flying will be yet more violent; and wings will be of
no great use unless we can fly further than we can swim."
"The labor of rising from the ground," said the artist,
"will be great, as we see it in the heavier domestic fowls, but
as we mount higher, the earth's attraction and the body's
gravity will be gradually diminished, till we shall arrive at a
region where the man will float in the air without any tendency
to fall; no care will then be necessary but to move forwards,
which the gentlest impulse will effect. You, sir, whose curiosity
،،
18
RASSELAS
is so extensive, will easily conceive with what pleasure a philoso-
pher, furnished with wings, and hovering in the sky, would see
the earth, and all its inhabitants, rolling beneath him, and pre-
senting to him successively, by its diurnal motion, all the coun-
tries within the same parallel. How must it amuse the pen-
dent spectator to see the moving scene of land and ocean,
cities and deserts! To survey with equal serenity the marts
of trade and the fields of battle; mountains infested by bar-
barians, and fruitful regions gladdened by plenty and lulled by
peace! How easily shall we then trace the Nile through all
his passage; pass over to distant regions, and examine the face
of nature from one extremity to the other!".
“All this,” said the prince, "is much to be desired; but I
am afraid that no man will be able to breathe in these regions
of speculation and tranquillity. I have been told that respira-
tion is difficult upon lofty mountains, yet from these precipices,
though so high as to produce great tenuity of air, it is very
easy to fall: therefore I suspect, that, from any height where
life can be supported, there may be danger of too quick descent.
"Nothing," replied the artist, "will ever be attempted, if
all possible objections must be first overcome. If you will
favor my project, I will try the first flight at my own hazard. I
have considered the structure of all volant animals, and find
the folding continuity of the bat's wings most easily accommo-
dated to the human form. Upon this model I shall begin my
task to-morrow, and in a year expect to tower in the air beyond
the malice and pursuit of man. But I will work only on this
condition, that the art shall not be divulged, and that you
shall not require me to make wings for any but ourselves."
در
"Why," said Rasselas, "should you envy others so great
an advantage? All skill ought to be exerted for universal
good; every man has owed much to others, and ought to repay
the kindness that he has received."
"If men were all virtuous," returned the artist, "I should
with great alacrity teach them all to fly. But what would be the
security of the good, if the bad could at pleasure invade them
from the sky? Against an army sailing through the clouds,
neither walls, nor mountains, nor seas could afford any security.
A flight of northern savages might hover in the wind, and light
at once with irresistible violence upon the capital of a fruitful
region that was rolling under them. Even this valley, the re-
treat of princes, the abode of happiness, might be violated by
the sudden descent of some of the naked nations that swarm
on the coast of the southern sea."
RASSELAS.
19
The prince promised secrecy, and waited for the perform-
ance, not wholly hopeless of success. He visited the work
from time to time, observed its progress, and remarked many
ingenious contrivances to facilitate motion, and unite levity
with strength. The artist was every day more certain that he
should leave vultures and eagles behind him, and the conta-
gion of his confidence seized upon the prince.
In a year the wings were finished; and, on a morning ap-
pc'nted, the maker appeared furnished for flight on a little pro-
montory he waved his pinions awhile to gather air, then
leaped from his stand, and in an instant dropped into the lake,
His wings, which were of no use in the air, sustained him in
the water, and the prince drew him to land, half dead with
terror and vexation.
+
CHAPTER VII.
The Prince finds a Man of Learning.
THE prince was not much afflicted by this disaster, having
suffered himself to hope for a happier event, only because
he had no other means of escape in view. He still persisted
in his design to leave the happy valley by the first oppor-
tunity.
་
His imagination was now at a stand; he had no prospect
of entering into the world; and, nothwithstanding all his en-
deavors to support himself, discontent by degrees preyed upon
him, and he began again to lose his thoughts in sadness, when
the rainy season, which in these countries is periodical, made
it inconvenient to wander in the woods.
The rain continued longer and with more violence than had
ever been known; the clouds broke on the surrounding moun-
tains, and the torrents streamed into the plain on every side,
till the cavern was too narrow to discharge the water. The lake
overflowed its banks, and all the level of the valley was covered
with the inundation. The eminence on which the palace was
built, and some other spots of rising ground, were all that the
eye could now discover. The herds and flocks left the pas-
tures, and both the wild beasts and the tame retreated to the
mountains.
This inundation confined all the princes to domestic
amusements, and the attention of Rasselas was particularly
seized by a poem, which Imlac rehearsed upon the various
20
RASSELAS.
conditions of humanity. He commanded the poet to attend
him in his apartment, and recite his verses a second time;
then entering into familiar talk, he thought himself happy in
having found a man who knew the world so well, and could so
skilfully paint the scenes of life. He asked a thousand ques-
tions about things, to which, though common to all other mor-
tals, his confinement from childhood had kept him a stranger.
The poet pitied his ignorance and loved his curiosity, and en-
tertained him from day to day with novelty and instruction, so
that the prince regretted the necessity of sleep, and longed till
the morning should renew his pleasure.
As they were sitting together the prince commanded Imlac
to relate his history, and to tell by what accident he was forced,
or by what motive induced, to close his life in the happy val-
ley. As he was going to begin his narrative, Rasselas was
called to a concert, and obliged to restrain his curiosity till the
evening.
CHAPTER VIII.
The History of Imlac.
THE close of the day is, in the regions of the torrid zone,
the only season of diversion and entertainment, and it was
therefore midnight before the music ceased, and the princes
retired. Rasselas then called for his companion and required
him to begin the story of his life.
،،
Sir," said Imlac, "my history will not be long: the life
that is devoted to knowledge passes silently away, and is very
little diversified by events. To talk in public, to think in soli-
tude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is
the business of a scholar. He wanders about the world with-
out pomp or terror, and is neither known nor valued but by
men like himself.
Lax
"I was born in the kingdom of Goiama, at no great dis
tance from the fountain of the Nile. My father was a wealthy
merchant, who traded between the inland countries of Afric
and the ports of the Red Sea. He was honest, frugal, and
diligent, but of mean sentiments and narrow comprehension •
he desired only to be rich, and to conceal his riches, lest he
should be spoiled by the governors of the province."
66 Surely," said the prince, "my father must be negligent of
his charge, if any man in his dominions dares take that which
RASSELAS.
21
""
belongs to another. Does he not know that kings are ac-
countable for injustice permitted as well as done? If I were
emperor, not the meanest of my subjects should be oppressed
with impunity. My blood boils when I am told that a mer-
chant durst not enjoy his honest gains for fear of losing them
by the rapacity of power. Name the 'governor who robbed the
people that I may declare his crimes to the emperor."
Sir," said Imlac, your ardor is the natural effect of
virtue animated by youth: the time will come when you will
acquit your father, and perhaps hear with less impatience of
the governor. Oppression is, in the Abyssinian dominions,
neither frequent nor tolerated: but no form of government has
yet been discovered, by which cruelty can be wholly prevented.
Subordination supposes power on the one part, and subjection
on the other, and if power be in the hands of men, it will some-
times be abused. The vigilance of the supreme magistrate.
may do much, but much will still remain undone. He can
never know all the crimes that are committed, and can seldom
punish all that he knows."
66
"This," said the prince, "I do not understand, but I had
rather hear thee than dispute. Continue thy narration."
"My father," proceeded Imlac, "originally intended that I
should have no other education than such as might qualify me
for commerce; and, discovering in me great strength of mem
ory and quickness of apprehension, often declared his hope
that I should be sometime the richest man in Abyssinia."
(C
Why," said the prince, "did thy father desire the increase
of his wealth, when it was already greater than he durst dis-
cover or enjoy? I am unwilling to doubt thy veracity, yet in-
consistencies cannot both be true."
"Inconsistencies," answered Imlac, "cannot both be right;
but, imputed to man, they may both be true. Yet diversity is
not inconsistency. My father might expect a time of greater
security. However, some desire is necessary to keep life in
motion; and he whose real wants are supplied must admit
those of fancy."
"This," said the prince, "I can in some measure conceive.
I repent that I interrupted thee."
"With this hope," proceeded Imlac, "he sent me to school;
but when I had once found the delight of knowledge, and felt
the pleasure of intelligence and the pride of invention, I began
silently to despise riches, and determined to disappoint the
purpose of my father, whose grossness of conception raised my
pity. I was twenty years old before his tenderness would ex-
22
RASSELAS.
pose me to the fatigue of travel, in which time I had been in-
structed, by successive masters, in all the literature of my
native country. As every hour taught me something new, I
lived in a continual course of gratifications; but as I advanced
towards manhood, I lost much of the reverence with which I
had been used to look on my instructors: because, when the
lesson was ended, I did not find them wiser or better than com-
mon men.
،،
S
At length my father resolved to initiate me in commerce
and, opening one of his subterranean treasuries, counted out
ten thousand pieces of gold. This, young man,' said he, 'is
the stock with which you must negotiate. I began with less
than the fifth part, and you see how diligence and parsimony
have increased it. This is your own to waste or to improve.
If you squander it by negligence or caprice, you must wait for
death before you be rich; if, in four years, you double your
stock, we will thenceforward let subordination cease, and live
together as friends and partners; for he shall be always equal
with me who is equally skilled in the art of growing rich."
"We laid our money upon camels, concealed in bales of
cheap goods, and travelled to the shore of the Red Sea. When
I cast my eye upon the expanse of waters, my heart bounded
like that of a prisoner escaped. I felt an unextinguishable
curiosity kindle in my mind, and resolved to snatch this oppor-
tunity of seeing the manners of other nations. and of learning
sciences unknown in Abyssinia.
"I remember that my father had obliged me to the improve-
ment of my stock, not by a promise which I ought not to
violate, but by a penalty which I was at liberty to incur; and
therefore determined to gratify my predominant desire, and, by
drinking at the fountains of knowledge, to quench the thirst of
curiosity.
'As I was supposed to trade without connection with my
father, it was easy for me to become acquainted with the mas
ter of a ship, and procure a passage to some other country. I
had no motives of choice to regulate my voyage: it was suffi-
cient for me that, wherever I wandered, I should see a coun-
try which I had not seen before. I therefore entered a ship
bound for Surat, having left a letter for my father declaring my
intention."
C
RASSELAS.
*3
CHAPTER IX.
The History of Imlac continued.
<
"WHEN I first entered upon the world of waters, and lost
sight of land, I looked round about me with pleasing terror,
and, thinking my soul enlarged by the boundless prospect, im-
agined that I could gaze round without satiety: but, in a short
time, I grew weary of looking on barren uniformity, where 1
could only see again what I had already seen. I then de
scended into the ship, and doubted for awhile whether all my
future pleasures would not end like this, in disgust and disap
pointment. Yet, surely, said I, the ocean and the land arc
very different; the only variety of water is rest and motion,
but the earth has mountains and valleys, deserts and cities: it
is inhabited by men of different customs and contrary opinions ;
and I may hope to find variety in life though I should miss it
in nature.
"With this thought I quieted my mind, and amused myself
during the voyage, sometimes by learning from the sailors the
art of navigation, which I have never practiced, and sometimes
by forming schemes for my conduct in different situations, in
not one of which I have been ever placed.
"I was almost weary of my naval amusements when we
landed safely at Surat. I secured my money, and purchasing
some commodities for show, joined myself to a caravan that
was passing into the inland country. My companions, for
some reason or other, conjecturing that I was rich, and, by my
inquiries and admiration, finding that I was ignorant, considered
me as a novice whom they had a right to cheat, and who was to
learn at the usual expense the art of fraud. They exposed me
to the theft of servants and the exaction of officers, and saw me
plundered upon false pretences, without any advantage to them-
selves, but that of rejoicing in the superiority of their own
knowledge."
"Stop a moment," said the prince. "Is there such de-
pravity in man as that he should injure another without benefit
to himself? I can easily conceive that all are pleased with
superiority; but your ignorance was merely accidental, which,
being neither your crime nor your folly, could afford them no
reason to applaud themselves: and the l:nowledge which they
12.
24
RASSELAS
had, and which you wanted, they might as effectually have.
shown by warning as betraying you.'
""
"Pride," said Imlac, "is seldom delicate, it will please it
self with very mean advantages; and envy feels not its own
happiness, but when it may be compared with the misery of
others. They were my enemies, because they grieved to think
me rich; and my oppressors, because they delighted to find me
weak."
"Proceed," said the prince; "I doubt not of the facts
which you relate, but imagine that you impute them to mistaken
motives.".
"In this company," said Imlac, "I arrived at Agra, the
capital of Indostan, the city in which the Great Mogul com-
monly resides. I applied myself to the language of the coun-
try, and in a few months was able to converse with the learned
men; some of whom I found morose and reserved, and others
easy and communicative; some were unwilling to teach another
what they had with difficulty learned themselves; and some
showed that the end of their studies was to gain the dignity of
instructing.
८.९
To the tutor of the young princes I recommended myself
so much that I was presented to the emperor as a man
of uncommon knowledge. The emperor asked me many ques-
tions concerning my country and my travels; and though I
I cannot now recollect anything that he uttered above the
power of a common man, he dismissed me astonished at his
wisdom, and enamored of his goodness.
"My credit was now so high that the merchants, with whom
I travelled, applied to me for recommendations to the ladies
of the court. I was surprised at their confidence of solicita-
tion, and gently reproached them with their practices on the
road. They heard me with cold indifference, and showed no
tokens of shame or sorrow.
66
+
They then urged their request with the offer of a bribe:
but what I would not do for kindness, I would not do for
money; and refused them, not because they had injured me,
but because I would not enable them to injure others; for I
knew they would have made use of my credit to cheat those
who should buy their wares.
66
Having resided at Agra till there was no more to be
learned, I travelled into Persia, where I saw many remains of
ancient magnificence, and observed many new accommodations
of life. The Persians are a nation eminently social, and their
assemblies afforded me daily opportunities of remarking char-
RASSELAS.
acters and manners, and of tracing human nature throu
its variations.
"From Persia I passed into Arabia, where I saw a nation
at once pastoral and warlike; who live without any settled
habitation; whose only wealth is their flocks and herds; and
who have yet carried on, through all ages, an hereditary war
with all mankind, though they neither covet nor envy their pos
sessions."
CHAPTER X.
Imlac's History continued. A Dissertation on Poetry.
“WHEREVER I went, I found that poetry was considered as
the highest learning, and regarded with a veneration somewhat
approaching to that which man would pay to the Angelic Na-
ture. And yet it fills me with wonder, that, in almost all coun-
tries, the most ancient poets are considered as the best ; whether
it be that every other kind of knowledge is an acquisition grad-
ually attained, and poetry is a gift conferred at once; or that
the first poetry of every nation surprised them as a novelty,
and retained the credit by consent, which it received by acci-
dent at first or whether, as the province of poetry is to de-
scribe nature and passion, which are always the same, the first
writers took possession of the most striking objects for descrip-
tion,and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left noth-
ing to those that followed them, but transcription of the same
events, and new combinations of the same images. Whatever
be the reason, it is commonly observed that the early writers
are in possession of nature, and their followers of art; that
the first excel in strength and invention, and the latter in ele-
gance and refinement,
"I was desirous to add my name to this illustrious frater-
nity. I read all the poets of Persia and Arabia, and was able
to repeat by memory the volumes that are suspended in the
mosque of Mecca. But I soon found that no man was great by
imitation. My desire of excellence impelled me to transfer my
attention to nature and to life. Nature was to be my subject,
and men to be my auditors: I could never describe what I had
not seen: I could not hope to move those with delight or ter-
ror, whose interests and opinions I did not understand.
Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw everything with a
new purpose; my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified:
no kind of knowledge was to be overlooked. I ranged moun
"
26
RASSELAS.
tains and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured
upon my mind every tree of the forest and flower of the valley.
I observed with equal care the crags of the rock and the pin-
nacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes of
the rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the summer
clouds. To a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is beau-
tiful and whatever is dreadful must be familiar to his imagina-
tion he must be conversant with all that is awfully vast or
elegantly little. The plants of the garden, the animals of the
wood, the minerals of the earth, and meteors of the sky, must
all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible variety: for
every idea is useful for the enforcement or decoration of moral
or religious truth; and he who knows most will have most
power of diversifying his scenes, and of gratifying his reader
with remote allusions and unexpected instruction.
:
"All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful to
study; and every country which I have surveyed has contrib-
uted something to my poetical powers."
"In so wide a survey," said the prince, "you must surely
have left much unobserved. I have lived, till now, within the
circuit of these mountains, and yet cannot walk abroad without
the sight of something which I had never beheld before or never
heeded."
66
"The business of a poet," said Imlac, "is to examine, not
the individual, but the species; to remark general properties
and large appearances; he does not number the streaks of the
tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the
forest. He is to exhibit in his portraits of nature such prom-
inent and striking features as recall the original to every mind;
and must neglect the minuter discriminations, which one may
have remarked, and another have neglected, for those charac-
teristics which are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness.
But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a
poet; he must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life.
His character requires that he estimate the happiness and mis-
ery of every condition; observe the power of all the passions
in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human
mind as they are modified by various institutions and accidental
influences of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of in-
fancy to the despondence of decrepitude. He must divest him-
self of the prejudices of his age or country; he must consider
right and wrong in their abstracted and invariable state; he
must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to genera)
and transcendental truths, which will always be the same; he
•
RASSELAS.
27
must therefore content himself with the slow progress of his
name; contemn the applause of his own time, and commit his
claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the inter-
preter of nature, and the legislator of mankind, and consider
himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future
generations; as a being superior to time and place.
"His labor is not yet at an end; he must know many
languages and many sciences: and, that his style may be
worthy of his thoughts, must, by incessant practice, familiarize
to himself every delicacy of speech and grace of harmony."
CHAPTER XI.
Imlac's Narrative continued. A Hint on Pilgrimage.
IMLAC now felt the enthusiastic fit, and was proceeding to
aggrandize his own profession, when the prince cried out,
Enough! thou hast convinced me, that no human being can
ever be a poet. Proceed with thy narration."
"To be a poet," said Imlac, "is indeed very difficult."
"So difficult," returned the prince, "that I will at present
hear no more of his labors. Tell me whither you went when
you had seen Persia."
،،
"From Persia," said the poet, "I travelled through Syria,
and for three years resided in Palestine, where I conversed with
great numbers of the northern and western nations of Europe;
the nations which are now in possession of all power and all
knowledge: whose armies are irresistible, and whose fleet.com
mand the remotest parts of the globe. When I compared these
men with the natives of our own kingdom, and those that sur-
round us, they appeared almost another order of beings. In their
countries it is difficult to wish for anything that may not be
obtained: a thousand arts, of which we never heard, are con-
tinually laboring for their convenience and pleasure; and
whatever their own climate has denied them is supplied by their
commerce."
(C
By what means," said the prince, "are the Europeans
thus powerful; or why, since they can so easily visit Asia or
Africa for trade or conquest, cannot the Asiatics and Africans
invade their coasts, plant colonies in their ports, and give laws
to their natural princes? The same wind that carries them
back would bring us thither."
66
'They are more powerful, sir, than we," amswered Imlac
28
RASSELAS.
66
"because they are wiser; knowledge will always predominate.
over ignorance, as man governs the other animals.
But why
their knowledge is more than ours, I know not what reason can
be given, but the unsearchable will of the Supreme Being."
When," said the prince with a sigh, "shall I be able to
visit Palestine, and mingle with this mighty confluence of
nations? Till that happy moment shall arrive, let me fill up
the time with such representations as thou canst give me. I
am not ignorant of the motive that assembles such numbers in
that place, and cannot but consider it as the centre of wisdom
and piety, to which the best and wisest of every land must be
continually resorting."
"There are some nations," said Imlac, "that sen. few
visitants to Palestine; for many numerous and learned sects in
Europe concur to censure pilgrimage as superstitious or deride
it as ridiculous."
"You know," said the prince, "how little my life has made
me acquainted with diversity of opinions: it will be too long to
hear the arguments on both sides; you, that have considered
them, tell me the result."
"Pilgrimage," said Imlac, "like many other acts of piety,
may be reasonable or superstitious, according to the principles.
upon which it is performed. Long journeys in search of truth
are not commanded. Truth, such as is necessary to the regula-
tion of life, is always found where it is honestly sought. Change
of place is no natural cause of the increase of piety, for it inevit-
ably produces dissipation of mind. Yet, since men go every
day to view the fields where great actions have been performed,
and return with stronger impressions of the event, curiosity of
the same kind may naturally dispose us to view that country
whence our religion had its beginning: and I believe no man
surveys those awful scenes without some confirmation of holy
resolutions. That the Supreme Being may be more easily propiti-
ated in one place than in another is the dream of idle super-
stition; but that some places may operate upon our minds in
an uncommon manner is an opinion which hourly experience
will justify. He who supposes that his vices may be more
successfully combated in Palestine will, perhaps, find himself.
mistaken; yet he may go thither without folly he who thinks
they will be more freely pardoned dishonors at once his reason
and religion."
"These," said the prince, "are European distinctions. I
will consider them another time. What have you found to be
the effect of knowledge? Are those nations happier than we?"
RASSELAS.
29
“There is so much infelicity," said the poet, "in the world,
that scarce any man has leisure from his own distresses to esti-
mate the comparative happiness of others. Knowledge, is
certainly one of the means of pleasure as is confessed by the
natural desire which every mind feels of increasing its ideas.
Ignorance is mere privation, by which nothing can be pro-
duced: it is a vacuity in which the soul sits motionless and
torpid for want of attraction; and, without knowing why, we
always rejoice when we learn, and grieve when we forget.
am therefore inclined to conclude, that if nothing counteracts
the natural consequence of learning, we grow more happy as
our minds take a wider range.
I
"In enumerating the particular comforts of life, we shall
find many advantages on the side of the Europeans. They
cure wounds and diseases with which we languish and perish.
We suffer inclemencies of weather which they can obviate.
They have engines for the despatch of many laborious works
which we must perform by manual industry. There is such
communication between distant places that one friend can
hardly be said to be absent from another. Their policy removes
all public inconveniences; they have roads cut through their
mountains, and bridges laid upon their rivers. And, if we
descend to the privacies of life, their habitations are more com-
modious, and their possessions are more secure.
"
"They are surely happy," said the prince, "who have all
these conveniences, of which I envy none so much as the
facility with which separated friends interchange their thoughts."
'The Europeans," answered Imlac, are less unhappy than
we, but they are not happy. Human life is everywhere a state
in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed."
CHAPTER XII.
The Story of Imlac continued.
"I AM not yet willing," said the prince,'to suppose that hap
piness is so parsimoniously distributed to mortals; nor can be
lieve but that, if I had the choice of life, I should be able to
fill every day with pleasure. I would injure no man, and should
provoke no resentment: I would relieve every distress, and
should enjoy the benedictions of gratitude. I would choose
my friends among the wise and my wife among the virtuous :
and therefore should be in no danger from treachery or unkind-
30
RASSELAS.
ness. My children should, by my care, be learned had pious,
and would repay to my age what their childhood and received.
What would dare to molest him who might call on every side
to thousands enriched by his bounty, or assisted by his power?
And why should not life glide quietly away in the soft recipro
cation of protection and reverence? All this may be done
without the help of European refinements, which appear by
their effects to be rather specious than useful. Let us leave
them, and pursue our journey."
"From Palestine," said Imlac, "I passed through many re-
gions of Asia, in the more civilized kingdoms as a trader, and
among the barbarians of the mountains as a pilgrim. At last
I began to long for my native country, that I might repose,
after my travels and fatigues, in the places where I had spent
my earliest years, and gladden my old companions with the re-
cital of my adventures. Often did I figure to myself those
with whom I had sported away the gay hours of dawning life,
sitting round me in its evening, wondering at my tales, and
listening to my counsels.
"When this thought had taken possession of my mind, I
considered every moment as wasted which did not bring me
nearer to Abyssinia. I hastened into Egypt, and notwithstand-
ing my impatience, was detained ten months in the contempla-
tion of its ancient magnificence, and in inquiries after the
remains of its ancient learning. I found in Cairo a mixture of
all nations; some brought thither by the love of knowledge,
some by the hope of gain, and many by the desire of living
after their own manner without observation, and of lying hid in
the obscurity of multitudes; for in a city, populous as Cairo, it
is possible to obtain at the same time the gratifications of
society and the secrecy of solitude.
"From Cairo I travelled to Suez, and embarked on the
Red Sea, passing along the coast till I arrived at the port from
which I had departed twenty years before. Here I joined
myself to a caravan, and re-entered my native country.
"I now expected the caresses of my kinsmen, and the con-
gratulations of 'my friends, and was not without hope that my
father, whatever value he had set upon riches, would own with
gladness and pride a son who was able to add to the felicity and
honor of the nation. But I was soon convinced that my
thoughts were vain. My father had been dead fourteen years,
having divided his wealth among my brothers, who were re-
moved to some other provinces. Of my companions the greater
part was in the grave; of the rest, some could with difficulty
RASSELAS.
35
remember me, and some considered me as one corrupted by
foreign manners.
"A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected. I for-
got, after a time, my disappointment, and endeavored to recom-
mend myself to the nobles of the kingdom; they admitted met
to their tables, heard my story, and dismissed me. I opened a
school, and was prohibited to teach. I then resolved to sit
down in the quiet of domestic like, and addressed a lady that
was fond of my conversation, but rejected my suit because my
father was a merchant.
“Wearied at last with solicitations and repulses, I resolved
to hide myself forever from the world, and depend no longer
on the opinion or caprice of others. I waited for the time
when the gate of the happy valley should open, that I might bid
farewell to hope and fear: the day came; my performance was
distinguished with favor, and I resigned myself with joy to per-
petual confinement."
"Hast thou here found happiness at last?"
"Tell me
without reserve; art thou content with thy condition? or, dost
thou wish to be again wandering and inquiring? All the in-
habitants of this valley celebrate their lot, and at the annual
visit of the emperor invite others to partake of their felicity."
"Great prince," said Imlac, "I shall speak the truth; I know
not one of all your attendants who does not lament the hour
when he entered this retreat.
this retreat. I am less unhappy than the
rest, because I have a mind replete with images, which I can
vary and combine at pleasure. I can amuse my solitude by
the renovation of the knowledge which begins to fade from my
memory, and by recollections of the incidents of my past life.
Yet all this eds in the sorrowful consideration, that my ac-
quirements are now useless, and that none of my pleasures can
be again enjoyed. The rest, whose minds have no impression
but that of the present moment, are either corroded by
malignant passions or sit stupid in the gloom of perpetual
vacancy."
"What passions can infest those," said the prince, "who
have no rivals? We are in a place where impotence precludes
malice, and where all envy is repressed by community of enjoy.
ments.'
""
"There may be community," said Imlac, "of material pos
sessions, but there can never be community of love or of
esteem. It must happen that one will please more than another:
he that knows himself despised will always be envious; and
still more envious and malevolent, if he is condemned to live
32
RASSELAS.
in the presence of those who despise him. The invitations by
which they allure others to a state which they feel to be
wretched, proceed from the natural malignity of hopeless mis-
ery. They are weary of themselves and of each other, and
expect to find relief in new companions. They envy the liberty
which their folly has forfeited, and would gladly see all man-
kind imprisoned like themselves.
"From this crime, however, I am wholly free. No man
can say that he is wretched by my persuasion. I look with
pity on the crowds who are annually soliciting admission into
captivity, and wish that it were lawful for me to warn them of
their danger."
"My dear Imlac," said the prince, "I will open to thee my
whole heart. I have long meditated an escape from the happy
valley. I have examined the mountains on every side, and find
myself insuperably barred; teach me the way to break my
prison: thou shalt be the companion of my flight, the guide of
my rambles, the partner of my fortune, and my sole director in
the choice of life."
"Sir," answered the poet, "your escape will be difficult;
and, perhaps, you may soon repent your curiosity. The world,
which you figure to yourself smooth and quiet as the lake in
the valley, you will find a sea foaming with tempests and boil-
ing with whirlpools: you will be sometimes overwhelmed with
the waves of violence, and sometimes dashed against the rocks
of treachery. Amidst wrongs and frauds, competitions and
anxieties, you will wish a thousand times for these seats of
quiet, and willingly quit hope to be free from fear."
66
'Do not seek to deter me from my purpose," said the
prince; "I am impatient to see what thou hast seen; and
since thou art thyself weary of the valley, it is evident that thy
former state was better than this. Whatever be the conse-
quence of my experiment, I am resolved to judge with mine
own eyes of the various conditions of men, and then to make
deliberately my choice of life."
"I am afraid," said Imlac, "you are hindered by stronger
restraints than my persuasions; yet, if your determination is
fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impos-
sible to diligence and skill.”
1
RASSELAS.
33
CHAPTER XIII.
Rasselas Discovers the Means of Escape.
THE prince now dismissed his favorite to rest, but the narra-
tive of wonders and novelties filled his mind with perturbation.
He revolved all that he had heard, and prepared innumerable
questions for the morning.
Much of his uneasiness was now removed. He had a friend
to whom he could impart his thoughts, and whose experience
could assist him in his designs. His heart was no longer con-
demned to swell in silent vexation. He thought that even the
happy valley might be endured with such a companion; and
that if they could range the world together, he should have
nothing further to desire.
In a few days the water was discharged, and the ground
dried. The prince and Imlac then walked out together to
converse without the notice of the rest. The prince, whose
thoughts were always on the wing, as he passed by the gate.
said, with a countenance of sorrow, "Why art thou so strong,
and why is man so weak?”
"Man is not weak," answered his companion; "knowledge
is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics
laughs at strength. I can burst the gate, but cannot do it
secretly. Some other expedient must be tried."
66 It
As they were walking on the side of the mountain, they ob-
served that the conies, which the rain had driven from their
burrows, had taken shelter among the bushes, and formed
holes behind them, tending upwards in an oblique line.
has been the opinion of antiquity," said Imlac," that human
reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals; let us,
therefore, not think ourselves degraded by learning from the
cony. We may escape by piercing the mountain in the same
direction. We will begin where the summit hangs over the
middle part, and labor upward till we shall issue up beyond the
prominence."
The eyes of the prince, when he heard this proposal,
sparkled with joy. The execution was easy, and the success
certain.
No time was now lost. They hastened, early in the morn
ing, to choose a place proner for their mind. They clambered
34
RASSELAS.
with great fatigue among crags and brambles, and returned
without having discovered any part that favored their design.
The second and third day were spent in the same manner, and
with the same frustration. But, on the fourth, they found a
small cavern, concealed by a thicket, where they resolved to
make their experiment.
Imlac procured instruments proper to hew stone and re-
move earth, and they fell to their work the next day with more
eagerness than vigor. They were presently exhausted by their
efforts, and sat down to pant upon the grass. The prince, for
a moment, appeared to be discouraged. "Sir," said his com-
panion, "practice will enable us to continue our labor for a
longer time; mark, however, how far we have advanced, and
you will find that our toil will some time have an end. Great
works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance;
yonder palace was raised by single stones, yet you see its
height and spaciousness. He that shall walk with vigor three
hours a day, will pass in seven years a space equal to the cir-
cumference of the globe."
(6
They returned to their work day after day; and, in a short
time, found a fissure in the rock, which enabled them to pass
far with very little obstruction. This Rasselas considered as a
good omen. 'Do not disturb your mind," said Imlac, "with
other hopes and fears than reason may suggest: if you are
pleased with prognostics of good, you will be terrified likewise
with tokens of evil, and your whole life will be a prey to super-
stition. Whatever facilitates our work is more than an omen,
it is a cause of success. This is one of those pleasing surprises
which often happen to active resolution. Many things difficult
to design prove easy to performance.”
CHAPTER XIV.
Rasselas and Imlac Receive an Unexpected Visit.
THEY had now wrought their way to the middle, and so-
laced their thoughts with the approach of liberty, when the
prince coming down to refresh himself with air, found his sister
Nekayah standing before the mouth of the cavity. He started
and stood confused, afraid to tell his design, and yet hopeless
to conceal it. A few moments determined him to repose on
her fidelity, and secure her secrecy by a declaration without
reserve.
RASSELAS
35
"Do not imagine," said the princess, "that I came hither
as a spy: I had long observed from my window, that you
and Imlac directed your walk every day towards the same
point, but I did not suppose you had any better reason for the
preference than a cooler shade, or more fragrant bank; nor
followed you with any other design than to partake of your
conversation. Since, then, not suspicion but fondness has de-
tected you, let me not lose the advantage of my discovery. I
am equally weary of confinement with yourself, and not less
desirous of knowing what is done or suffered in the world.
Permit me to fly with you from this tasteless tranquillity, which
will yet grow more loathsome when you have left me. You
may deny me to accompany you, but cannot hinder me from
following."
The prince, who loved Nekayah above his other sisters,
had no inclination to refuse her request, and grieved that he
had lost an opportunity of showing his confidence by a volun-
tary communication. It was therefore agreed that she should
leave the valley with them: and that, in the mean time, she
should watch lest any other straggler should, by chance or curi-
osity, follow them to the mountain.
At length their labor was at an end: they saw light beyond
the prominence, and, issuing to the top of the mountain, beheld
the Nile, yet a narrow current, wandering beneath them.
The prince looked round with rapture, anticipated all the
pleasure of travel, and in thought was already transported be-
yond his father's dominions. Imlac, though very joyful at his
escape, had less expectation of pleasure in the world, which he
had before tried, and of which he had been weary.
Rasselas was so much delighted with a wider horizon that
he could not soon be persuaded to return into the valley. He
informed his sister that the way was open, and that nothing now
remained but to prepare for their departure.
CHAPTER XV.
The Prince and Princess leave the Valley, and see many Wonders.
THE prince and princess had jewels sufficient to make them.
tich whenever they came into a place of commerce, which, by
Imlac's direction, they might hide in their clothes; and, on
the night of the next full moon, all left the valley. The prin-
36
RASSELAS.
cess was followed only by a single favorite, who did not know
whither she was going.
They clambered through the cavity, and began to go down
on the other side. The princess and her maid turned their eyes
towards every part, and, seeing nothing to bound their prospect,
considered themselves as in danger of being lost in a dreary
vacuity. They stopped and trembled. "I am almost afraid,"
said the princess, "to begin a journey of which I cannot per-
ceive an end, and to venture into this immense plain, where I
may be approached on every side by men whom I never saw.”
The prince felt nearly the same emotions, though he thought it
more manly to conceal them.
Imlac smiled at their terrors, and encouraged them to pro-
ceed but the princess continued irresolute till she had been
imperceptibly drawn forward too far to return.
In the morning they found some shepherds in the field, who
set milk and fruits before them. The princess wondered that
she did not see a palace ready for her reception, and a table
spread with delicacies; but, being faint and hungry, she drank
the milk and ate the fruits, and thought them of a higher fla-
vor than the products of the valley.
They travelled forward by easy journeys, being all unaccus-
tomed to toil or difficulty, and knowing that, though they might
be missed, they could not be pursued. In a few days they
came into a more populous region, where Imlac was diverted
with the admiration which his companions expressed at the di-
versity of manners, stations, and employments.
Their dress was such as might not bring upon them the sus-
picion of having anything to conceal; yet the prince, wherever
he came, expected to be obeyed, and the princess was frighted
because those that came into her presence did not prostrate
themselves before her. Imlac was forced to observe them with
great vigilance, lest they should betray their rank by their un
usual behavior, and detained them several weeks in the first
village, to accustom them to the sight of common mortals.
By degrees the royal wanderers were taught to understand
that they had for a time laid aside their dignity, and were to
expect only such regard as liberality and courtesy could pro-
cure. And Imlac, having, by many admonitions, prepared
them to endure the tumults of a port, and the ruggedness of the
commercial race, brought them down to the sea-coast.
The prince and his sister, to whom everything was new,
were gratified equally at all places, and therefore remained for
some months at the port without any inclination to pass further.
RASSELAS.
37
Imlac was content with their stay, because he did not think it
safe to expose them, unpracticed in the world, to the hazards
of a foreign country.
At last he began to fear lest they should be discovered, and
proposed to fix a day for their departure. They had no preten-
sions to judge for themselves, and referred the whole scheme
to his direction. He therefore took passage in a ship to Suez;
and, when the time came, with great difficulty prevailed on the
princess to enter the vessel. They had a quick and prosperous
voyage; and from Suez travelled by land to Cairo.
CHAPTER XVI.
They enter Cairo, and find every man happy:
As they approached the city, which filled the strangers with
astonishment, "This," said Imlac to the prince, "is the place
where travellers and merchants assemble from all the corners
of the earth. You will here find men of every character, and
every occupation. Commerce is here honorable: I will act as
a merchant who has no other end of travel than curiosity; it
will soon be observed that we are rich; our reputation will
procure us access to all whom we shall desire to know; you
will see all the conditions of humanity, and enable yourself at
leisure to make your choice of life.”
They now entered the town, stunned by the noise and
offended by the crowds. Instruction had not yet so prevailed
over habit, but that they wondered to see themselves pass un-
distinguished along the street, and met by the lowest of the
people without reverence or notice. The princess could not at
first bear the thought of being levelled with the vulgar, and for
some days continued in her chamber, where she was served by
her favorite Pekuah as in the palace of the valley.
Imlac, who understood traffic, sold part of the jewels the
next day, and hired a house, which he adorned with such mag.
nificence, that he was immediately considered as a merchant of
great wealth. His politeness attracted many acquaintance, and
his generosity made him courted by many dependants. His
table was crowded by men of every nation, who all admired his
knowledge, and solicited his favor. His companions, not being
able to mix in the conversation, could make no discovery of
their ignorance or surprise, and were gradually initiated in the
world as they gained knowledge of the language.
38
RASSELAS.
The prince had, by frequent lectures, been taught the use
and nature of money; but the ladies could not for a long
time comprehend what the merchants did with small pieces of
gold and silver, or why things of so little use should be re-
ceived as equivalent to the necessaries of life.
They studied the language two years, while Imlac was pre-
paring to set before them the various ranks and conditions of
mankind. He grew acquainted with all who had anything
uncommon in their fortune or conduct. He frequented the
voluptuous and the frugal, the idle and the busy, the mer-
chants and the men of learning.
The prince being now able to converse with fluency, and
having learned the caution necessary to be observed in his in-
tercourse with strangers, began to accompany Imlac to places
of resort, and to enter into all assemblies, that he might make
his choice of life.
For some time he thought choice needless, because all ap-
peared to him equally happy. Wherever he went he met
gayety and kindness, and heard the song of joy or the laughter
of carelessness. He began to believe that the world over-
flowed with universal plenty, and that nothing was withheld
either from want or merit; that every hand showered liberality,
and every heart melted with benevolence; "and who then,
says he, "will be suffered to be wretched?
""
""
Imlac permitted the pleasing delusion, and was unwilling
to crush the hope of inexperience, till one day, having sat
awhile silent, "I know not," said the prince, "what can be
the reason that I am more unhappy than any of our friends.
I see them perpetually and unalterably cheerful, but feel my
own mind restless and uneasy. I am unsatisfied with those
pleasures which I seem most to court. I live in the crowds of
jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself, and
am only loud and merry to conceal my sadness."
"Every man," said Imlac, "may by examining his own
mind guess what passes in the minds of others: when you
feel that your own gayety is counterfeit, it may justly lead you
to suspect that of your companions not to be sincere. Envy
is commonly reciprocal. We are long before we are convinced
that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it pos-
sessed by others to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for
himself. In the assembly where you passed the last night,
there appeared such sprightliness of air and volatility of fancy
as might have suited beings of a higher order, formed to in-
habit serener regions inaccessible to care or sorrow; yet be
RASSELAS.
39
lieve me, prince, there was not one who did not dread the
moment when solitude should deliver him to the tyranny of
reflection."
"This," said the prince, "may be true of others, since it is
true of me; yet whatever be the general infelicity of man, one
condition is more happy than another, and wisdom surely
directs us to take the least evil in the choice of life."
"[
"The causes of good and evil," answered Imlac, are so
various and uncertain, so often entangled with each other, so
diversified by various relations, and so much subject to acci-
dents which cannot be foreseen, that he who would fix his con-
dition upon incontestible reasons of preference must live and
die inquiring and deliberating."
"But, surely," said Rasselas, "the wise men, to whom we
listen with reverence and wonder, chose that mode of life for
themselves which they thought most likely to make them
happy,"
(6
Very few," said the poet, "live by choice. Every man is
placed in his present condition by causes which acted without
his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly co-
operate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not
think the lot of his neighbor better than his own."
"I am pleased to think," said the prince," that my birth
has given me at least one advantage over others, by enabling
me to determine for myself. I have here the world before me;
I will review it at leisure; surely happiness is somewhere to be
found."
CHAPTER XVII.
The Prince associates with Young Men of Spirit and Gayety.
RASSELAS rose next day, and resolved to begin his experi-
ments upon life. "Youth," cried he, "is the time of glad-
ness: I will join myself to the young men, whose only busi-
ness is to gratify their desires, and whose time is all spent in
a succession of enjoyments."
To such societies he was readily admitted; but a few days
brought him back weary and disgusted. Their mirth was
without images; their laughter without motive; their pleasures
were gross and sensual, in which the mind had no part; their
conduct was at once wild and mean; they laughed at order
and law: but the frown of power dejected, and the eye of wis
dom abashed them.
43
fo
RASSELAS.
The prince soon concluded that he should never be happy
in a course of life of which he was ashamed. He thought it
unsuitable to a reasonable being to act without a plan, and to
be sad or cheerful only by chance. "Happiness," said he,
"must be something solid and permanent, without fear and
without uncertainty."
But his young companions had gained so much of his re-
gard by their frankness and courtesy that he could not leave
them without warning and remonstrance. "My friends," said
he, "I have seriously considered our manners and our pros
pects, and find that we have mistaken our own interest. The
first years of man must make provision for the last. He that
never thinks never can be wise. Perpetual levity must end in
ignorance; and intemperance, though it may fire the spirits for
an hour, will make life short or miserable. Let us consider
that youth is of no long duration, and that in maturer age,
when the enchantments of fancy shall cease, and phantoms of
delight dance no more about us, we shall have no comforts but
the esteem of wise men, and the means of doing good. Let
us, therefore, stop while to stop is in our power: let us live as
men who are sometimes to grow old, and to whom it will be
the most dreadful of all evils not to count their past years by
follies, and to be reminded of their former luxuriance of health
only by the maladies which riot has produced."
They stared awhile in silence one upon another, and at
last drove him away by a general chorus of continued laughter.
The consciousness that his sentiments were just, and his
intentions kind, was scarcely sufficient to support him against
the horror of derision. But he recovered his tranquillity, and
pursued his search.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Prince finds a Wise and Happy Man.
As he was one day walking in the street, he saw a spacio
building, which all were, by the open doors, invited to enter
he followed the stream of people and found it a hall or school
of declamation, in which professors read lectures to their audi-
tory. He fixed his eye upon a sage raised above the rest, who
discoursed with great energy on the government of the pas-
sions. His look was venerable, his action graceful, his pro-
nunciation clear, and his diction elegant. He showed, with
RASSELAS.
41
great strength of sentiment and variety of illustration, that
human nature is degraded and debased when the lower facul
ties predominate over the higher; that when fancy, the parent
of passion, usurps the dominion of the mind, nothing ensues
but the natural effect of unlawful government, perturbation,
and confusion; that she betrays the fortresses of the intellect
to rebels, and excites her children to sedition against reason,
their lawful sovereign. He compared reason to the sun, of
which the light is constant, uniform, and lasting; and fancy to
a meteor, of bright but transitory lustre, irregular in its motion,
and delusive in its direction.
He then communicated the various precepts given from
time to time for the conquest of passion, and displayed the
happiness of those who had obtained the important victory,
after which man is no longer the slave of fear, nor the fool of
hope; is no more emaciated by envy, inflamed by anger,
emasculated by tenderness, or depressed by grief; but walks
on calmly through the tumults or privacies of life, as the sun
pursues alike his course through the calm or the stormy sky.
He enumerated many examples of heroes immovable by
pain or pleasure, who looked with indifference on those modes
or accidents to which the vulgar give the names of good and
evil. He exhorted his hearers to lay aside their prejudices,
and arm themselves against the shafts of malice or misfortune,
by invulnerable patience; concluding, that this state only was
happiness, and that this happiness was in everyone's power.
Rasselas listened to him with the veneration due to the in-
structions of a superior being; and, waiting for him at the
door, humbly implored the liberty of visiting so great a master
of true wisdom. The lecturer hesitated a moment, when Ras-
selas put a purse of gold into his hand, which he received with
a mixture of joy and wonder.
66
"I have found," said the prince, at his return to Imlac, a
man who can teach all that is necessary to be known, who,
from the unshaken throne of rational fortitude, looks down on
the scenes of life changing beneath him. He speaks, and at-
tention watches his lips. He reasons, and conviction closes
his periods. This man shall be my future guide: I will learn
bis doctrines and imitate his life."
"Be not too hasty," said Imlac, "to trust, or to admire,
the teachers of morality; they discourse like angels, but they
live like men."
Rasselas, who could not conceive how any man could reason
so forcibly without feeling the cogency of his own arguments,
42
RASSELAS..
،،
paid his visit in a few days, and was denied admission. He
had now learned the power of money, and made his way by a
piece of gold to the inner apartment, where he found the phi
losopher in a room half darkened, with his eyes misty, and his
face pale. “Sir," said he, you are come at a time when all
human friendship is useless; what I suffer cannot be remedied,
what I have lost cannot be supplied. My daughter, my only
daughter, from whose tenderness I expected all the comforts
of my age, died last night of a fever. My views, my purposes,
my hopes are at an end: I am now a lonely being disunited
from society."
(C
Sir," said the prince, “mortality is an event by which a
wise man can never be surprised: we know that death is
always near, and it should therefore always be expected."
"Young man," answered the philosopher, "you speak like one
that has never felt the pangs of separation." "Have you then
forgot the precepts," said Rasselas, "which you so powerfully.
enforced? Has wisdom no strength to arm the heart against
calamity? Consider that external things are naturally vari-
able, but truth and reason are always the same.
"What com-
fort,” said the mourner, can truth and reason afford me? of
what effect are they now, but to tell me, that my daughter will
not be restored?
""
""
66
Mag
The prince, whose humanity would not suffer him to insult
misery with reproof, went away convinced of the emptiness of
rhetorical sound, and the inefficacy of polished periods and
studied sentences.
CHAPTER XIX.
A Glimpse of Pastoral Life.
He was still eager upon the same inquiry; and having
heard of a hermit that lived near the lowest cataract of the
Nile, and filled the whole country with the fame of his sanctity,
resolved to visit his retreat, and inquire whether that felicity,
which public life could not afford, was to be found in solitude;
and whether a man whose age and virtue made him venerable,
could teach any peculiar art of shunning evils or enduring
them?
Imlac and the princess agreed to accompany him; and,
after the necessary preparations, they began their journey.
Their way lay through the fields, where shepherds tended their
RASSELAS
43
પ
flocks, and the lambs were playing upon the pasture. This,'
said the poet, "is the life which has been often celebrated for
its innocence and quiet; let us pass the heat of the day among
the shepherds' tents, and know whether all our searches are
not to terminate in pastoral simplicity."
The proposal pleased them, and they induced the shep-
herds, by small presents, and familiar questions, to tell their
opinion of their own state; they were so rude and ignorant, so
little able to compare the good with the evil of the occupation,
and so indistinct in their narratives and descriptions, that very
little could be learned from them. But it was evident that
their hearts were cankered with discontent; that they con-
sidered themselves as condemned to labor for the luxury of
the rich, and looked up with stupid malevolence toward those
that were placed above them.
The princess pronounced with vehemence, that she would
never suffer these envious savages to be her companions, and
that she should not soon be desirous of seeing any more speci-
mens of rustic happiness; but could not believe that all the
accounts of primeval pleasures were fabulous; and was yet in
doubt, whether life had anything that could be justly preferred
to the placid gratifications of fields and woods. She hoped
that the time would come, when, with a few virtuous and ele-
gant companions, she should gather flowers planted by her own
hand, fondle the lambs of her own ewe, and listen, without care,
among brooks and breezes, to one of her maidens reading in
the shade.
CHAPTER XX.
The Danger of Prosperity.
On the next day they continued their journey, till the heat
compelled them to look round for shelter. At a small distance
they saw a thick wood, which they no sooner entered than they
perceived that they were approaching the habitations of men.
The shrubs were diligently cut away to open walks where the
shades were darkest: the boughs of opposite trees were artificially
interwoven; seats of flowery turf were raised in vacant spaces:
and a rivulet that wantoned along the side of a winding path,
had its banks sometimes opened into small basins, and its
stream sometimes obstructed by little mounds of stone heaped
together to increase its murmurs.
44
RASSELAS.
They passed slowly through the wood, delighted with such
unexpected accommodations, and entertained each other with
conjecturing what, or who he could be, that, in those rude and
unfrequented regions, had leisure and art for such harmless
luxury.
As they advanced, they heard the sound of music, and saw
youths and virgins dancing in the grove; and, going still fur-
ther, beheld a stately palace built upon a hill surrounded with
woods. The laws of eastern hospitality allowed them to enter,
and the master welcomed them like a man liberal and wealthy.
He was skilful enough in appearances soon to discern that
they were no common guests, and spread his table with magni-
ficence. The eloquence of Imlac caught his attention, and the
lofty courtesy of the princess excited his respect. When they
offered to depart he entreated their stay, and was the next day
still more unwilling to dismiss them than before. They were
easily persuaded to stop, and civility grew up in time to freedom
and confidence.
The prince now saw all the domestics cheerful, and all the
face of nature smiling round the place, and could not forbear
to hope he should find here what he was seeking; but when he
was congratulating the master upon his possessions, he an-
swered with a sigh, "My condition has indeed the appearance
of happiness, but appearances are delusive. My prosperity
puts my life in danger; the Bassa of Egypt is my enemy, in-
censed only by my wealth and popularity. I have hitherto
been protected against him by the princes of the country; but
as the favor of the great is uncertain, I know not how soon my
defenders may be persuaded to share the plunder with the
Bassa. I have sent my treasures into a distant country, and,
upon the first alarm, am prepared to follow them. Then will
my enemies riot in my mansion, and enjoy the gardens which I
have planted."
They all joined in lamenting his danger, and deprecating
his exile; and the princess was so much disturbed with the
tumult of grief and indignation that she retired to her apart-
ment.
They continued with their kind inviter a few days longer,
and then went forward to find the hermit.
RASSELAS.
45
CHAPTER XXI.
The Happiness of Solitude. The Hermit's History.
THEY came on the third day, by the direction of the peas-
ants, to the hermit's cell: it was a cavern in the side of a moun-
tain, overshadowed with palm trees; at such a distance from
the cataract that nothing more was heard than a gentle uniform
murmur, such as composed the mind to pensive meditation,
especially when it was assisted by the wind whistling among
the branches. The first rude essay of nature had been so much
improved by human labor that the cave contained several
apartments appropriated to different uses, and often afforded
lodging to travellers, whom darkness or tempests happened to
overtake.
The hermit sat on a bench at the door to enjoy the coolness
of the evening. On one side lay a book with pens and papers,
on the other, mechanical instruments of various kinds. As
they approached him unregarded, the princess observed that he
had not the countenance of a man that had found, or could
teach the way to happiness.
•
They saluted him with great respect, which he repaid like a
man not unaccustomed to the forms of courts. "My children,"
said he, "if you have lost your way, you shall be willingly sup-
plied with such conveniencies for the night as this cavern will
afford. I have all that nature requires, and you will not ex-
pect delicacies in a hermit's cell."
They thanked him; and, entering, were pleased with the
neatness and regularity of the place. The hermit set flesh and
wine before them, though he fed only upon fruits and water.
His discourse was cheerful without levity, and pious without
enthusiasm. He soon gained the esteem of his guests, and the
princess repented of her hasty censure.
At last Imlac began thus: "I do not now wonder that your
reputation is so far extended: we have heard at Cairo of your
wisdom, and came hither to implore your direction for this
young man and maiden in the choice of life."
To him that lives well," answered the hermit, " every form
of life is good; nor can I give any other rule for choice than
to remove from all apparent evil."
"He will remove most certainly from evil," said the prince,
46
RASSELAS.
"who shall devote himself to that solitude which you have re
commended by your example."
"I have indeed lived fifteen years in solitude," said the
hermit, "but have no desire that my example should gain any
imitators. In my youth I professed arms, and was raised by
degrees to the highest military rank. I have traversed wide
countries at the head of my troops, and seen many battles and
sieges. At last, being disgusted by the preferments of a
younger officer, and feeling that my vigor was beginning to de-
cay, I resolved to close my life in peace, having found the
world full of snares, discord, and misery. I had once escaped
from the pursuit of the enemy by the shelter of this cavern, and
therefore chose it for my final residence. I employed artificers
to form it into chambers, and stored it with all that I was likely
to want.
"For some time after my retreat, I rejoiced like a tempest
beaten sailor at his entrance into the harbor, being delighted
with the sudden change of the noise and hurry of war to still-
ness and repose. When the pleasures of novelty went away, I
employed my hours in examining the plants which grew in the
valley, and the minerals which I collected from the rocks. But
that inquiry is now grown tasteless and irksome. I have been
for some time unsettled and distracted: my mind is disturbed
with a thousand perplexities of doubt, and vanities of imagina-
tion, which hourly prevail upon me, because I have no oppor-
tunities of relaxation or diversion. I am sometimes ashamed
to think that I could not secure myself from vice, but by re-
tiring from the exercise of virtue, and begin to suspect that I
was rather impelled by resentment than led by devotion into
solitude. My fancy riots in scenes of folly, and I lament that
I have lost so much, and have gained so little. In solitude, if
I escape the example of bad men, I want likewise the counsel
and conversation of the good. I have been long comparing
the evils with the advantages of society, and resolve to return
into the world to-morrow. The life of a solitary man will be
certainly miserable, but not certainly devout."
They heard his resolution with surprise, but after a short
pause offered to conduct him to Cairo. He dug up a con-
siderable treasure which he had hid among the rocks, and
accompanied them to the city, on which, as he approached it,
he gazed with rapture.
NASSELAS.
特
​CHAPTER XXII.
The Happiness of a Life led according to Nature.
RASSELAS went often to an assembly of learned men, who
met at stated times to unbend their minds, and compare their
opinions. Their manners were somewhat coarse, but their
conversation was instructive, and their disputations acute,
though sometimes too violent, and often continued till neither
controvertist remembered upon what question they began.
Some faults were almost general among them: everyone was
desirous to dictate to the rest, and everyone was pleased to
hear the genius or knowledge of another depreciated.
In this assembly Rasselas was relating his interview with
the hermit, and the wonder with which he heard him censure a
course of life which he had so deliberately chosen, and so
laudably followed. The sentiments of the hearers were vari-
ous. Some were of opinion that the folly of his choice had
been justly punished by condemnation to perpetual persever-
One of the youngest among them, with great vehemence,
pronounced him a hypocrite. Some talked of the right of so--
ciety to the labor of individuals, and considered retirement as
a desertion from duty. Others readily allowed, that there was
a time when the claims of the public were satisfied, and when
a man might properly sequester himself to review his life and
purify his heart.
ance.
One, who appeared more affected with the narrative than
the rest, thought it likely that the hermit would, in a few years,
go back to his retreat, and perhaps, if shame did not restrain,
or death intercept him, return once more from his retreat into
the world: "For the hope of happiness," said he, "is so
strongly impressed that the longest experience is not able to
efface it. Of the present state, whatever it be, we feel, and are
forced to confess, the misery; yet, when the same state is again
at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable. But the time
will surely come, when desire will be no longer our tormentor,
and no man shall be wretched but by his own fault."
66
This," said a philosopher, who had heard him with tokens
of great impatience, "is the present condition of a wise man.
The time is already come when none are wretched but by their
own fault. Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happi-
48
RASSELAS.
ness, which nature nas kindly placed within our reach. The
way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to
that universal and unalterable law with which every heart is.
originally impressed; which is not written on it by precept, but
engraven by destiny, not instilled by education, but infused at
our nativity. He that lives according to nature will suffer
nothing from the delusions of hope, or importunities of desire:
he will receive and reject with equability of temper; and act
or suffer as the reason of things shall alternately prescribe.
Other men may amuse themselves with subtle definitions, or
intricate ratiocinations. Let them learn to be wise by easier
means: let them observe the hind of the forest, and the linnet
of the grove: let them consider the life of animals, whose mo-
tions are regulated by instinct: they obey their guide, and are
happy. Let us therefore, at length, cease to dispute, and learn
to live; throw away the incumbrance of precepts, which they
who utter them with so much pride and pomp do not under-
stand, and carry with us this simple and intelligible maxim,
That deviation from nature is deviation from happiness."
When he had spoken, he looked round him with a placid
air, and enjoyed the consciousness of his own beneficence.
"Sir," said the prince, with great modesty," as I, like all the
rest of mankind, am desirous of felicity, my closest attention
has been fixed upon your discourse; I doubt not the truth of
a position which a man so learned has so confidently advanced.
Let me only know what it is to live according to nature?"
"When I find young men so humble and so docile," said
the philosopher, "I can deny them no information which my
studies have enabled me to afford. To live according to nature
is to act always with due regard to the fitness arising from the
relations and qualities of causes and effects: to concur with
the great and unchangeable scheme of universal felicity; to
co-operate with the general disposition and tendency of the
present system of things."
The prince soon found that this was one of the sages whom
he should understand less as he heard him longer. He there-
fore bowed and was silent; and the philosopher, supposing
him satisfied, and the rest vanquished, rose up, and departed
with the air of a man that had co-operated with the present
system.
RASSELAS
49
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Prince and his Sister divide between them the Work of Observation.
RASSELAS returned home full of reflections, doubtful how to
direct his future steps. Of the way to happiness he found the
learned and simple equally ignorant; but, as he was yet young,
he flattered himself that he had time remaining for more ex-
periments and further inquiries. He communicated to Imlac
his observations and his doubts, but was answered by him with
new doubts, and remarks that gave him no comfort. He there
fore discoursed more frequently and freely with his sister, who
had yet the same hope with himself, and always assisted him
to give some reason why, though he had been hitherto frus-
trated, he might succeed at last.
"We have hitherto," said she, "known but little of the
world: we have never yet been either great or mean.
In our
own country, though we had royalty, we had no power; and in
this we have not yet seen the private recesses of domestic
peace. Imlac favors not our search, lest we should in time
find him mistaken. We will divide the task between us: you
shall try what is to be found in the splendor of courts, and I
will range the shades of humbler life. Perhaps command and
authority may be the supreme blessings, as they afford most
opportunities of doing good; or, perhaps, what this world can
give may be found in the modest habitations of middle fortune
too low for great designs, and too high for penury and distress."
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Prince Examines the Happiness of High Stations.
RASSELAS applauded the design, and appeared next day
with a splendid retinue at the court of the Bassa. He was soon
distinguished for his magnificence, and admitted, as a prince
whose curiosity had brought him from distant countries, to an
intimacy with the great officers, and frequent conversation with
the Bassa himself.
He was at first inclined to believe, that the man must be
pleased with his own condition whom all approached with rever-
50
RASSELAS.
ence, and heard with obedience, and who had the power to ex-
tend his edicts to a whole kingdom. "There can be no pleasure,"
said he, “equal to that of feeling at once the joy of thousands
all made happy by wise administration. Yet, since by the law
of subordination this sublime delight can be in one nation but
the lot of one, it is surely reasonable to think that there is some
satisfaction more popular and accessible, and that millions can
hardly be subjected to the will of a single man, only to fill his
particular breast with incommunicable content."
These thoughts were often in his mind, and he found no
solution of the difficulty. But as presents and civilities gained
him more familiarity, he found that almost every man who stood
high in employment hated all the rest, and was hated by them,
and that their lives were a continual succession of plots and de-
tections, stratagems and escapes, faction and treachery. Many
of those who surrounded the Bassa were sent only to watch and
report his conduct; every tongue was muttering censure, and
every eye was searching for a fault.
At last the letters of revocation arrived, the Bassa was car-
ried in chains to Constantinople, and his name was mentioned
no more.
"What are we now to think of the prerogatives of power?
said Rasselas to his sister; "is it without any efficacy to good?
or, is the subordinate degree only dangerous, and the supreme
safe and glorious? Is the Sultan the only happy man in his
dominions? or, is the Sultan himself subject to the torments
of suspicion, and the dread of enemies?"
""
In a short time the second Bassa was deposed. The Sultan
that had advanced him was murdered by the Janizaries, and
his successor had other views and different favorites.
CHAPTER XXV.
The Princess Pursues her Inquiry with more Diligence than Success.
THE princess, in the mean time, insinuated herself into
many families; for there are few doors through which liberality,
joined with good humor, cannot find its way. The daughters
of many houses were airy and cheerful; but Nekayah had been
too long accustomed to the conversation of Imlac and her
brother, to be much pleased with childish levity, and prattle which
had no meaning. She found their thoughts narrow, their wishes
low, and their merriment often artificial. Their pleasures, poor as
RASSELAS.
51
they were, could not be preserved pure, but were imbittered by
petty competitions and worthless emulation. They were always
jealous of the beauty of each other; of a quality to which solici
tude can add nothing, and from which detraction can take
nothing away. Many were in love with triflers like themselves,
and many fancied that they were in love when in truth they
were only idle. Their affection was not fixed on sense or virtue,
and therefore seldom ended but in vexation. Their grief, how-
ever, like their joy, was transient: everything floated in their
mind unconnected with the past or future, so that one desire
easily gave way to another, as a second stone cast into the
water effaces and confounds the circles of the first.
With these girls she played as with inoffensive animals, and
found them proud of her countenance, and weary of her com-
pany.
-
But her purpose was to examine more deeply, and her affa-
bility easily persuaded the hearts that were swelling with sorrow
to discharge their secrets in her ear: and those whom hope
flattered, or prosperity delighted, often courted her to partake
their pleasures.
،،
The princess and her brother commonly met in the evening
in a private summer-house on the bank of the Nile, and related
to each other the occurrences of the day. As they were sitting
together, the princess cast her eyes upon the river that flowed
before her. Answer," said she, "great father of waters, thou
that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the invocations
of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me if thou waterest
through all thy course, a single habitation from which thou dost
not hear the murmurs of complaint !
""
"You are then," said Rasselas, "not more successful in
private houses than I have been in courts." "I have, since
the last partition of our provinces," said the princess, "enabled
myself to enter familiarly into many families, where there was
the fairest show of prosperity and peace, and know not one
house that is not haunted by some fury that destroys their
quiet.
"I did not seek ease among the poor, because I concluded
that there it could not be found. But I saw many poor, whom
I had supposed to live in affluence. Poverty has, in large cities,
very different appearances: it is often concealed in splendor,
and often in extravagance. It is the care of a very great part
of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest; they sup-
port themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost.
'n contriving for the morrow.
52
RASSELAS.
+
i
¿
"This, however, was an evil which, though frequent, I saw
with less pain, because I could relieve it. Yet some have
refused my bounties; more offended with my quickness to detect
their wants than pleased with my readiness to succor them, and
others, whose exigencies compelled them to admit my kindness,
have never been able to forgive their benefactress. Many,
however, have been sincerely grateful, without the ostentation
of gratitude, or the hope of other favors."
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Princess Continues her Remarks upon Private Life.
NEKAYAH, perceiving her brother's attention fixed, pro-
ceeded in her narrative.
"In families, where there is or is not poverty, there is
commonly discord: if a kingdom be, as Imlac tells us, a great
family, a family likewise is a little kingdom, torn with factions
and exposed to revolutions. An unpracticed observer expects
the love of parents and children to be constant and equal;
but this kindness seldom continues beyond the years of
infancy; in a short time the children become rivals to their
parents. Benefits are allayed by reproaches, and gratitude
debased by envy.
"Parents and children seldom act in concert: each child
endeavors to appropriate the esteem or fondness of the
parents, and the parents, with yet less temptation, betray each
other to their children: thus some place their confidence in
the father, and some in the mother, and by degrees the house
is filled with artifices and feuds.
"The opinions of children and parents, of the young and
the old, are naturally opposite, by the contrary effects of hope
and despondence, of expectation and experience, without
crime or folly on either side. The colors of life in youth and
age appear different, as the face of nature in spring and
winter. And how can children credit the assertions of pa-
rents, which their own eyes show them to be false?
"Few parents act in such a manner as much to enforce
their maxims by the credit of their lives. The old man trusts
wholly to slow contrivance and gradual progression: the youth
expects to force his way by genius, vigor, and precipitance.
The old man pays regard to riches, and the youth reverences
virtue. The old man defies prudence: the youth commits
RASSELAS.
53
himself to magnanimity and chance. The young man, who
intends no ill, believes that none is intended, and therefore
acts with openness and candor; but his father, having suf-
fered the injuries of fraud, is impelled to suspect, and too
often allured to practice it. Age looks with anger on the
temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity
of age.
Thus parents and children, for the greatest part, live
on to love less and less: and if those whom nature has thus
closely united are the torments of each other, where shall we
look for tenderness and consolation."
..
Surely," said the prince, "you must have been unfortunate
in your choice of acquaintance: I am unwilling to believe, that
the most tender of all relations is thus impeded in its effects
by natural necessity."
"Domestic discord," answered she, “ is not inevitably and
fatally necessary; but yet it is not easy to avoid. We seldom
see that a whole family is virtuous; the good and evil cannot
well agree; and the evil can yet less agree with one another
even the virtuous fall sometimes to variance, when their virtues
are of different kinds, and tending to extremes. In general,
those parents have most reverence that most deserve it: for he
that lives well cannot be despised.
((
Many other evils infest private life. Some are the slaves
of servants whom they have trusted with their affairs. Some
are kept in continual anxiety by the caprice of rich relations,
whom they cannot please and dare not offend. Some hus-
bands are imperious, and some wives perverse and as it is
always more easy to do evil than good, though the wisdom or
virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or
vice of one may often make many miserable."
"If such be the general effect of marriage," said the prince,
"I shall, for the future, think it dangerous to connect my
interest with that of another, lest I should be unhappy by my
partner's fault.”
"I have met," said the princess, "with many who live
single for that reason; but I have never found that their pru-
dence ought to raise envy. They dream away their time with-
out friendship, without fondness, and are driven to rid them-
selves of the day, for which they have no use, by childish
amusements or vicious delights. They act as beings under the
constant sense of some known inferiority, that fills their minds
with rancor; and their tongues with censure. They are
peevish at home, and malevolent abroad; and, as the outlaws
of human nature, make it their business and their pleasure to
54
RASSELAS.
disturb that society which debars them from its privileges.
To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate
without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without
tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude ;
it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has
many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."
66
What, then, is to be done?" said Rasselas ; "the more
we inquire the less we can resolve. Surely he is most likely
to please himself that has no other inclination or regard."
CHAPTER XXVII.
Disquisition upon Greatness.
THE conversation had a short pause. The prince, having
considered his sister's observations, told her, that she had sur-
veyed life with prejudice, and supposed misery where she did
not find it. “Your narrative," says he, "throws yet a darker
gloom upon the prospects of futurity; the predictions of Imlac
were but faint sketches of the evils painted by Nekayah. I
have been lately convinced that quiet is not the daughter of
grandeur or of power: that her presence is not to be bought
by wealth, nor enforced by conquest. It is evident, that as
any man acts in a wider compass, he must be more exposed
to opposition from enmity, or miscarriage from chance; who-
ever has many to please or to govern must use the ministry of
many agents, some of whom will be wicked, and some ignor-
ant; by some he will be misled, and by others betrayed. If
he gratifies one, he will offend another: those that are not
favored will think themselves injured: and, since favors can
be conferred but upon few, the greater number will be always
discontented."
•
·
"The discontent," said the princess, "which is thus un-
reasonable, I hope that I shall always have spirit to despise,
and you power to repress."
Discontent," answered Rasselas, "will not always be with-
out reason under the most just and vigilant administration of
public affairs. None, however attentive, can always discover
that merit which indulgence or faction may happen to obscure;
and none, however powerful, can always reward it. Yet he
that sees inferior desert advanced above him will naturally im-
pute that preference to partiality or caprice; and, indeed, it can
scarcely be hoped that any man, however magnanimous by
RASSELAS.
55
nature, or exalted by condition, will be able to persist forever
in the fixed and inexorable justice of distribution; he will some-
times indulge his own affections, and sometimes those of his
favorites; he will permit some to please him who can never
serve him; he will discover, in those whom he loves, qualities
which in reality they do not possess; and to those, from whom
he receives pleasure, he will in his turn endeavor to give it.
Thus will recommendations sometimes prevail which were pur-
chased by money, or by the more destructive bribery of flattery
and servility.
"He that has much to do will do something wrong, and of
that wrong must suffer the consequences; and if it were pos-
sible that he should always act rightly, yet when such numbers
are to judge of his conduct, the bad will censure and obstruct
him by malevolence, and the good sometimes by mistake.
The highest stations cannot therefore hope to be abodes
of happiness, which I would willingly believe to have fled from
thrones and palaces to seats of humble rivacy and placid ob-
scurity. For what can hinder the satisfaction, or intercept the
expectations, of him whose abilities are adequate to his employ-
ments, who sees with his own eyes the whole circuit of his influ-
ence, who chooses by his own knowledge all whom he trusts,
and whom none are tempted to deceive by hope or fear?
Surely he has nothing to do but to love and to be loved, to be
virtuous, and to be happy."
"Whether perfect happiness would be procured by perfect
goodness," said Nekayah, "this world will never afford an op-
portunity of deciding. But this, at least, may be maintained,
that we do not always find visible happiness in proportion to
visible virtue. All natural and almost all political evils are
incident alike to the bad and good: they are confounded in the
misery of a famine, and not much distinguished in the fury of
a faction; they sink together in a tempest, and are driven
together from their country by invaders. All that virtue can
afford is quietness of conscience, a steady prospect of a hap-
pier state; this may enable us to endure calamity with patience;
but remember that pritience must suppose pain."
14
so
RASSELAS.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Rasselas and Nekeyah Continue their Conversation.
"DEAR princess," said Rasselas, "you fall into the common
errors of exaggeratory declamation, by producing, in a familiar
disquisition, examples of national calamities, and scenes of ex-
tensive misery, which are found in books rather than in the
world, and which, as they are horrid, are ordained to be rare.
Let us not imagine evils which we do not feel, nor injure life
by misrepresentations. I cannot bear that querulous eloquence
which threatens every city with a siege like that of Jerusalem,
that makes famine attend on every flight of locusts, and sus-
pends pestilence on the wing of every blast that issues from the
south.
66
'On necessary and inevitable evils, which overwhelm king-
doms at once, all disputation is vain: when they happen, they
must be endured. But it is evident that these bursts of universal
distress are more dreaded than felt; thousands and ten thousands
flourish in youth and wither in age, without the knowledge of
any other than domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and
vexations, whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the
armies of their country pursue their enemies or retreat before
them. While courts are disturbed with intestine competitions,
and ambassadors are negotiating in foreign countries, the smith
still plies his anvil, and the husbandman drives his plough for-
ward: the necessaries of life are required and obtained; and
the successive business of the seasons continues to make its
wonted revolutions.
"Let us cease to consider what, perhaps, may never happen,
and what, when it shall happen, will laugh at human specula
tion. We will not endeavor to modify the motions of the ele-
ments, or to fix the destiny of kingdoms. It is our business to
consider what beings like us may perform; each laboring for
his own happiness by promoting within his circle, however nar-
row, the happiness of others.
66
Marriage is evidently the dictate of nature; men and women
are made to be companions of each other, and therefore I can-
not be persuaded but that marriage is one of the means of hap-
piness.
""
"I know not," said the princess, "whether marriage be
more than one of the innumerable modes of human misery.
RASSELAS.
57
When see and reckon the various forms of connubial infelicity,
the unexpected causes of lasting discord, the diversities of
temper, the oppositions of opinion, the rude collisions of contrary
desire where both are urged by violent impulses, the obstinate con-
tests of disagreeable virtues where both are supported by con-
sciousness of good intention, I am sometimes disposed to think,
with the severer casuists of most nations, that marriage is rather
permitted than approved, and that none, but by the instigation
of a passion too much indulged, entangle themselves with in-
dissoluble compacts."
"You seem to forget," replied Rasselas, "that you have,
even now, represented celibacy as less happy than marriage.
Both conditions may be bad, but they cannot both be worst.
Thus it happens when wrong opinions are entertained, that
they mutually destroy each other, and leave the mind open to
truth."
"I did not expect," answered the princess, "to hear that
imputed to falsehood which is the consequence only of frailty.
To the mind, as to the eye, it is difficult to compare with exact-
ness objects vast in their extent, and various in their parts.
Where we see or conceive the whole at once, we readily note
the discriminations, and decide the preference; but of two sys-
tems, of which neither can be surveyed by any human being in
its full compass of magnitude and multiplicity of complication,
where is the wonder that, judging of the whole by parts, I am
alternately affected by one and the other, as either presses on
my memory or fancy? We differ from ourselves just as we differ
from each other, when we see only parts of the question, as in
the multifarious relations of politics and morality; but when we
perceive the whole at once, as numerical computations, all agree
in one judgment, and none ever varies his opinion."
"Let us not add," said the prince, " to the other evils of
life the bitterness of controversy, nor endeavor to vie with each
other in subtilties of argument. We are employed in a search,
of which both are equally to enjoy the success, or suffer by the
miscarriage. It is therefore fit that we assist each other. You
surely conclude too hastily from the infelicity of marriage
against its institution: will not the misery of life prove equally
that life cannot be the gift of Heaven? The world must be
peopled by marriage, or peopled without it."
How the world is to be peopled," returned Nekayah, "is
not my care, and needs not be yours. I see no danger that the
present generation should omit to leave successors behind them:
we are not now inquiring for the world, but for ourselves."
RASSELAS
:
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Debate of Marriage Continued.
"THE good of the whole," says Rasselas, "is the same
with the good of all its parts. If marriage be best for man-
kind, it must be evidently best for individuals, or a permanent.
and necessary duty must be the cause of evil, and some must
be inevitably sacrificed to the convenience of others. In the
estimate which you have made of the two states, it appears that
the incommodities of a single life are, in a great measure,
necessary and certain, but those of the conjugal state accidental
and avoidable.
"I cannot forbear to flatter myself, that prudence and ben-
evolence will make marriage happy. The general folly of man-
kind is the cause of general complaint. What can be expected
but disappointment and repentance from a choice made in the
immaturity of youth, in the ardor of desire, without judgment,
without foresight, without inquiry after conformity of opinions,
similarity of manners, rectitude of judgment, or purity of senti-
ment?
"Such is the common process of marriage. A youth or
maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, ex-
change glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of
one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify
thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and
therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They
marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness be-
fore had concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and
charge nature with cruelty.
66
"From those early marriages proceeds likewise the rivalry
of parents and children; the son is eager to enjoy the world
before the father is willing to forsake it, and there is hardly
room at once for two generations. The daughter begins to
bloom before the mother can be content to fade, and neither
can forbear to wish for the absence of the other.
Surely all these evils may be avoided by that deliberation
and delay which prudence prescribes to irrevocable choice. In
the variety and jollity of youthful pleasures life may be well
enough supported without the help of a partner. Longer time
will increase experience, and wider views will allow better
RASSELAS
59
opportunities of inquiry and selection: one advantage, at least,
will be certain; the parents will be visibly older than their
children."
"What reason cannot collect," said Nekayah, “and what
experiment has not yet taught, can be known only from the re-
port of others. I have been told that late marriages are not
eminently happy. This is a question too important to be
neglected, and I have often proposed it to those whose accu-
racy of remark and comprehensiveness of knowledge made
their suffrages worthy of regard. They have generally deter-
mined that it is dangerous for a man and woman to suspend
their fate upon each other, at a time when opinions are fixed,
and habits are established; when friendships have been con-
tracted on both sides, when life has been planned into method,
and the mind has long enjoyed the contemplation of its own
prospects.
"It is scarcely possible that two, travelling through the
world, under the conduct of chance, should have been both
directed to the same path, and it will not often happen that
either will quit the track which custom has made pleasing.
When the desultory levity of youth has settled into regularity,
it is soon succeeded by pride ashamed to yield, or obstinacy
delighting to contend. And even though mutual esteem pro-
duces mutual desire to please, time itself, as it modifies un-
changeably the external mien, determines likewise the direction
of the passions, and gives an inflexible rigidity to the manners.
Long customs are not easily broken: he that attempts to change
the course of his own life very often labors in vain: and how
shall we do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for
ourselves?"
"But surely," interposed the prince, "you suppose the chief
motive of choice forgotten or neglected. Whenever I shall
seek a wife, it shall be my first question, whether she be willing
to be led by reason?"
"Thus it is," said Nekayah, "that philosophers are de-
ceived. There are a thousand familiar disputes which reason
never can decide; questions that elude investigation, and
make logic ridiculous; cases where something must be done,
and where little can be said. Consider the state of mankind,
and inquire how few can be supposed to act upon any occa-
sions, whether small or great, with all the reasons of action
present to their minds. Wretched would be the pair above all
names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust by
reason, every morning, all the minute detail of a domestic day.
60
RASSELAS.
"Those who marry at an advanced age will probably escape
the encroachments of their children; but, in diminution of this
advantage, they will be likely to leave them, ignorant and help-
less, to a guardian's mercy: or, if that should not happen, they
must at least go out of the world before they see those whom
they love best either wise or great.
"From their children, if they have less to fear, they
have less also to hone; and they lose, without equivalent, the
joys of early love. and the convenience of uniting with manners
pliant, and minds susceptible of new impressions, which might
wear away their dissimilitudes by long cohabitation; as soft
bodies, by continual attrition, conform their surfaces to each
other.
“I believe it will be found that those who marry late are
best pleased with their children, and those who marry early
with their partners."
"The union of these two affections," said Rasselas, “would
produce all that could be wished. Perhaps there is a time
when marriage might unite them, a time neither too early for
the father, nor too late for the husband."
66
'Every hour," answered the princess, "confirms my preju-
dice in favor of the position so often uttered by the mouth of
Imlac, ‘That nature sets her gifts on the right hand and on the
left.' Those conditions, which flatter hope and attract desire,
are so constituted, that, as we approach one, we recede from
another. There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize
both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at
too great a distance to reach either. This is often the fate of
long consideration; he does nothing who endeavors to do
more than is allowed to humanity. Flatter not yourself with
contrarieties of pleasure. Of the blessings set before you make
your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of
autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of
spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the
source and from the mouth of the Nile."
•
CHAPTER XXX.
Imlac enters, and changes the Conversation.
HERE Imlac entered and interrupted them. "Imlac," said
Rasselas, "I have been taking from the princess the dismal
history of private life, and am almost discouraged from further
search."
RASSELAS.
61
"It seems to me," said Imlac, "that while you are making
the choice of life, you neglect to live. You wander about a
single city, which, however large and diversified, can now afford
few novelties, and forget that you are in a country famous
among the earliest monarchies for the power and wisdom of its
inhabitants; a country where the sciences first dawned that
illuminate the world, and beyond which the arts cannot be
traced of civil society or domestic life.
"The old Egyptians have left behind them monuments of
industry and power, before which all European magnificence is
confessed to fade away. The ruins of their architecture are
the schools of modern builders, and from the wonders which
time has spared, we may conjecture, though uncertainly, what
it has destroyed.”
،،
My curiosity," said Rasselas, “does not very strongly lead
me to survey the piles of stone or mounds of earth; my
business is with man. I came hither not to measure fragments
of temples, or trace choked aqueducts, but to look upon the
various scenes of the present world."
"The things that are now before us," said the princess,
require attention and deserve it. What have I to do with the
heroes or the monuments of ancient times? with times which
never can return, and heroes, whose form of life was different
from all that the present condition of man requires or allows?"
"To know anything," returned the poet, "we must know
its effects; to see men we must see their works, that we may
learn what reason has dictated, or passion has incited, and find
what are the most powerful motives of action. To judge rightly
of the present, we must oppose it to the past; for all judgment
is comparative, and of the future nothing can be known. The
truth is, that no mind is much employed upon the present;
recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.
Our passions are joy and grief, love and hatred, hope and fear.
Of joy and grief the past is the object, and the future of hope and
fear; even love and hatred respect the past, for the cause must
have been before the effect.
66
"The present state of things is the consequence of the for-
mer, and it is natural to inquire what were the sources of the
good that we enjoy, or the evil that we suffer. If we act only
for ourselves, to neglect the study of history is not prudent: if
we are intrusted with the care of others, it is not just. Ignor-
ance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may be properly
charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it.
"There is no part of history so generally useful as that which
62
RASSELAS.
relates the progress of the human mind, the gradual improve-
ment of reason, the successive advances of science, the vicissi
tudes of learning and ignorance, which are the light and dark-
ness of thinking beings, the extinction and resuscitation of arts,
and the revolutions of the intellectual world. If accounts of
battles and invasions are peculiarly the business of princes,
the useful or elegant arts are not to be neglected; those who
have kingdoms to govern have understandings to cultivate.
66
Example is always more efficacious than precept. A sol-
dier is formed in war, and a painter must copy pictures. In
this, contemplative life has the advantage: great actions are
seldom seen, but the labors of art are always at hand for those
who desire to know what art has been able to perform.
"When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncom-
mon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means
by which it was performed. Here begins the true use of such
contemplation; we enlarge our comprehension by new ideas,
and perhaps recover some art lost to mankind, or-learn what
is less perfectly known in our own country. At least we com-
pare our own with former times, and either rejoice at our im-
provements, or, what is the first motion towards good, discover
our defects."
“I am willing,” said the prince, "to see all that can deserve
my search." "And I," said the princess," shall rejoice to
learn something of the manners of antiquity."
"The most pompous monument of Egyptian greatness, and
one of the most bulky works of manual industry," said Imlac,
66
are the Pyramids; fabrics raised before the time of history,
and of which the earliest narratives afford us only uncertain
traditions. Of these the greatest is still standing, very little
injured by time."
"Let us visit them to-morrow," said Nekayah. "I have
often heard of the Pyramids, and shall not rest until I have seen
them within and without with my own eyes."
CHAPTER XXXI.
They visit the Pyramids.
THE resolution being taken, they set out the next day.
They laid tents upon their camels, being resolved to stay among
the Pyramids till their curiosity was fully satisfied. They trav-
elled gently, turned aside to everything remarkable, stopped
RASSELAS.
53
from time to time and conversed with the inhabitants, and
observed the various appearances of towns ruined and inhabited,
of wild and cultivated nature.
When they came to the great Pyramid, they were astonished
at the extent of the base, and the height of the top. Imlac ex-
plained to them the principles upon which the pyramidal form
was chosen for a fabric intended to co-extend its duration with
that of the world: he showed that its gradual diminution gave
it such stability as defeated all the common attacks of the ele-
ments, and could scarcely be overthrown by earthquakes them-
selves, the least resistible of natural violence. A concussion
that should shatter the Pyramid would threaten the dissolution
of the continent.
They measured all its dimensions, and pitched their tents
at its foot. Next day they prepared to enter its interior apart-
ments; and, having hired the common guides, climbed up to
the first passage, when the favorite of the princess, looking
into the cavity, stepped back and trembled." Pekuah," said
the princess, "of what art thou afraid? "Of the narrow en-
trance," answered the lady, "and of the dreadful gloom. I
dare not enter a place which must surely be inhabited by un-
quiet souls. The original possessors of these dreadful vaults
will start up before us, and perhaps shut us in forever." She
spoke, and threw her arms round the neck of her mistress.
"If all your fear be of apparitions," said the prince, "I
will promise you safety; there is no danger from the dead; he
that is once buried will be seen no more.
ور
"That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, "I will not
undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried
testimony of all ages and of all nations. There is no people,
rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not
related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as
far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only
by its truth; those that never heard of one another would not
have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make
credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers can very little
weaken the general evidence; and some who deny it with their
tongues confess it by their fears.
66
Yet I do not mean to add new terrors to those which have
already seized upon Pekuah. There can be no reason why
spectres should haunt the Pyramid more than other places, or
why they should have power or will to hurt innocence and purity.
Our entrance is no violation of their privileges; we can take
nothing from them, how then can we offend them?
??
64
RASSELAS.
"My dear Pekuah," said the princess, "I will always go
before you, and Imlac shall follow you. Remember that you
are the companion of the princess of Abyssinia."
"If the princess is pleased that her servant should die,"
returned the lady, "let her command some death less dreadful
than enclosure in this horrid cavern ; you know I dare not dis-
obey you; I must go if you command me; but, if I once enter,
I never shall come back."
The princess saw that her fear was too strong for expostu-
lation or reproof; and, embracing her, told her that she should
stay in the tent till their return. Pekuah was yet not satisfied,
but entreated the princess not to pursue so dreadful a purpose
as that of entering the recesses of the Pyramid. Though I
cannot teach courage," said Nekayah, "I must not learn
cowardice; nor leave at last undone what I came hither only
to do."
((
CHAPTER XXXII.
They enter the Pyramid.
PEKUAH descended to the tents, and the rest entered the
Pyramid: they passed through the galleries, surveyed the vaults
of marble, and examined the chest in which the body of the
founder is supposed to have been reposited. They then sat
down in one of the most spacious chambers to rest awhile be-
fore they attempted to return.
We have now," said Imlac, "gratified our minds with an
exact view of the greatest work of man, except the wall of
China.
"Of the wall it is very easy to assign the motive. It
secured a wealthy and timorous nation from the incursions of
barbarians, whose unskilfulness in the arts made it easier for
them to supply their wants by rapine than by industry, and
who from time to time poured in upon the habitations of peace-
ful commerce, as vultures descend upon domestic fowl. Their
celerity and fierceness rendered the wall necessary, and their
ignorance made it efficacious.
"But for the Pyramids no reason has
quate to the cost and labor of the work.
the chambers proves that it could afford no retreat from ene-
mies, and treasures might have been reposited at far less ex-
pense with equal security. It seems to have been erected only
ever been given ade-
The narrowness of
RASSELAS.
65
In
in compliance with that hunger of imagination whick preys in-
cessantly upon life, and must be always appeased by some em-
ployment. Those who have already all that they can enjoy
must enlarge their desires. He that has built for use, till use
is supplied, must begin to build for vanity, and extend his plan
to the utmost power of human performance, that he may not
be soon reduced to form another wish.
"I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the in-
sufficiency of human enjoyments. A king, whose power is un-
limited, and whose treasures surmount all real and imaginary
wants, is compelled to solace, by the erection of a Pyramid,
the satiety of dominion and tastelessness of pleasures, and to
amuse the tediousness of declining life, by seeing thousands
laboring without end, and one stone, for no purpose, laid upon
another. Whoever thou art that, not content with a mod-
erate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and
dreamest that command or riches can feed the appetite of
novelty with perpetual gratifications, survey the Pyramids, and
confess thy folly."
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Princess meets with an unexpected Misfortune.
THEY rose up, and returned through the cavity at which
they had entered, and the princess prepared for her favorite a
long narrative of dark labyrinths and costly rooms, and of the
different impressions which the varieties of the way had made
upon her. But when they came to their train, they found every
one silent and dejected; the men discovered shame and fear
in their countenances, and the women were weeping in the
tents.
What had happened they did not try to conjecture, but im-
mediately inquired. "You had scarcely entered into the
Pyramid," said one of the attendants, "when a troop of Arabs
rushed upon us: we were too few to resist them, and too slow
to escape. They were about to search the tents, set us on our
camels, and drive us along before them, when the approach of
some Turkish horsemen put them to flight; but they seized
the lady Pekuah with her two maids, and carried her away ;
the Turks are now pursuing them by our instigation, but I fear
they will not be able to overtake them."
The princess was overpowered with surprise and grief.
66
RASSELAS.
،،
Rasselas, in the first heat of his resentment, ordered his ser-
vants to follow him, and prepared to pursue the robbers with
his sabre in his hand. Sir," said Imlac, "what can you hope
from violence or valor? the Arabs are mounted on horses
trained to battle and retreat; we have only beasts of burden.
By leaving our present station we may lose the princess, but
cannot hope to regain Pekuah."
In a short time the Turks returned, having not been able to
reach the enemy. The princess burst out into new lamenta-
tions, and Rasselas could scarcely forbear to reproach them with
cowardice; but Imlac was of opinion that the escape of the
Arabs was no addition to their misfortune, for perhaps they
would have killed their captives rather than have resigned them.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
They return to Cairo without Pekuah.
THERE was nothing to be hoped from longer stay. They
returned to Cairo, repenting of their curiosity, censuring the
negligence of the government, lamenting their own rashness,
which had neglected to procure a guard, imagining many expe-
dients by which the loss of Pekuah might have been prevented,
and resolving to do something for her recovery, though none
could find anything proper to be done.
Nekayah retired to her chamber, where her women at-
tempted to comfort her, by telling her that all had their trou-
bles, and that lady Pekuah had enjoyed much happiness in the
world for a long time, and might reasonably expect a change
of fortune. They hoped that some good would befall her
wheresoever she was, and that their mistress would find another
friend who might supply her place.
The princess made them no answer, and they continued the
form of condolence, not much grieved in their hearts that the
favorite was lost.
Next day the prince presented to the Bassa a memorial of
the wrong which he had suffered, and a petition for redress.
'The Bassa threatened to punish the robbers, but did not at-
tempt to catch them, nor indeed could any account or descrip-
tion be given by which he might direct the pursuit.
It soon appeared that nothing would be done by authority.
Governors being accustomed to hear of more crimes than they
can punish, and more wrongs than they can redress, set them-
RASSELAS.
67
selves at ease by indiscriminate negligence, and prevently for-
get the request when they lose sight of the petitioner.
Imlac then endeavored to gain some intelligence by private
agents. He found many who pretended to an exact knowledge
of all the haunts of the Arabs, and to regular correspondence
with their chiefs, and who readily undertook the recovery of
Pekuah. Of these, some were furnished with money for their
journey and came back no more; some were liberally paid for
accounts which a few days discovered to be false. But the
princess would not suffer any means, however improbable, to
be left untried. While she was doing something, she kept her
hope alive. As one expedient failed, another was suggested;
when one messenger returned unsuccessful, another was de-
spatched to a different quarter.
Two months had now passed, and of Pekuah nothing had
been heard; the hopes which they had endeavored to raise in
each other grew more languid; and the princess, when she saw
nothing more to be tried, sunk down inconsolable in hopeless
dejection. A thousand times she reproached herself with the
easy compliance by which she permitted her favorite to stay
behind her. "Had not my fondness," said she, "lessened my
authority, Pekuah had not dared to talk of her terrors. She
ought to have feared me more than spectres. A severe look
would have overpowered her; a peremptory command would
have compelled obedience. Why did foolish indulgence pre-
vail upon me? Why did I not speak, and refuse to hear?
""
for
Great princess," said Imlac, "do not reproach yourself
your virtue, or consider that as blamable by which evil has
accidentally been caused. Your tenderness for the timidity of
Pekuah was generous and kind. When we act according to
our duty, we commit the event to Him by whose laws our ac-
tions are governed, and who will suffer none to be finally pun-
ished for obedience. When, in prospect of some good, whether
natural or moral, we break the rules prescribed us, we withdraw
from the direction of superior wisdom, and take all conse-
quences upon ourselves. Man cannot so far know the connec-
tion of causes and events, as that he may venture to do wrong
in order to do right. When we pursue our end by lawful
means, we may always console our miscarriage by the hope of
future recompense. When we consult only our own policy,
and attempt to find a nearer way to good, by overleaping the
settled boundaries of right and wrong, we cannot be happy
even by success, because we cannot escape the consciousness
of our fault: but, if we miscarry, the disappointment is irreme-
-
68
RASSELAS.
diably imbittered. How comfortless is the sorrow of him who
feels at once the pangs of guilt, and the vexation of calamity
which guilt has brought upon him!
"Consider, princess, what would have been your condition,
if the lady Pekuah had entreated to accompany you, and, being
compelled to stay in the tents, had been carried away; or how
you would have borne the thought if you had forced her intɔ
the Pyramid, and she had died before you in agonies of
terror?"
"Had either happened," said Nekayah, "I could not have
endured life till now: I should have been tortured to madness
by the remembrance of such cruelty, or must have pined away
in abhorrence of myself."
66
This, at least," said Imlac, is the present reward of vir-
tuous conduct, that no unlucky consequence can oblige us to
repent it."
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Princess languishes for want of Pekuah.
NEKAYAH, being thus reconciled to herself, found that no
evil is insupportable but that which is accompanied with con-
sciousness of wrong. She was from that time delivered from
the violence of tempestuous sorrow, and sunk into silent pen-
siveness and gloomy tranquillity. She sat from morning to even-
ing recollecting all that had been done or said by her Pekuah,
treasured up with care every trifle on which Pekuah had set an
accidental value, and which might recall to mind any little inci-
dent or careless conversation. The sentiments of her, whom
she now expected to see no more, were treasured in her mem-
ory as rules of life, and she deliberated to no other end than
to conjecture on any occasion what would have been the opin-
ion and counsel of Pekuah.
The women by whom she was attended knew nothing of
her real condition, and therefore she could not talk to them
but with caution and reserve. She began to remit her curiosity,
having no great desire to collect notions which she had not
convenience of uttering. Rasselas endeavored first to comfort,
and afterwards to divert her; he hired musicians, to whom she
seemed to listen, but did not hear them; and procured masters
to instruct her in various arts, whose lectures, when they visited
her again, were again to be repeated. She had lost her taste
RASSELAS.
69
of pleasure and her ambition of excellence. And her mind,
though forced into short excursions, always recurred to the
image of her friend.
Imlac was every morning earnestly enjoined to renew his
inquiries, and was asked every night whether he had yet heard
of Pekuah, till, not being able to return the princess the answer
that she desired, he was less and less willing to come into her
presence. She observed his backwardness, and commanded
him to attend her. "You are not," said she, "to confound
impatience with resentment, or to suppose that I charge you
with negligence, because I repine at your unsuccessfulness. I
do not much wonder at your absence: I know that the unhappy
are never pleasing, and that all naturally avoid the contagion
of misery. To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the
wretched and the happy; for who would cloud, by adventitious
grief, the short gleams of gayety which life allows us? or who,
that is struggling under his own evils, will add to them the
miseries of another?
"The time is at hand when none shall be disturbed any
longer by the sighs of Nekayah: my search after happiness is
now at an end. I am resolved to retire from the world with
all its flatteries and deceits, and will hide myself in solitude
without any other care than to compose my thoughts, and regu-
late my hours by a constant succession of innocent occupa-
tions, till, with a mind purified from all earthly desires, I shall
enter into that state to which all are hastening, and in which I
hope again to enjoy the friendship of Pekuah."
"Do not entangle your mind," said Imlac, "by irrevocable
determinations, nor increase the burden of life by a voluntary
accumulation of misery: the weariness of retirement will con-
tinue or increase when the loss of Pekuah is forgotten. That
you have been deprived of one pleasure is no very good reason
for rejection of the rest.”
"Šince Pekuah was taken from me," said the princess, "I
have no pleasure to reject or to retain. She that has no one
to love or trust has little to hope. She wants the radical
principle of happiness. We may, perhaps, allow, that what
satisfaction this world can afford must arise from the conjunc-
tion of wealth, knowledge, and goodness: wealth is nothing
but as it is bestowed, and knowledge nothing but as it is com-
municated: they must therefore be imparted to others, and to
whom could I now delight to impart them? Goodness affords
the only comfort which can be enjoyed without a partner and
goodness may be practised in retirement."
70
RASSELAS.
"How far solitude may admit goodness, or advance it, I
shall not," replied Imlac, "dispute at present.
dispute at present. Remember
the confession of the pious hermit. You will wish to return
into the world when the image of your companion has left your
thoughts.""That time," said Nekayah, "will never come.
The generous frankness, the modest obsequiousness, and the
faithful secrecy of my dear Pekuah will always be more missed
as I shall live longer to see vice and folly."
"The state of a mind oppressed with a sudden calamity,"
said Imlac, "is like that of the fabulous inhabitants of the
new-created earth, who, when the first night came upon them,
supposed that day would never return. When the clouds of
sorrow gather over us, we see nothing beyond them, nor can
imagine how they will be dispelled: yet a new day succeeded
to the night, and sorrow is never long without a dawn of ease.
But they who restrain themselves from receiving comfort do as
the savages would have done, had they put out their eyes when
it was dark. Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux;
something is hourly lost, and something acquired. To lose
much at once is inconvenient to either, but while the vital
powers remain uninjured nature will find the means of repara-
tion. Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye:
and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever we leave
behind us is always lessening, and that which we approach in-
creasing in magnitude. Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will
grow muddy for want of motion: commit yourself again to the
current of the world; Pekuah will vanish by degrees; you will
meet in your way some other favorite, or learn to diffuse your-
self in general conversation."
"At least," said the prince, "do not despair before all-
remedies have been tried; the inquiry after the unfortunate
lady is still continued, and shall be carried on with yet greater
diligence, on condition that you will promise to wait a year for
the event, without any unalterable resolution.”
•
Nekayah thought this a reasonable demand, and made the
promise to her brother, who had been advised by Imlac to
require it. Imlac had, indeed, no great hope of regaining
Pekuah; but he supposed, that if he could secure the interval
of a year, the princess would then be in no danger of a cloister.
RASSELAS.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Pekuah is still remembered. The progress of Sorrow.
NEKAYAH, seeing that nothing was omitted for the recovery
o her favorite, and having, by her promise, set her intention of
retirement at a distance, began imperceptibly to return to com-
mon cares and common pleasures. She rejoiced without her
own consent at the suspension of her sorrows, and sometimes
caught herself with indignation in the act of turning away her
mind from the remembrance of her, whom she yet resolved
never to forget.
She then appointed a certain hour of the day for medita-
tion on the merits and fondness of Pekuah, and for some weeks
retired constantly at the time fixed, and returned with her eyes
swollen and her countenance clouded. By degrees she grew
less scrupulous, and suffered any important and pressing
avocation to delay the tribute of daily tears. She then yielded
to less occasions; sometimes forgot what she was indeed afraid
to remember, and at last wholly released herself from the duty
of periodical affliction.
Her real love of Pekuah was not yet diminished. A thou-
sand occurrences brought her back to memory, and a thousand
wants, which nothing but the confidence of friendship can sup-
ply, made her frequently regretted. She therefore solicited Im-
lac never to desist from inquiry, and to leave no art of intel-
ligence untried, that at least she might have the comfort of
knowing that she did not suffer by negligence or sluggishness.
"Yet what," said she, "is to be expected from our pursuit of
happiness, when we find the state of life to be such, that hap-
piness itself is the cause of misery? Why should we endeavor
to attain that of which the possession cannot be secured. I
shall henceforward fear to yield my heart to excellence, how-
ever bright, or to fondness, however tender, lest I should lose
again what I have lost in Pekuah.”
15
RASSELAS
CHAPTER XXXVII.
IN seven months, one of the messengers, who had been
sent away upon the day when the promise was drawn from the
princess, returned, after many unsuccessful rambles, from the
borders of Nubia, with an account that Pekuah was in the hand
of an Arab chief, who possessed a castle or fortress on the ex-
tremity of Egypt. The Arab, whose revenue was plunder, was
willing to restore her with her two attendants, for two hundred
ounces of gold.
•
The Princess hears news of Pekuah.
The price was no subject of debate. The princess was in
ecstasies when she heard that her favorite was alive, and might
so cheaply be ransomed. She could not think of delaying for
a moment Pekuah's happiness or her own, but entreated her
brother to send back the messenger with the sum required.
Imlac being consulted was not very confident of the veracity
of the relator, and was still more doubtful of the Arab's faith,
who might, if he were too liberally trusted, detain at once the
money and the captives. He thought it dangerous to put them-
selves in the power of the Arab, by going into his district, and
could not expect that the rover would so much expose himself
as to come into the lower country, where he might be seized by
the forces of the Bassa.
▾
.
It is difficult to negotiate where neither will trust. But Im-
lac, after some deliberation, directed the messenger to propose
that Pekuah should be conducted by ten horsemen to the mon-
astery of St. Antony, which is situated in the deserts of Upper
Egypt, where she should be met by the same number, and her
ransom should be paid.
That no time might be lost, as they expected that the pro-
posal would not be refused, they immediately began their jour-
ney to the monastery; and when they arrived, Imlac went for-
ward with the former messenger to the Arab's fortress. Ras-
selas was desirous to go with them; but neither his sister nor
Imlac would consent. The Arab, according to the custom of
his nation, observed the laws of hospitality with great exactness
to those who put themselves into his power, and, in a few days
brought Pekuah with her maids, by easy journeys, to the place
appointed, where, receiving the stipulated price, he restored
RASSELAS.
73
her with great respect to liberty and her friends, and undertook
to conduct them back towards Cairo, beyond all danger of rob-
bery or violence.
The princess and her favorite embraced each other with
transport too violent to be expressed, and went out together to
pour the tears of tenderness in secret, and exchange professions
of kindness and gratitude. After a few hours they returned
into the refectory of the convent, where, in the presence of the
prior and his brethren, the prince required of Pekuah the his
tory of her adventures.
66
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Adventures of the Lady Pekuah.
AT what time and in what manner I was forced away,"
said Pekuah, your servants have told you. The suddenness
of the event struck me with surprise, and I was at first rather
stupefied than agitated with any passion of either fear or sorrow.
My confusion was increased by the speed and tumult of our
flight, while we were followed by the Turks, who, as it seemed,
soon despaired to overtake us, or were afraid of those whom
they made a show of menacing.
"When the Arabs saw themselves out of danger they
slackened their course, and as I was less harassed by external
violence, I began to feel more uneasiness in my mind. After
some time we stopped near a spring, shaded with trees, in a
pleasant meadow, where we were set upon the ground, and
offered such refreshments as our masters were partaking. I
was suffered to sit with my maids apart from the rest, and none
attempted to comfort or insult us. Here I first began to feel
the full weight of my misery. The girls sat weeping in silence,
and from time to time looked on me for succor. I knew not to
what condition we were doomed, nor could conjecture where
would be the place of our captivity, or whence to draw any
hope of deliverance. I was in the hands of robbers and savages
and had no reason to suppose that their pity was more than
their justice, or that they would forbear the gratification of any
ardor of desire or caprice of cruelty. I, however, kissed my
maids, and endeavored to pacify them by remarking, that we
were yet treated with decency, and that, since we were now
carried beyond pursuit, there was no danger of violence to our
kiye.
74
RASSELAS.
"When we were to be set again on horseback, my maids
clung round me, and refused to be parted, but I commanded
them not to irritate those who had us in their power. We
travelled the remaining part of the day through an unfrequented
and pathless country, and came by moonlight to the side of a
hill, where the rest of the troop was stationed. Their tents
were pitched and their fires kindled, and our chief was wel-
comed as a man much beloved by his dependants.
"We were received into a large tent, where we found women
who had attended their husbands in the expedition. They set
before us the supper which they had provided, and I ate it
rather to encourage my maids than to comply with any appetite
of my own. When the meat was taken away they spread the
carpets for repose. I was weary, and hoped to find in sleep
that remission of distress which nature seldom denies. Order-
ing myself therefore to be undressed, I observed that the
women looked very earnestly upon me, not expecting, I suppose,
to see me so submissively attended. When my upper vest was
taken off, they were apparently struck with the splendor of my
clothes, and one of them timorously laid her hand upon the
embroidery. She then went out, and in a short time came back
with another woman, who seemed to be of higher rank and
greater authority. She did, at her entrance, the usual act of
reverence, and, taking me by the hand, placed me in a smaller
tent, spread with finer carpets, where I spent the night quietly
with my maids.
C
"In the morning, as I was setting on the grass, the chief of
the troop came towards me. I rose up to receive him, and he
bowed with great respect. Illustrious lady,' said he, my
fortune is better than I had presumed to hope; I am told by
my women, that I have a princess in my camp.'-' Sir,' an-
swered I, 'your women have deceived themselves and you; I
am not a princess, but an unhappy stranger who intended soon
to have left this country, in which I am now to be imprisoned
forever.'' Whoever, or whencesoever you are,' returned the
Arab, 'your dress, and that of your servants, show your rank
to be high, and your wealth to be great. Why should you, who
can so easily procure your ransom, think yourself in danger of
perpetual captivity? The purpose of my incursions is to in-
crease my riches, or, more properly, to gather tribute. The
sons of Ishmael are the natural and hereditary lords of this
part of the continent, which is usurped by late invaders and
low-born tyrants, from whom we are compelled to take by the
sword what is denied to justice. The violence of war admits
RASSELAS.
75
no distinction; the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will
sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.'
"How little,' said I, 'did I expect that yesterday it should
have fallen upon me!'
"Misfortunes,' answered the Arab, should always be ex-
pected. If the eye of hostility could learn reverence or pity,
excellence like yours had been exempt from injury. But the
angels of affliction spread their toils alike for the virtuous and
the wicked, for the mighty and the mean. Do not be discon-
solate I am not one of the lawless and cruel rovers of the
desert; I know the rules of civil life: I will fix your ransom,
give a passport to your messenger, and perform my stipulation
with nice punctuality.'
"You will easily believe that I was pleased with his cour-
tesy and, finding that his predominant passion was desire of
money, I began now to think my danger less, for I knew that
no sum would be thought too great for the release of Pekuah.
I told him that he should have no reason to charge me with in-
gratitude, if I was used with kindness, and that any ramsom
which could be expected from a maid of common rank would
be paid, but that he must not persist to rate me as a princess.
He said he would consider what he should demand. and then,
smiling, bowed and retired.
"Soon after the women came about me, each contending
to be more officious than the other, and my maids themselves
were served with reverence. We travelled onward by short
journeys. On the fourth day the chief told me, that my ran-
som must be two hundred ounces of gold; which I not only
promised him, but told him that I would add fifty more, if I
and my maids were honorably treated.
"I never knew the power of gold before. From that time I
was the leader of the troop. The march of every day was
longer or shorter as I commanded, and the tents were pitched
where I chose to rest. We now had camels and other con-
veniences for travel, my own women were always at my side,
and I amused myself with observing the manners of the va-
grant nations, and with viewing remains of ancient edifices, with
which these deserted countries appear to have been, in some
distant age, lavishly embellished.
"The chief of the band was a man far from illiterate: he
was able to travel by the stars or the compass, and had marked,
in his erratic expeditions, such places as are most worthy the
notice of a passenger. He observed to me, that buildings are
always best preserved in places little frequented and difficult
96.
RASSELAS
of access; for, when once a country declines from its primitive
splendor, the more inhabitants are left, the quicker ruin will be
made. Walls supply stones more easily than quarries, and
palaces and temples will be demolished, to make stables of
granite, and cottages of porphyry,"
CHAPTER XXXIX.
The Adventures of Pekuah continued.
"WE wandered about in this manner for some weeks,
whether, as our chief pretended, for my gratification, or, as I
rather suspected, for some convenience of his own. I endeay-
ored to appear contented where sullenness and resentment
would have been of no use, and that endeavor conduced much
to the calmness of my mind; but my heart was always with
Nekayah, and the troubles of the night much overbalanced the
amusements of the day. My women, who threw all their cares
upon their mistress, set their minds at ease from the time when
they saw me treated with respect, and gave themselves up to
the incidental alleviations of our fatigue without solicitude or
sorrow. I was pleased with their pleasure, and animated with
their confidence. My condition had lost much of its terror,
since I found that the Arab ranged the country merely for
riches. Avarice is a uniform and tractable vice: other intel-
lectual distempers are different in different constitutions of
mind; that which soothes the pride of one will offend the
pride of another; but to the favor of the covetous there is a
ready way; bring money, and nothing is denied.
"At last we came to the dwelling of our chief, a strong
and spacious house built with stone in an island of the Nile,
which lies, as I was told, under the tropic. 'Lady,' said the
Arab, 'you shall rest after your journey a few weeks in this
place, where you are to consider yourself as sovereign. My
occupation is war: I have therefore chosen this obscure resi-
dence, from which I can issue unexpected, and to which I can
retire unpursued. You may now repose in security: here are
few pleasures, but here is no danger.' He then led me into
the inner apartments, and, seating me on the richest couch.
bowed to the ground. His women, who considered me as a
rival, looked on me with malignity; but being soon informed
that I was a great lady detained only for my ransom, they
began to vie with each other in obsequiousness and reverence.
RASSELAS.
77
"Being again comforted with new assurances of speedy
liberty, I was for some days diverted from impatience by the
novelty of the place. The turrets overlooked the country to a
great distance, and afforded a view of many windings of the
stream. In the day I wandered from one place to another, as
the course of the sun varied the splendor of the prospect, and
saw many things which I had never seen before. The croco-
diles and river-horses are common in this unpeopled region,
and I often looked upon them with terror, though I knew that
they could not hurt me. For some time I expected to see
mermaids and tritons, which, as Imlac has told me, the Eu-
ropean travellers have stationed in the Nile; but no such
beings ever appeared, and the Arab, when I inquired after
them, laughed at my credulity.
At night the Arab always attended me to a tower set
apart for celestial observations, where he endeavored to teach
me the names and courses of the stars. I had no great incli-
nation to this study, but an appearance of attention was neces-
sary to please my instructor, who valued himself for his skill
and, in a little while, I found some employment requisite to
beguile the tediousness of time, which was to be passed always
amidst the same objects. I was weary of looking in the morn-
ing on things from which I had turned away weary in the
evening; I therefore was at last willing to observe the stars
rather than do nothing, but could not always compose my
thoughts, and was very often thinking on Nekayah, when
others imagined me contemplating the sky. Soon after the
Arab went upon another expedition, and then my only pleasure
was to talk with my maids about the accident by which we
were carried away, and the happiness that we should all enjoy
at the end of our captivity."
"There were women in your Arab's fortress," said the prin
cess, “why did you not make them your companions, enjoy
their conversation, and partake their diversions? In a place
where they found business or amusement, why should you
alone sit corroded with idle melancholy? or why could not
you bear for a few months that condition to which they were
condemned for life?"
"The diversions of the women," answered Pekuah,
(( were
only childish play, by which the mind, accustomed to stronger
operations, could not be kept busy. I could do all which they
delighted in doing by powers merely sensitive, while my intel-
lectual faculties were flown to Cairo. They ran from room to
room, as a bird hops from wire to wire in his cage. They
78
RASSELAS.
danced for the sake of motion, as lambs frisk in a meadow.
One sometimes pretended to be hurt, that the rest might be
alarmed; or hid herself, that another might seek her. Part of
their time passed in watching the progress of light bodies that
floated on the river, and part in marking the various forms
into which clouds broke in the sky.
"Their business was only needlework, in which I and my
maids sometimes helped them; but you know that the mind
will easily straggle from the fingers, nor will you suspect that
captivity and absence from Nekayah could receive solace from
silken flowers.
"Nor was much satisfaction to be hoped from their conver-
sation; for of what could they be expected to talk? They had
seen nothing for they had lived from early youth in that nar-
row spot: of what they had not seen they could have no
knowledge, for they could not read. They had no ideas but of
the few things that were within their view, and had hardly
names for anything but their clothes and their food. As I
Dore a superior character, I was often called to terminate their
quarrels, which I decided as equitably as I could. If it could
have amused me to hear the complaints of each against the
rest, I might have been often detained by long stories; but
the motives of their animosity were so small that I could not
listen without interrupting the tale."
،،
'How," said Rasselas, " can the Arab. whom you repre-
sented as a man of more than common accomplishments, take
any pleasure in his seraglio, when it is filled only with women
like these? Are they exquisitely beautiful?'
""
"They do not," said Pekuah, "want that unaffecting and
ignoble beauty which may subsist without sprightliness or sub-
limity, without energy of thought or dignity of virtue. But to
a man like the Arab such beauty was only a flower casually
plucked and carelessly thrown away. Whatever pleasures he
might find among them, they were not those of friendship or
society. When they were playing about him, he looked on
them with inattentive superiority; when they vied for his
regard, he sometimes turned away disgusted. As they had no
knowledge, their talk could take nothing from the tediousness
of life; as they had no choice, their fondness, or appearance
of fondness, excited in him neither pride nor gratitude: he
was not exalted in his own esteem by the smiles of a woman
who saw no other man, nor was much obliged by that regard,
of which he could never know the sincerity, and which he
might often perceive to be exerted, not so much to delight him
17
"
RASSELAS.
79
as to pain a rival. That which he gave, and they received, as
love, was only a careless distribution of superfluous time, such
love as man can bestow upon that which he despises, such as
has neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow."
"You have reason, lady, to think yourself happy," said
Imlac, “that you have been thus easily dismissed. How could
a mind, hungry for knowledge, be willing, in an intellectual
famine, to lose such a banquet as Pekuah's conversation?"
66
"I am inclined to believe," answered Pekuah, that he
was for some time in suspense; for notwithstanding his prom-
ise, whenever I proposed to despatch a messenger to Cairo, he
found some excuse for delay. While I was detained in his
house he made many excursions into the neighboring coun-
tries, and, perhaps, he would have refused to discharge me,
had his plunder been equal to his wishes. He returned always
courteous, related his adventures, delighted to hear my obser-
vations, and endeavored to advance my acquaintance with
the stars. When I importuned him to send away my letters,
he soothed me with professions of honor and sincerity: and,
when I could be no longer decently denied, put his troop again.
in motion, and left me to govern in his absence. I was much
afflicted by this studied procrastination, and was sometimes
afraid that I should be forgotten; that you would leave Cairo,
and I must end my days in an island of the Nile.
"I grew at last hopeless and dejected, and cared so little
to entertain him that he for a while more frequently talked
with my maids. That he should fall in love with them, or
with me, might have been equally fatal, and I was not much
pleased with the growing friendship. My anxiety was not
long; for, as I recovered some degree of cheerfulness, he
returned to me, and I could not forbear to despise my former
uneasiness.
"He still delayed to send for my ransom, and would, per-
haps, never have determined, had not your agent found his
way to him. The gold, which he would not fetch, he could
not reject when it was offered. He hastened to prepare for
our journey hither, like a man delivered from the pain of an
intestine conflict. I took leave of my companions in the
house, who dismissed me with cold indifference."
$
Nekayah, having heard her favorite's relation, rose and
embraced her; and Rasselas gave her a hundred ounces of
gold, which she presented to the Arab for the fifty that were
promised.
80
RASSELAK.
CHAPTER XL.
The History of a Man of Learning.
THEY returned to Cairo, and were so well pleased at find-
ing themselves together that none of them went much abroad.
The prince began to love learning, and one day declared to
Imlac, that he intended to devote himself to science, and pass
the rest of his days in literary solitude.
،،
"Before you make your final choice," answered Imlac,
you ought to examine its hazards, and converse with some of
those who are grown old in the company of themselves. I
have just left the observatory of one of the most learned astron-
omers in the world, who has spent forty years in unwearied
attention to the motions and appearances of the celestial
bodies, and has drawn out his soul in endless calculations. He
admits a few friends once a month to hear his deductions and
enjoy his discoveries. I was introduced as a man of knowl-
edge worthy of his notice. Men of various ideas and fluent
conversation are commonly welcome to those whose thoughts
have been long fixed upon a single point, and who find the
images of other things stealing away. I delighted him with
my remarks; he smiled at the narrative of my travels; and
was glad to forget the constellations, and descend for a moment
into the lower world.
"On the next day of vacation I renewed my visit, and was
so fortunate as to please him again. He relaxed from that
time the severity of his rule, and permitted me to enter at my
own choice. I found him always busy, and always glad to be
relieved. As each knew much which the other was desirous of
learning, we exchanged our notions with great delight. I per-
ceived that I had every day more of his confidence, and always
found new cause of admiration in the profundity of his mind.
His comprehension is vast, his memory capacious and retentive,
his discourse is methodical, and his expression clear.
'His integrity and benevolence are equal to his learning.
His deepest researches and most favorite studies are willingly
interrupted for an opportunity of doing good by his counsel or
his riches. To his closest retreat, at his most busy moments,
all are admitted that want his assistance: For, though I ex-
clude idleness and pleasure, I will never,' says he, 'bar my
6
RASSELAS.
81
939
doors against charity. To man is permitted the contemplation
of the skies, but the practice of virtue is commanded.'
Surely," said the princess, "this man is happy."
66
"I visited him," said Imlac, "with more and more fre-
quency, and was every time more enamored of his conversa-
tion; he was sublime without haughtiness, courteous without
formality, and communicative without ostentation. I was at
first, great princess, of your opinion, thought him the happiest
of mankind, and often congratulated him on the blessing that
he enjoyed. He seemed to hear nothing with indifference but
the praises of his condition, to which he always returned a
general answer, and diverted the conversation to some other
topic.
"Amidst this willingness to be pleased and labor to please,
I had quickly reason to imagine that some painful sentiment
pressed upon his mind. He often looked up earnestly towards
the sun, and let his voice fall in the midst of his discourse.
He would sometimes, when we were alone, gaze upon me in
silence with the air of a man who longed to speak what he was
yet resolved to suppress. He would often send for me, with
vehement injunctions of haste, though, when I came to him, he
had nothing extraordinary to say. And sometimes, when I
was leaving him, he would call me back, nause a few moments,
and then dismiss me."
CHAPTER XLI.
The Astronomer discovers the cause of his uneasiness.
"AT last the time came when the secret burst his reserve.
We were sitting together last night in the turret of his house,
watching the emersion of a satellite of Jupiter. A sudden
tempest clouded the sky, and disappointed our observation.
We sat a while silent in the dark, and then he addressed him-
self to me in these words :-'Imlac, I have long considered thy
friendship as the greatest blessing of my life. Integrity with-
out knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without in-
tegrity is dangerous and dreadful. I have found in thee all the
qualities requisite for trust, benevolence, experience, and forti-
tude. I have long discharged an office which I must soon
quit at the call of nature, and shall rejoice, in the hour of im-
becility and pain, to devolve it upon thee.'
"I thought myself honored by this testimony, and protested,
82
RASSELAS.
that whatever would conduce to his happiness would add like-
wise to mine.
"Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit.
I have possessed for five years the regulation of the weather
and the distribution of the seasons; the sun has listened to my
dictates, and passed from tropic. to tropic by my direction;
the clouds, at my call, have poured their waters, and the Nile
has overflowed at my command; I have restrained the rage of
the dog-star, and mitigated the fervors of the crab. The winds.
alone, of all the elemental powers, have hitherto refused my
authority, and multitudes have perished by equinoctial tempest,
which I have found myself unable to prohibit or restrain. I
have administered this great office with exact justice, and made
to the different nations of the earth an impartial dividend of
rain and sunshine. What must have been the misery of half
the globe if I had limited the clouds to particular regions, or
confined the sun to either side of the equator?''
CHAPTER XLII.
The Opinion of the Astronomer is explained and justified.
"I SUPPOSE he discovered in me, through the obscurity of
the room, some tokens of amazement and doubt, for, after a
short pause, he proceeded thus:
Not to be easily credited will neither surprise nor offend
me; for I am, probably, the first of human beings to whom
this trust has been imparted. Nor do I know whether to deem
the distinction a reward or punishment; since I have possessed
it I have been far less happy than before, and nothing but the
consciousness of good intention could have enabled me to
support the weariness of unremitted vigilance.'
"How long, sir,' said I, 'has this great office been in your
hands?'
"About ten years ago,' said he, 'my daily observations of
the changes of the sky led me to consider whether, if I had
the power of the seasons, I could confer greater plenty upon
the inhabitants of the earth. This contemplation fastened
upon my mind, and I sat days and nights in imaginary
dominion, pouring upon this country and that the showers of
fertility, and seconding every fall of rain with a due propor-
tion of sunshine. I had yet only the will to do good, and did
not imagine that I should ever have the power.
RASSELAS.
83
"One day, as I was looking on the fields withering with
heat, I felt in my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain
on the southern mountains, and raise the Nile to an inunda-
tion. In the hurry of my imagination I commanded rain to
fall; and, by comparing the time of my command with that of
the inundation, I found that the clouds had listened to my
lips.'
666
Might not some other cause,' said I, 'produce this con-
currence? the Nile does not always rise on the same day.'
"Do not believe,' said he with impatience, that such ob-
jections could escape me: I reasoned long against my own
conviction, and labored against truth with the utmost obstinacy.
I sometimes suspected myself of madness, and should not
have dared to impart this secret but to a man like you, capable
of distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible, and the
incredible from the false.'
"Why, sir,' said I, 'do you call that incredible which you
know, or think you know, to be true?'
C
""Because,' said he, 'I cannot prove it by any external
evidence; and I know too well the laws of demonstration to
think that my conviction ought to influence another, who can-
not, like me, be conscious of its force. I therefore shall not
attempt to gain credit by disputation. It is sufficient that I
feel this power, that I have long possessed, and every day ex-
erted it. But the life of man is short, the infirmities of age
increase upon me, and the time will soon come when the regu-
lator of the year must mingle with the dust.
The care of ap-
pointing a successor has long disturbed me; the night and the
day have been spent in comparisons of all the characters which
have come to my knowledge. and I have vet found none so
worthy as thyself.'"
CHAPTER XLIII.
The Astronomer leaves Imlac his directions.
"HEAR, therefore, what I shall impart with attention, such
as the welfare of a world requires. If the task of a king be
considered as difficult, who has the care only of a few millions,
to whom he cannot do much good or harm, what must be the
anxiety of him on whom depends the action of the elements,
and the great gifts of light and heat?—Hear me therefore with
attention.'
84
RASSELAS.
"I have diligently considered the position of the earth
and sun, and formed innumerable schemes in which I changed
their situation. I have sometimes turned aside the axis of the
earth, and sometimes varied the ecliptic of the sun: but I
have found it impossible to make a disposition by which the
world may be advantaged; what one region gains another
loses by an imaginable alteration, even without considering the
distant parts of the solar system with which we are acquainted.
Do not, therefore, in thy administration of the year, indulge
thy pride by innovation; do not please thyself with thinking
that thou canst make thyself renowned to all future ages, by
disordering the seasons. The memory of mischief is no de-
sirable fame. Much less will it become thee to let kindness or
interest prevail. Never rob other countries of rain to pour it
on thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient.'
"I promised, that when I possessed the power, I would
use it with inflexible integrity; and he dismissed me, pressing
my hand. 'My heart,' said he, 'will be now at rest, and rny
benevolence will no more destroy my quiet; I have found a
man of wisdom and virtue, to whom I can cheerfully bequeath
the inheritance of the sun.'"
The prince heard this narration with very serious regard;
but the princess smiled, and Pekuah convulsed herself with
laughter. "Ladies," said Imlac, "to mock the heaviest of
human afflictions is neither charitable nor wise. Few can
attain this man's knowledge and ew practise his virtues; but
all may suffer his calamity. Of the uncertainties of our
present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain.
continuance of reason."
The princess was recollected, and the favorite was abashed.
Rasselas, more deeply affected, inquired of Imlac, whether he
thought such maladies of the mind frequent, and how they
were contracted?
CHAPTER XLIV.
The dangerous prevalence of Imagination.
"DISORDERS of intellect," answered Imlac, "happen much
more often than superficial observers will easily believe. Per-
haps, if we speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is
in its right state. There is no man whose imagination does not
sometimes predominate over his reason, who can regulate his at-
RASSELAS.
85
tention wholly by his will, and whose ideas will come and go at
his command. No man will be found in whose mind airy no-
tions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or
fear beyond the limits of sober probability. All power of
fancy over reason is a degree of insanity; but while this power
is such as we can control and repress, it is not visible to others,
nor considered as any depravation of the mental faculties: It
is not pronounced madness but when it becomes ungovernable,
and apparently influences speech or action.
"To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out
upon the wing, is often the sport of those who delight too much
in silent speculation. When we are alone we are not always
busy; the labor of excogitation is too violent to last long; the
ardor of inquiry will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety.
He who has nothing external that can divert him must find
pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what
he is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then ex-
patiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable
conditions that which for the present moment he should most
desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and
confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind
dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combina-
tions, and riots in delights which nature and fortune, with all
their bounty, cannot bestow.
"In time some particular train of ideas fixes the attention;
all other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in
weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favorite concep-
tion, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is
offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of
fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time des-
potic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opin-
ions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture
or of anguish.
"This, sir, is one of the dangers of solitude, which the her-
mit has confessed not always to promote goodness, and the
astronomer's misery has proved to be not always propitious to
wisdom."
"I will no more," said the favorite, "imagine myself the
queen of Abyssinia. I have often spent the hours, which the
princess gave to my own disposal, in adjusting ceremonies and
regulating the court; I have repressed the pride of the power-
ful, and granted the petitions of the poor; I have built new
palaces in more happy situations, planted groves upon the tops.
or mountains, and have exulted in the beneficence of royalty,
86
RASSELAS.
till, when the princess entered, I had almost forgotten to bow
down before her."
2
"And I," said the princess, "will not allow myself any
more to play the shepherdess in my waking dreams. I have
often soothed my thoughts with the quiet and innocence of
pastoral employments, till I have, in my chamber, heard the
winds whistle and the sheep bleat: sometimes freed the lamb
entangled in the thicket, and sometimes with my crook encoun-
tered the wolf. I have a dress like that of the village maids,
which I put on to help my imagination, and a pipe, on which I
play softly, and suppose myself followed by my flocks."
"I will confess," said the prince, "an indulgence of fantas-
tic delight more dangerous than yours. I have frequently en-
deavored to image the possibility of a perfect government, by
which all wrong should be restrained, all vice reformed, and all
the subjects preserved in tranquillity and innocence. This
thought produced innumerable schemes of reformation, and dic-
tated many useful regulations and salutary edicts. This has
been the sport, and sometimes the labor, of my solitude; and
I start, when I think with how little anguish I once supposed
the death of my father and my brothers."
J
"Such," says Imlac, "are the effect of visionary schemes.
When we first form them we know them to be absurd, but fa-
miliarize them by degrees, and in time lose sight of their folly."
、
CHAPTER XLV.
They Discourse with an Old Man.
THE evening was now far passed, and they rose to return
home. As they walked along the bank of the Nile, delighted
with the beams of the moon quivering on the water, they saw
at a small distance an old man, whom the prince had often
heard in the assembly of the sages. "Yonder," said he, "is
one whose years have calmed his passions, but not clouded his
reason: let us close the disquisitions of the night by inquiring
what are his sentiments of his own state, that we may know
whether youth alone is to struggle with vexation, and whether
any better hope remains for the latter part of life.”
Here the sage approached and saluted them. They in-
vited him to join their walk, and prattled a while, as acquaint-
ances that had unexpectedly met one another. The old man
was cheerful and talkative, and the way seemed short in his
1
RASSELAS.
87
company. He was pleased to find himself not disregarded,
accompanied them to their house, and, at the prince's request,
entered with them. They placed him in the seat of honor, and
set wine and conserves before him.
(C
Sir," said the princess, “an evening walk must give to a
man of learning, like you, pleasures which ignorance and youth
can hardly conceive. You know the qualities and the causes
of all that you behold, the laws by which the river flows, the
periods in which the planets perform their revolutions. Every-
thing must supply you with contemplation, and renew the con-
sciousness of your own dignity."
"Lady," answered he, "let the gay and the vigorous expect
pleasure in their excursions; it is enough that age can obtain
ease. To me the world has lost its novelty: I look round and
see what I remember to have seen in happier days. I rest
against a tree, and consider that in the same shade I once dis-
puted upon the annual overflow of the Nile with a friend who
is now silent in the grave. I cast my eyes upwards, fix them
on the changing moon, and think with pain on the vicissitudes
of life. I have ceased to take much delight in physical truth;
for what have I to do with those things which I am soon to
leave?"
66
'You may at least recreate yourself," said Imlac, "with the
recollection of an honorable and useful life, and enjoy the
praise which all agree to give you."
"Praise," said the sage, with a sigh, "is to an old man an
empty sound. I have neither mother to be delighted with the
reputation of her son, nor wife to partake the honors of her
husband. I have outlived my friends and my rivals. Nothing
is now of much importance; for I cannot extend my interest
beyond myself. Youth is delighted with applause, because it
is considered as the earnest of some future good, and because
the prospect of life is far extended: but to me, who am now
declining to decrepitude, there is little to be feared from the
malevolence of men, and yet less to be hoped from their affec-
tion or esteem. Something they may yet take away, but they
can give me nothing. Riches would now be useless, and high
employment would be pain. My retrospect of life recalls to
my view many opportunities of good neglected, much time
squandered upon trifles, and more lost in idleness and vacancy.
I leave many great designs unattempted, and many great at-
tempts unfinished. My mind is burdened with no heavy crime,
and therefore I compose myself to tranquillity: endeavor to
abstract my thoughts from hopes and cares, which, though rea
88
RASSELAS. \
son knows them to be vain, still try to keep their old possession
of the heart; expect, with serene humility, that hour which na-
ture cannot long delay: and hope to possess, in a better state,
that happiness which here I could not find, and that virtue
which here I have not attained.”
He rose and went away, leaving his audience not much
elated with the hope of long life. The prince consoled him-
self with remarking, that it was not reasonable to be disap-
pointed by this account; for age had never been considered as
the season of felicity; and if it was possible to be easy in de-
cline and weakness, it was likely that the days of vigor and
alacrity might be happy: that the noon of life could be bright
if the evening could be calm.
The princess suspected that age was querulous and malig-
nant, and delighted to repress the expectations of those who
had newly entered the world. She had seen the possessors of
estates look with envy on their heirs, and known many who
enjoyed pleasure no longer than they could confine it to them-
selves.
Pekuah conjectured that the man was older than he ap-
peared, and was willing to impute his complaints to delirious
dejection; or else supposed that he had been unfortunate, and
was therefore discontented; "For nothing," said she, “is more
common than to call our own condition the condition of life."
Imlac, who had no desire to see them depressed, smiled at
the comforts which they could so readily procure to themselves,
and remembered, that at the same age he was equally confident
of unmingled prosperity, and equally fertile of consolatory ex-
pedients. He forbore to force upon them unwelcome knowl-
edge, which time itself would too soon impress. The princess
and her lady retired; the madness of the astronomer hung upon
their minds, and they desired Imlac to enter upon his office,
and delay next morning the rising of the sun.
CHAPTER XLVI.
The Princess and Pekuah visit the Astronomer.
THE princess and Pekuah, having talked in private of Imlac's
astronomer, thought his character at once so amiable and so
strange that they could not be satisfied without a nearer knowl
edge; and Imlac was requested to find the means of bringing
them together.
RASSELAS.
89
This was somewhat difficult; the philosopher had never
received any visits from women, though he lived in a city that
had in it many Europeans, who followed the manners of their
own countries, and many from other parts of the world, that
lived there with European liberty. The ladies would not be
refused, and several schemes were proposed for the accom-
plishment of their design. It was proposed to introduce them
as strangers in distress, to whom the sage was always acces-
sible; but, after some deliberation, it appeared that by this
artifice no acquaintance could be formed, for their conversation
would be short, and they could not decently importune him
often. "This," said Rasselas, "is true; but I have yet a
stronger objection against the misrepresentation of your state.
I have always considered it as treason against the great repub-
lic of human nature to make any man's virtues the means of
deceiving him, whether on great or little occasions. All im-
posture weakens confidence and chills benevolence. When the
sage finds that you are not what you seemed, he will feel the
resentment natural to a man who, conscious of great abilities,
discovers that he has been tricked by understandings meaner
than his own; and, perhaps, the distrust, which he can never
afterwards wholly lay aside, may stop the voice of counsel and
close the hand of charity; and where will you find the power
of restoring his benefactions to mankind or his peace to him-
self?"
To this no reply was attempted, and Imlac began to hope
that their curiosity would subside; but, next day, Pekuah told
him, she had now found an honest pretence for a visit to the
astronomer, for she would solicit permission to continue under
him the studies in which she had been initiated by the Arab,
and the princess might go with her either as a fellow-student,
or because a woman could not decently come alone. "I am
afraid,” said Imlac, "that he will be soon weary of your com-
pany; men advanced far in knowledge do not love to repeat
the elements of their art, and I am not certain that even of the
elements, as he will deliver them connected with inferences and
mingled with reflections, you are a very capable auditress."
"That," said Pekuah, "must be my care; I ask of you only
to take me thither. My knowledge is, perhaps, more than you
imagine it; and, by concurring always with his opinions, I shall
make him think it greater than it is.”
The astronomer, in pursuance of this resolution, was told
that a foreign lady, travelling in search of knowledge, had
heard of his reputation, and was desirous to become his scholar.
ge
RASSELAS.\
The uncommonness of the proposal raised at once his surprise
and curiosity and when, after a short deliberation, he consented
to admit her, he could not stay without impatience till the next
day.
1
The ladies dressed themselves magnificently, and were at-
tended by Imlac to the astronomer, who was pleased to see
himself approached with respect by persons of so splendid an
appearance. In the exchange of the first civilities he was
timorous and bashful; but when the talk became regular, he
recollected his powers, and justified the character which Imlac
had given. Inquiring of Pekuah, what could have turned her
inclination towards astronomy? he received from her a history
of her adventure at the pyramid, and of the time passed in the
Arab's island. She told her tale with ease and elegance, and
her conversation took possession of his heart. The discourse
was then turned to astronomy: Pekuah displayed what she
knew he looked upon her as a prodigy of genius, and en-
treated her not to desist from a study which she had so happily
begun.
They came again and again, and were every time more wel-
come than before. The sage endeavored to amuse them, that
they might prolong their visits, for he found his thoughts grow
brighter in their company; the clouds of solicitude vanished
by degrees, as he forced himself to entertain them; and he
grieved when he was left at their departure to his old employ-
ment of regulating the seasons.
The princess and her favorite had now watched his lips for
several months, and could not catch a single word from which
they could judge whether he continued, or not, in the opinion
of his preternatual commission. They often contrived to bring
him to an open declaration: but he easily eluded all their
attacks, and on which side soever they pressed him escaped
from them to some other topic.
As their familiarity increased, they invited him often to the
house of Imlac, where they distinguished him by extraordinary
respect. He began gradually to delight in sublunary pleasures.
He came early, and departed late; labored to recommend
himself by assiduity and compliance; excited their curiosity
after new arts, that they might still want his assistance; and
when they made any excursion of pleasure or inquiry, entreated
to attend them.
By long experience of his integrity and wisdom, the prince
and his sister were convinced that he might be trusted without
danger; and, lest he should draw any false hopes from the
RASSELAS.
98
civilities which he received, discovered to him their condition,
with the motives of their journey; and required his opinion on
the choice of life.
"Of the various conditions which the world spreads before
which
you,
you shall prefer," said the sage, "I am not able to
instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have
passed my time in study without experience; in the attainment
of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely use-
ful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense
of all the common comforts of life; I have missed the endear-
ing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of
domestic tenderness. If I have obtained any prerogatives
above other students, they have been accompanied with fear,
disquiet, and scrupulosity: but even of these prerogatives,
whatever they were, I have, since my thoughts have been diver-
sified by more intercourse with the world, begun to question
the reality. When I have been for a few days lost in pleasing
dissipation, I am always tempted to think that my inquiries
have ended in error, and that I have suffered much, and suf-
fered it in vain."
Imlac was delighted to find that the sage's understanding
was breaking through its mists, and resolved to detain him from
the planets till he should forget his task of ruling them, and
reason should recover its original influence.
From this time the astronomer was received into familiar
friendship, and partook of all their projects and pleasures: his
respect kept him attentive, and the activity of Rasselas did
not leave much time unengaged. Something was always to be
done; the day was spent in making observations, which fur-
nished talk for the evening, and the evening was closed with a
scheme for the morrow.
The sage confessed to Imlac, that since he had mingled in
the gay tumults of life, and divided his hours by a succession
of amusements, he found the conviction of his authority over
the skies fade gradually from his mind, and began to trust less
to an opinion which he never could prove to others, and which
he now found subject to variation, from causes in which reason
had no part. "If I am accidentally left alone for a few hours,"
said he, "my inveterate persuasion rushes upon my soul, and
my thoughts are chained down by some irresistible violence;
but they are soon disentangled by the prince's conversation,
and instantaneously released at the entrance of Pekuah. I am
like a man habitually afraid of spectres, who is set at ease by a
Jamp, and wonders at the dread which harassed him in the
92
RASSELAS.
dark; yet, if his lamp be extinguished, feels again the tèrrors
which he knows that when it is light he shall feel no more.
But I am sometimes afraid lest I indulge my quiet by criminal
negligence, and voluntarily forget the great charge with which
I am intrusted. If I favor myself in a known error, or am de-
termined by my own ease in a doubtful question of this import-
ance, how dreadful is my crime !”
"No disease of the imagination," answered Imlac, "is so
difficult of cure as that which is complicated with the dread of
guilt fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us,
and so often shift their places that the illusions of one are not
distinguished from the dictates of the other. If fancy presents
images not moral or religious, the mind drives them away when
they give it pain; but when melancholic notions take the form
of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without opposition, be-
cause we are afraid to exclude or banish them. For this rea-
son the superstitious are often melancholy, and the melancholy
almost always superstitious.
"But do not let the suggestions of timidity overpower your
better reason: the danger of neglect can be but as the proba-
bility of the obligation, which, when you consider it with free-
dom, you find very little, and that little growing every day less.
Open your heart to the influence of the light which, from time
to time, breaks in upon you: when scruples importune you,
which you in your lucid moments know to be vain, do not stand
to parley, but fly to business or to Pekuah, and keep this
thought always prevalent, that you are only one atom of the
mass of humanity, and have neither such virtue nor vice as that
you should be singled out for supernatural favors or afflictions."
..
CHAPTER XLVII.
The Prince, enters, and brings a New Topic.
"ALL this," said the astronomer, "I have often thought,
but my reason has been so long subjugated by an uncontrol
lable and overwhelming idea that it durst not confide in its own
decisions. I now see how fatally I betray my quiet, by suffer-
ing chimeras to prey upon me in secret; but melancholy shrinks
from communication, and I never found a man before to whom
I could impart my troubles, though I had been certain of relief.
I rejoice to find my own sentiments confirmed by yours, who
are not easily deceived, and can have no motive or purpose to
RASSELAS.
93
deceive. I hope that time and variety will dissipate the gloom
that has so long surrounded me, and the latter part of my days
will be spent in peace."
"Your learning and virtue," said Imlac, "may justly give
you hopes."
Rasselas then entered with the princess and Pekuah, and
inquired whether they had contrived any new diversion for the
next day? "Such," said Nekayah, "is the state of life, that
none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change
itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to
change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see
something to-morrow which I never saw before."
6%
66
"Variety," said Rasselas, is so necessary to content, that
even the happy valley disgusted me by the recurrence of its
luxuries yet I could not forbear to reproach myself with impa-
tience when I saw the monks of St. Anthony support, without
complaint, a life, not of uniform delight, but uniform hardship.'
"Those men," answered Imlac, are less wretched in their
silent convent than the Abyssinian princes in their prison of pleas-
ure. Whatever is done by the monks is incited by an adequate
and reasonable motive. Their labor supplies them with neces-
saries; it therefore cannot be omitted, and is certainly rewarded.
Their devotion prepares them for another state, and reminds them
of its approach while it fits them for it. Their time is regularly
distributed : one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left
open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades
of listless inactivity. There is a certain task to be performed at
an appropriated hour; and their toils are cheerful because they
consider them as acts of piety, by which they are always advan-
cing towards endless felicity.'
""
(L
Do you think," said Nekayah, "that the monastic rule is a
more holy and less imperfect state than any other? May not he
equally hope for future happiness who converses openly with
mankind. who succors the distressed by his charity, instructs
the ignorant by his learning, and contributes by his industry to
the general system of life; even though he should omit some of
the mortifications which are practised in the cloister, and allow
himself such harmless delights as his condition may place within
his reach?"
19
"This," said Imlac, "is a question which has long divided
the wise and perplexed the good. I am afraid to decide on either
part. He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives
well in a monastery. But, perhaps, every one is not able to stem
the temptations of public life; and if he cannot conquer, he may
94
RASSELAS.
properly retreat. Some have little power to do good, and have
likewise little strength to resist evil. Many are weary of their
conflicts with adversity, and are willing to eject those passions.
which have long busied them in vain. And many are dismissed
by age and diseases from the more laborious duties of society.
In monasteries the weak and timorous may be happily sheltered,
the weary may repose, and the penitent may meditate. Those
retreats of prayer and contemplation have something so con-
genial to the mind of man that, perhaps, there is scarcely one that
does not purpose to close his life in pious abstraction with a few
associates serious as himself."
"L
Such," said Pekuah, "has often been my wish, and I have
heard the princess declare, that she should not willingly die in
a crowd.”
"The liberty of using harmless pleasure," proceeded Imlac,
"will not be disputed; but it is still to be examined what pleas-
ures are harmless. The evil of any pleasure that Nekayah can
imagine is not in the act itself, but in its consequences. Pleas-
ure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous by endearing
us to a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and
withdrawing our thoughts from that of which every hour brings
us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time will
bring us to the end. Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor
has any other use but that it disengages us from allurements of
sense. In the state of future perfection, to which we all aspire,
there will be pleasure without danger, and security without re-
straint."
The princess was silent, and Rasselas, turning to the astron
omer, asked him "whether he could not delay her retreat by
showing her something which she had not seen before?"
"Your curiosity," said the sage, "has been so general, and
your pursuit of knowledge so vigorous, that novelties are not
now very easily to be found; but what you can no longer pro-
cure from the living may be given by the dead. Among the
wonders of this country are the Catacombs, or the ancient re-
positories in which the bodies of the earliest generations were
lodged, and where, by the virtue of the gums which embalmed
them, they yet remain without corruption."
"I know not," said Rasselas, "what pleasure the sight of
the Catacombs can afford; but, since nothing else is offered, I
am resolved to view them, and shall place this with many other
things which I have done because I would do something."
They hired a guard of horsemen, and the next day visited
the Catacombs. When they were about to descend into the
RASSELAS.
95
sepulchral caves, "Pekuah," said the princess, we are now again
invading the habitations of the dead; I know that you will stay
behind; let me find you safe when I return."-" No; I will not
be left," answered Pekuah, "I will go down between you and
the prince."
They then all descended, and roved with wonder through
the labyrinth of subterraneous passages, where the bodies were
laid in rows on either side.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Imlac discourses on the Nature of the Soul.
"WHAT reason," said the prince, "can be given why the
Egyptians should thus expensively preserve those carcasses
which some nations consume with fire, others lay to mingle
with the earth, and all agree to remove from their sight as soon
as decent rites can be performed?”
"The original ancient custom," said Imlac, "is commonly
unknown; for the practice often continues when the cause has
ceased; and concerning superstitious ceremonies it is vain to
conjecture; for what reason did not dictate, reason cannot ex-
plain. I have long believed that the practice of embalming
arose only from tenderness to the remains of relations or friends,
and to this opinion I am more inclined because it seems impos-
sible that this care should have been general; had all the dead
been embalmed, their repositories must in time have been more
spacious than the dwellings of the living. I suppose only the
rich or honorable were secured from corruption, and the rest
left to the course of nature.
"But it is commonly supposed that the Egyptians believed
the soul to live as long as the body continued undissolved, and
therefore tried this method of eluding death."
"Could the wise Egyptians," said Nekayah, "think so grossly
of the soul? If the soul could once survive its separation, what
could it afterwards receive or suffer from the body?
در
"The Egyptians would doubtless think erroneously," said
the astronomer, "in the darkness of heathenism, and the first
dawn of philosophy. The nature of the soul is still disputed
amidst all our opportunities of clearer knowledge: some yet
say that it may be material, who nevertheless believe it to be
immortal."
"Some," answered Imlac, "have indeed said that the soul
:
$6
RASSELAS.
is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought
it, who knew how to think; for all the conclusions of reason
enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense
and investigations of science concur to prove the unconscious-
ness of matter.
66
It was never supposed that cogitation is inherent in mat-
ter, or that every particle is a thinking being. Yet, if any
part of matter be devoid of thought, what part can we suppose
to think? Matter can differ from matter only in form, density,
bulk, motion, and direction of motion: to which of these, how-
ever varied or combined, can consciousness be annexed? To
be round or square, to be solid or fluid, to be great or little, to
be moved slowly or swiftly one way or another, are modes of
material existence, all equally alien from the nature of cogita-
tion. If matter be once without thought, it can only be made
to think by some new modification, but all the modifications
which it can admit are equally unconnected with cogitative
powers."
"But the materialists," said the astronomer, "urge that
matter may have qualities with which we are unacquainted."
"He who will determine," returned Imlac, "against that
which he knows, because there may be something which he
knows not; he that can set hypothetical possibility against
acknowledged certainty, is not to be admitted among reason-
able beings. All that we know of matter is, that matter is
inert, senseless, and lifeless; and if this conviction cannot be
opposed but by referring us to something that we know not, we
have all the evidence that human intellect can admit. If that
which is known may be overruled by that which is unknown,
no being, not omniscient, can arrive at certainty.
"Yet let us not," said the astronomer, "too arrogantly
limit the Creator's power."
66
It is no limitation of omnipotence," replied the poet, "to
suppose that one thing is not consistent with another, that the
same proposition cannot be at once true and false, that the
same number cannot be even and odd, that cogitation cannot
be conferred on that which is created incapable of cogitation.”
I know not," said Nekayah, "any great use of this ques
tion. Does that immateriality, which, in my opinion, you
have sufficiently proved, necessarily include eternal duration?"
66
"Of immateriality," said Imlac, "our ideas are negative,
and therefore obscure. Immateriality seems to imply a
natural power of perpetual duration as a consequence of ex-
emption from all causes of decay: whatever perishes i
✓
در
RASSELAS
曾
​destroyed by the solution of its contexture, and separation of
Its parts; nor can we conceive how that which has no parts,
and therefore admits no solution, can be naturally corrupted
or impaired."
"I know not," said Rasselas, "how to conceive anything
without extension; what is extended must have parts, and
allow that whatever has parts may be destroyed.
you
"
"Consider your own conceptions,” replied Imlac, “and the
difficulty will be less. You will find substance without ex-
tension. An ideal form is no less real than material bulk:
yet an ideal form has no extension. It is no less certain, when
you think on a pyramid, that your mind possesses the idea of
a pyramid than that the pyramid itself is standing. What
space does the idea of a pyramid occupy more than the idea of
a grain of corn? or how can either idea suffer laceration? As
is the effect, such is the cause: as thought, such is the power
that thinks; a power impassive and indiscerptible."
But the Being," said Nekayah, "whom I fear to name,
the Being which made the soul, can destroy it."
"He surely can destroy it," answered Imlac, "since, how-
ever unperishable, it receives from a superior nature its power
of duration. That it will not perish by any inherent cause of
decay, or principle of corruption, may be shown by philosophy;
but philosophy can tell no more. That it will not be annihi-
lated by him that made it, we must humbly learn from higher
authority." The whole assembly stood a while silent and col-
lected. "Let us return," said Rasselas, "from this scene of
mortality. How gloomy would be these mansions of the dead
to him who did not know that he should never die, that what
now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks shall
think on forever. Those that lie here stretched before us, the
wise and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to remember
the shortness of our present state: they were, perhaps, snatched
away while they were busy like us in the choice of life."
"To me," said the princess, "the choice of life is become
less important; I hope hereafter to think only on the choice
of eternity."
They then hastened out of the caverns and under the
protection of their guard returned to Cairo,
RASSELAD
CHAPTER XLIX.
The Conclusion, in which nothing is Concluded.
It was now the time of the inundation of the Nile: a few
days after their visit to the Catacombs the river began to rise.
They were confined to their house. The whole region
being under water gave them no invitation to any excursions,
and being well supplied with materials for talk, they diverted
themselves with comparisons of the different forms of life
which they had observed, and with various schemes of happi-
ness which each of them had formed.
Pekuah was never so much charmed with any place as the
convent of St. Anthony, where the Arab restored her to the
princess, and wished only to fill it with pious maidens, and to
be made prioress of the order; she was weary of expectation
and disgust, and would gladly be fixed in some unvariable
state.
The princess thought, that of all sublunary things knowl-
edge was the best: she desired first to learn all sciences, and
then proposed to found a college of learned women, in which
she would preside, that, by conversing with the old, and
educating the young, she might divide her time between the
acquisition and communication of wisdom, and raise up for the
next age, models of prudence, and patterns of piety.
The prince desired a little kingdom, in which he might
administer justice in his own person, and see all the parts of
government with his own eyes; but he could never fix the
limits of his dominion, and was always adding to the number
of his subjects.
Imlac and the astronomer were contented to be driven
along the stream of life, without directing their course to any
particular port.
Of these wishes that they had formed they well knew that
none could be obtained. They deliberated a while what was
to be done, and resolved, when the inundation should cease, to
return to Abyssinia.
THE END.

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5 EBS
6 EB
TOON
TYWES
16 ELE
15853
14532
13823
12ES2
11285
1053B
SBE6
8235
7523
PRODUCED BY GRAPHIC ARTS RESEARCH CENTER
RIT ALPHANUMERIC RESOLUTION TEST OBJECT, RT-1-71