Paul Clifford
Edward Bulwer-Lytton



PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840.

This novel so far differs from the other fictions by the same author that
it seeks to draw its interest rather from practical than ideal sources.
Out of some twelve Novels or Romances, embracing, however inadequately, a
great variety of scene and character,--from "Pelham" to the "Pilgrims of
the Rhine," from "Rienzi" to the "Last Days of Pompeii,"--"Paul Clifford"
is the only one in which a robber has been made the hero, or the peculiar
phases of life which he illustrates have been brought into any prominent
description.

Without pausing to inquire what realm of manners or what order of crime
and sorrow is open to art, and capable of administering to the proper
ends of fiction, I may be permitted to observe that the present subject
was selected, and the Novel written, with a twofold object: First, to
draw attention to two errors in our penal institutions; namely, a vicious
prison-discipline, and a sanguinary criminal code,--the habit of
corrupting the boy by the very punishment that ought to redeem him, and
then hanging the man at the first occasion, as the easiest way of getting
rid of our own blunders.  Between the example of crime which the tyro
learns from the felons in the prison-yard, and the horrible levity with
which the mob gather round the drop at Newgate, there is a connection
which a writer may be pardoned for quitting loftier regions of
imagination to trace and to detect.  So far this book is less a picture
of the king's highway than the law's royal road to the gallows,--a satire
on the short cut established between the House of Correction and the
Condemned Cell.  A second and a lighter object in the novel of "Paul
Clifford" (and hence the introduction of a semi-burlesque or travesty in
the earlier chapters) was to show that there is nothing essentially
different between vulgar vice and fashionable vice, and that the slang of
the one circle is but an easy paraphrase of the cant of the other.

The Supplementary Essays, entitled "Tomlinsoniana," which contain the
corollaries to various problems suggested in the Novel, have been
restored to the present edition.

CLIFTON, July 25, 1840.




PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848.

Most men who with some earnestness of mind examine into the mysteries of
our social state will perhaps pass through that stage of self-education
in which this Novel was composed.  The contrast between conventional
frauds, received as component parts of the great system of civilization,
and the less deceptive invasions of the laws which discriminate the meum
from the tuum, is tempting to a satire that is not without its justice.
The tragic truths which lie hid in what I may call the Philosophy of
Circumstance strike through our philanthropy upon our imagination.  We
see masses of our fellow-creatures the victims of circumstances over
which they had no control,--contaminated in infancy by the example of
parents, their intelligence either extinguished or turned against them,
according as the conscience is stifled in ignorance or perverted to
apologies for vice.  A child who is cradled in ignominy, whose
schoolmaster is the felon, whose academy is the House of Correction,--who
breathes an atmosphere in which virtue is poisoned, to which religion
does not pierce,--becomes less a responsible and reasoning human being
than a wild beast which we suffer to range in the wilderness, till it
prowls near our homes, and we kill it in self-defence.

In this respect the Novel of "Paul Clifford" is a loud cry to society to
amend the circumstance,--to redeem the victim.  It is an appeal from
Humanity to Law.  And in this, if it could not pretend to influence or
guide the temper of the times, it was at least a foresign of a coming
change.  Between the literature of imagination, and the practical
interests of a people, there is a harmony as complete as it is
mysterious.  The heart of an author is the mirror of his age.  The shadow
of the sun is cast on the still surface of literature long before the
light penetrates to law; but it is ever from the sun that the shadow
falls, and the moment we see the shadow we may be certain of the light.

Since this work was written, society has been busy with the evils in
which it was then silently acquiescent.  The true movement of the last
fifteen years has been the progress of one idea,--Social Reform.  There
it advances with steady and noiseless march behind every louder question
of constitutional change.  Let us do justice to our time.  There have
been periods of more brilliant action on the destinies of States, but
there is no time visible in History in which there was so earnest and
general a desire to improve the condition of the great body of the
people.  In every circle of the community that healthful desire is astir.
It unites in one object men of parties the most opposed; it affords the
most attractive nucleus for public meetings; it has cleansed the
statute-book from blood; it is ridding the world of the hangman.  It
animates the clergy of all sects in the remotest districts; it sets the
squire on improving cottages and parcelling out allotments.  Schools rise
in every village; in books the lightest, the Grand Idea colours the page,
and bequeaths the moral.  The Government alone (despite the professions
on which the present Ministry was founded) remains unpenetrated by the
common genius of the age; but on that question, with all the subtleties
it involves, and the experiments it demands,--not indeed according to the
dreams of an insane philosophy, but according to the immutable laws which
proportion the rewards of labour to the respect for property,--a
Government must be formed at last.

There is in this work a subtler question suggested, but not solved,--that
question which perplexes us in the generous ardour of our early
youth,--which, unsatisfactory as all metaphysics, we rather escape from
than decide as we advance in years; namely, make what laws we please, the
man who lives within the pale can be as bad as the man without.  Compare
the Paul Clifford of the fiction with the William Brandon,--the hunted
son with the honoured father, the outcast of the law with the dispenser
of the law, the felon with the judge; and as at the last they front each
other,--one on the seat of justice, the other at the convict's bar,--who
can lay his hand on his heart and say that the Paul Clifford is a worse
man than the William Brandon.

There is no immorality in a truth that enforces this question; for it is
precisely those offences which society cannot interfere with that society
requires fiction to expose.  Society is right, though youth is reluctant
to acknowledge it.  Society can form only certain regulations necessary
for its self-defence,--the fewer the better,--punish those who invade,
leave unquestioned those who respect them.  But fiction follows truth
into all the strongholds of convention; strikes through the disguise,
lifts the mask, bares the heart, and leaves a moral wherever it brands a
falsehood.

Out of this range of ideas the mind of the Author has, perhaps, emerged
into an atmosphere which he believes to be more congenial to Art.  But he
can no more regret that he has passed through it than he can regret that
while he dwelt there his heart, like his years, was young.  Sympathy with
the suffering that seems most actual, indignation at the frauds which
seem most received as virtues, are the natural emotions of youth, if
earnest.  More sensible afterwards of the prerogatives, as of the
elements, of Art, the Author, at least, seeks to escape where the man may
not, and look on the practical world through the serener one of the
ideal.

With the completion of this work closed an era in the writer's
self-education.  From "Pelham" to "Paul Clifford" (four fictions, all
written at a very early age), the Author rather observes than imagines;
rather deals with the ordinary surface of human life than attempts,
however humbly, to soar above it or to dive beneath.  From depicting in
"Paul Clifford" the errors of society, it was almost the natural progress
of reflection to pass to those which swell to crime in the solitary human
heart,--from the bold and open evils that spring from ignorance and
example, to track those that lie coiled in the entanglements of refining
knowledge and speculative pride.  Looking back at this distance of years,
I can see as clearly as if mapped before me, the paths which led across
the boundary of invention from "Paul Clifford" to "Eugene Aram."  And,
that last work done, no less clearly can I see where the first gleams
from a fairer fancy broke upon my way, and rested on those more ideal
images which I sought with a feeble hand to transfer to the "Pilgrims of
the Rhine" and the "Last Days of Pompeii."  We authors, like the Children
in the Fable, track our journey through the maze by the pebbles which we
strew along the path.  From others who wander after us, they may attract
no notice, or, if noticed, seem to them but scattered by the caprice of
chance; but we, when our memory would retrace our steps, review in the
humble stones the witnesses of our progress, the landmarks of our way.

Knelworth, 1848.




PAUL CLIFFORD.




CHAPTER I.

Say, ye oppressed by some fantastic woes, Some jarring nerve that baffles
your repose, Who press the downy couch while slaves advance With timid
eye to read the distant glance, Who with sad prayers the weary doctor
tease To name the nameless, ever-new disease, Who with mock patience dire
complaints endure, Which real pain and that alone can cure, How would you
bear in real pain to lie Despised, neglected, left alone to die? How
would you bear to draw your latest breath Where all that's wretched paves
the way to death?--Crabbe.

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at
occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which
swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling
along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the
lamps that struggled against the darkness.  Through one of the obscurest
quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the
police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was wending his solitary
way.  He stopped twice or thrice at different shops and houses of a
description correspondent with the appearance of the quartier in which
they were situated, and tended inquiry for some article or another which
did not seem easily to be met with.  All the answers he received were
couched in the negative; and as he turned from each door he muttered to
himself, in no very elegant phraseology, his disappointment and
discontent.  At length, at one house, the landlord, a sturdy butcher,
after rendering the same reply the inquirer had hitherto received, added,
"But if this vill do as vell, Dummie, it is quite at your sarvice!"
Pausing reflectively for a moment, Dummie responded that he thought the
thing proffered might do as well; and thrusting it into his ample pocket,
he strode away with as rapid a motion as the wind and the rain would
allow.  He soon came to a nest of low and dingy buildings, at the
entrance to which, in half-effaced characters, was written "Thames
Court."  Halting at the most conspicuous of these buildings, an inn or
alehouse, through the half-closed windows of which blazed out in ruddy
comfort the beams of the hospitable hearth, he knocked hastily at the
door.  He was admitted by a lady of a certain age, and endowed with a
comely rotundity of face and person.

"Hast got it, Dummie?" said she, quickly, as she closed the door on the
guest.

"Noa, noa!  not exactly; but I thinks as 'ow--"

"Pish, you fool!" cried the woman, interrupting him peevishly.  "Vy, it
is no use desaving me.  You knows you has only stepped from my
boosing-ken to another, and you has not been arter the book at all.  So
there's the poor cretur a raving and a dying, and you--"

"Let I speak!" interrupted Dummie in his turn.  "I tells you I vent first
to Mother Bussblone's, who, I knows, chops the whiners morning and
evening to the young ladies, and I axes there for a Bible; and she says,
says she, 'I' as only a "Companion to the Halter," but you'll get a
Bible, I think, at Master Talkins', the cobbler as preaches.'  So I goes
to Master Talkins, and he says, says he, 'I 'as no call for the
Bible,--'cause vy?  I 'as a call vithout; but mayhap you'll be a getting
it at the butcher's hover the vay,--'cause vy? The butcher 'll be
damned!'  So I goes hover the vay, and the butcher says, says he, 'I 'as
not a Bible, but I 'as a book of plays bound for all the vorld just like
'un, and mayhap the poor cretur may n't see the difference.'  So I takes
the plays, Mrs. Margery, and here they be surely!  And how's poor Judy?"

"Fearsome!  she'll not be over the night, I'm a thinking."

"Vell, I'll track up the dancers!"

So saying, Dummie ascended a doorless staircase, across the entrance of
which a blanket, stretched angularly from the wall to the chimney,
afforded a kind of screen; and presently he stood within a chamber which
the dark and painful genius of Crabbe might have delighted to portray.
The walls were whitewashed, and at sundry places strange figures and
grotesque characters had been traced by some mirthful inmate, in such
sable outline as the end of a smoked stick or the edge of a piece of
charcoal is wont to produce.  The wan and flickering light afforded by a
farthing candle gave a sort of grimness and menace to these achievements
of pictorial art, especially as they more than once received
embellishments from portraits of Satan such as he is accustomed to be
drawn.  A low fire burned gloomily in the sooty grate, and on the hob
hissed "the still small voice" of an iron kettle.  On a round deal table
were two vials, a cracked cup, a broken spoon of some dull metal, and
upon two or three mutilated chairs were scattered various articles of
female attire.  On another table, placed below a high, narrow,
shutterless casement (athwart which, instead of a curtain, a checked
apron had been loosely hung, and now waved fitfully to and fro in the
gusts of wind that made easy ingress through many a chink and cranny),
were a looking-glass, sundry appliances of the toilet, a box of coarse
rouge, a few ornaments of more show than value, and a watch, the regular
and calm click of which produced that indescribably painful feeling
which, we fear, many of our readers who have heard the sound in a
sick-chamber can easily recall.  A large tester-bed stood opposite to
this table, and the looking-glass partially reflected curtains of a faded
stripe, and ever and anon (as the position of the sufferer followed the
restless emotion of a disordered mind) glimpses of the face of one on
whom Death was rapidly hastening.  Beside this bed now stood Dummie, a
small, thin man dressed in a tattered plush jerkin, from which the
rain-drops slowly dripped, and with a thin, yellow, cunning physiognomy
grotesquely hideous in feature, but not positively villanous in
expression.  On the other side of the bed stood a little boy of about
three years old, dressed as if belonging to the better classes, although
the garb was somewhat tattered and discoloured.  The poor child trembled
violently, and evidently looked with a feeling of relief on the entrance
of Dummie.  And now there slowly, and with many a phthisical sigh, heaved
towards the foot of the bed the heavy frame of the woman who had accosted
Dummie below, and had followed him, haud passibus aequis, to the room of
the sufferer; she stood with a bottle of medicine in her hand, shaking
its contents up and down, and with a kindly yet timid compassion spread
over a countenance crimsoned with habitual libations.  This made the
scene,--save that on a chair by the bedside lay a profusion of long,
glossy, golden ringlets, which had been cut from the head of the sufferer
when the fever had begun to mount upwards, but which, with a jealousy
that portrayed the darling littleness of a vain heart, she had seized and
insisted on retaining near her; and save that, by the fire, perfectly
inattentive to the event about to take place within the chamber, and to
which we of the biped race attach so awful an importance, lay a large
gray cat, curled in a ball, and dozing with half-shut eyes, and ears that
now and then denoted, by a gentle inflection, the jar of a louder or
nearer sound than usual upon her lethargic senses.  The dying woman did
not at first attend to the entrance either of Dummie or the female at the
foot of the bed, but she turned herself round towards the child, and
grasping his arm fiercely, she drew him towards her, and gazed on his
terrified features with a look in which exhaustion and an exceeding
wanness of complexion were even horribly contrasted by the glare and
energy of delirium.

"If you are like him," she muttered, "I will strangle you,--I will! Ay,
tremble, you ought to tremble when your mother touches you, or when he is
mentioned.  You have his eyes, you have!  Out with them, out,--the devil
sits laughing in them!  Oh, you weep, do you, little one? Well, now, be
still, my love; be hushed!  I would not harm thee!  Harm--O God, he is my
child after all!"  And at these words she clasped the boy passionately to
her breast, and burst into tears.

"Coom, now, coom," said Dummie, soothingly; "take the stuff, Judith, and
then ve'll talk over the hurchin!"

The mother relaxed her grasp of the boy, and turning towards the speaker,
gazed at him for some moments with a bewildered stare; at length she
appeared slowly to remember him, and said, as she raised herself on one
hand, and pointed the other towards him with an inquiring gesture,--"Thou
hast brought the book?"

Dummie answered by lifting up the book he had brought from the honest
butcher's.

"Clear the room, then," said the sufferer, with that air of mock command
so common to the insane.  "We would be alone!"

Dummie winked at the good woman at the foot of the bed; and she (though
generally no easy person to order or to persuade) left, without
reluctance, the sick chamber.

"If she be a going to pray," murmured our landlady (for that office did
the good matron hold), "I may indeed as well take myself off, for it's
not werry comfortable like to those who be old to hear all that 'ere!"

With this pious reflection, the hostess of the Mug,--so was the hostelry
called,--heavily descended the creaking stairs.  "Now, man," said the
sufferer, sternly, "swear that you will never reveal,--swear, I say!  And
by the great God whose angels are about this night, if ever you break the
oath, I will come back and haunt you to your dying day!"

Dummie's face grew pale, for he was superstitiously affected by the
vehemence and the language of the dying woman, and he answered, as he
kissed the pretended Bible, that he swore to keep the secret, as much as
he knew of it, which, she must be sensible, he said, was very little.  As
he spoke, the wind swept with a loud and sudden gust down the chimney,
and shook the roof above them so violently as to loosen many of the
crumbling tiles, which fell one after the other, with a crashing noise,
on the pavement below.  Dummie started in affright; and perhaps his
conscience smote him for the trick he had played with regard to the false
Bible.  But the woman, whose excited and unstrung nerves led her astray
from one subject to another with preternatural celerity, said, with an
hysterical laugh, "See, Dummie, they come in state for me; give me the
cap--yonder--and bring the looking-glass!"

Dummie obeyed; and the woman, as she in a low tone uttered something
about the unbecoming colour of the ribbons, adjusted the cap on her head,
and then, saying in a regretful and petulant voice, "Why should they have
cut off my hair?  Such a disfigurement!" bade Dummie desire Mrs. Margery
once more to ascend to her.

Left alone with her child, the face of the wretched mother softened as
she regarded him, and all the levities and all the vehemences--if we may
use the word--which, in the turbulent commotion of her delirium, had been
stirred upward to the surface of her mind, gradually now sank as death
increased upon her, and a mother's anxiety rose to the natural level from
which it had been disturbed and abased.  She took the child to her bosom,
and clasping him in her arms, which grew weaker with every instant, she
soothed him with the sort of chant which nurses sing over their untoward
infants; but her voice was cracked and hollow, and as she felt it was so,
the mother's eyes filled with tears.  Mrs. Margery now reentered; and
turning towards the hostess with an impressive calmness of manner which
astonished and awed the person she addressed, the dying woman pointed to
the child and said,--

"You have been kind to me, very kind, and may God bless you for it!  I
have found that those whom the world calls the worst are often the most
human.  But I am not going to thank you as I ought to do, but to ask of
you a last and exceeding favour.  Protect my child till he grows up.  You
have often said you loved him,--you are childless yourself,--and a morsel
of bread and a shelter for the night, which is all I ask of you to give
him, will not impoverish more legitimate claimants."

Poor Mrs. Margery, fairly sobbing, vowed she would be a mother to the
child, and that she would endeavour to rear him honestly; though a
public-house was not, she confessed, the best place for good examples.

"Take him," cried the mother, hoarsely, as her voice, failing her
strength, rattled indistinctly, and almost died within her.  "Take him,
rear him as you will, as you can; any example, any roof, better than--"
Here the words were inaudible.  "And oh, may it be a curse and a--Give me
the medicine; I am dying."

The hostess, alarmed, hastened to comply; but before she returned to the
bedside, the sufferer was insensible,--nor did she again recover speech
or motion.  A low and rare moan only testified continued life, and within
two hours that ceased, and the spirit was gone.  At that time our good
hostess was herself beyond the things of this outer world, having
supported her spirits during the vigils of the night with so many little
liquid stimulants that they finally sank into that torpor which generally
succeeds excitement.  Taking, perhaps, advantage of the opportunity which
the insensibility of the hostess afforded him, Dummie, by the expiring
ray of the candle that burned in the death-chamber, hastily opened a huge
box (which was generally concealed under the bed, and contained the
wardrobe of the deceased), and turned with irreverent hand over the
linens and the silks, until quite at the bottom of the trunk he
discovered some packets of letters; these he seized, and buried in the
conveniences of his dress.  He then, rising and replacing the box, cast a
longing eye towards the watch on the toilet-table, which was of gold; but
he withdrew his gaze, and with a querulous sigh observed to himself: "The
old blowen kens of that, 'od rat her!  but, howsomever, I'll take this:
who knows but it may be of sarvice.  Tannies to-day may be smash
to-morrow!" [Meaning, what is of no value now may be precious hereafter.]
and he laid his coarse hand on the golden and silky tresses we have
described.  "'T is a rum business, and puzzles I; but mum's the word for
my own little colquarren [neck]."

With this brief soliloquy Dummie descended the stairs and let himself out
of the house.




CHAPTER II.

     Imagination fondly stoops to trace
     The parlor splendours of that festive place.
               Deserted Village.

There is little to interest in a narrative of early childhood, unless,
indeed, one were writing on education.  We shall not, therefore, linger
over the infancy of the motherless boy left to the protection of Mrs.
Margery Lobkins, or, as she was sometimes familiarly called, Peggy, or
Piggy, Lob.  The good dame, drawing a more than sufficient income from
the profits of a house which, if situated in an obscure locality, enjoyed
very general and lucrative repute, and being a lone widow without kith or
kin, had no temptation to break her word to the deceased, and she
suffered the orphan to wax in strength and understanding until the age of
twelve,--a period at which we are now about to reintroduce him to our
readers.

The boy evinced great hardihood of temper, and no inconsiderable
quickness of intellect.  In whatever he attempted, his success was rapid,
and a remarkable strength of limb and muscle seconded well the dictates
of an ambition turned, it must be confessed, rather to physical than
mental exertion.  It is not to be supposed, however, that his boyish life
passed in unbroken tranquillity.  Although Mrs. Lobkins was a good woman
on the whole, and greatly attached to her protegee, she was violent and
rude in temper, or, as she herself more flatteringly expressed it, "her
feelings were unkimmonly strong;" and alternate quarrel and
reconciliation constituted the chief occupations of the protegee's
domestic life.  As, previous to his becoming the ward of Mrs. Lobkins, he
had never received any other appellation than "the child," so the duty of
christening him devolved upon our hostess of the Mug; and after some
deliberation, she blessed him with the name of Paul.  It was a name of
happy omen, for it had belonged to Mrs. Lobkins's grandfather, who had
been three times transported and twice hanged (at the first occurrence of
the latter description, he had been restored by the surgeons, much to the
chagrin of a young anatomist who was to have had the honour of cutting
him up).  The boy did not seem likely to merit the distinguished
appellation he bore, for he testified no remarkable predisposition to the
property of other people.  Nay, although he sometimes emptied the pockets
of any stray visitor to the coffee-room of Mrs. Lobkins, it appeared an
act originating rather in a love of the frolic than a desire of the
profit; for after the plundered person had been sufficiently tormented by
the loss, haply, of such utilities as a tobacco-box or a handkerchief;
after he had, to the secret delight of Paul, searched every corner of the
apartment, stamped, and fretted, and exposed himself by his petulance to
the bitter objurgation of Mrs. Lobkins, our young friend would quietly
and suddenly contrive that the article missed should return of its own
accord to the pocket from which it had disappeared.  And thus, as our
readers have doubtless experienced when they have disturbed the peace of
a whole household for the loss of some portable treasure which they
themselves are afterwards discovered to have mislaid, the unfortunate
victim of Paul's honest ingenuity, exposed to the collected indignation
of the spectators, and sinking from the accuser into the convicted,
secretly cursed the unhappy lot which not only vexed him with the loss of
his property, but made it still more annoying to recover it.

Whether it was that, on discovering these pranks, Mrs. Lobkins trembled
for the future bias of the address they displayed, or whether she thought
that the folly of thieving without gain required speedy and permanent
correction, we cannot decide; but the good lady became at last extremely
anxious to secure for Paul the blessings of a liberal education.  The key
of knowledge (the art of reading) she had, indeed, two years prior to the
present date, obtained for him; but this far from satisfied her
conscience,--nay, she felt that if she could not also obtain for him the
discretion to use it, it would have been wise even to have withheld a key
which the boy seemed perversely to apply to all locks but the right one.
In a word, she was desirous that he should receive an education far
superior to those whom he saw around him; and attributing, like most
ignorant persons, too great advantages to learning, she conceived that in
order to live as decorously as the parson of the parish, it was only
necessary to know as much Latin.

One evening in particular, as the dame sat by her cheerful fire, this
source of anxiety was unusually active in her mind, and ever and anon she
directed unquiet and restless glances towards Paul, who sat on a form at
the opposite corner of the hearth, diligently employed in reading the
life and adventures of the celebrated Richard Turpin.  The form on which
the boy sat was worn to a glassy smoothness, save only in certain places,
where some ingenious idler or another had amused himself by carving
sundry names, epithets, and epigrammatic niceties of language.  It is
said that the organ of carving upon wood is prominently developed on all
English skulls; and the sagacious Mr. Combe has placed this organ at the
back of the head, in juxtaposition to that of destructiveness, which is
equally large among our countrymen, as is notably evinced upon all
railings, seats, temples, and other things-belonging to other people.

Opposite to the fireplace was a large deal table, at which Dummie,
surnamed Dunnaker, seated near the dame, was quietly ruminating over a
glass of hollands and water.  Farther on, at another table in the corner
of the room, a gentleman with a red wig, very rusty garments, and linen
which seemed as if it had been boiled in saffron, smoked his pipe, apart,
silent, and apparently plunged in meditation.  This gentleman was no
other than Mr. Peter MacGrawler, the editor of a magnificent periodical
entitled "The Asiaeum," which was written to prove that whatever is
popular is necessarily bad,--a valuable and recondite truth, which "The
Asinaeum" had satisfactorily demonstrated by ruining three printers and
demolishing a publisher.  We need not add that Mr. MacGrawler was Scotch
by birth, since we believe it is pretty well known that all periodicals
of this country have, from time immemorial, been monopolized by the
gentlemen of the Land of Cakes.  We know not how it may be the fashion to
eat the said cakes in Scotland, but here the good emigrators seem to like
them carefully buttered on both sides.  By the side of the editor stood a
large pewter tankard; above him hung an engraving of the "wonderfully fat
boar formerly in the possession of Mr. Fattem, grazier." To his left rose
the dingy form of a thin, upright clock in an oaken case; beyond the
clock, a spit and a musket were fastened in parallels to the wall.  Below
those twin emblems of war and cookery were four shelves, containing
plates of pewter and delf, and terminating, centaur-like, in a sort of
dresser.  At the other side of these domestic conveniences was a picture
of Mrs. Lobkins, in a scarlet body and a hat and plume.  At the back of
the fair hostess stretched the blanket we have before mentioned. As a
relief to the monotonous surface of this simple screen, various ballads
and learned legends were pinned to the blanket.  There might you read in
verses, pathetic and unadorned, how--

     "Sally loved a sailor lad
     As fought with famous Shovel!"

There might you learn, if of two facts so instructive you were before
unconscious, that--

"Ben the toper loved his bottle,--Charley only loved the lasses!"

When of these and various other poetical effusions you were somewhat
wearied, the literary fragments in bumbler prose afforded you equal
edification and delight.  There might you fully enlighten yourself as to
the "Strange and Wonderful News from Kensington, being a most full and
true Relation how a Maid there is supposed to have been carried away by
an Evil Spirit on Wednesday, 15th of April last, about Midnight."  There,
too, no less interesting and no less veracious, was that uncommon
anecdote touching the chief of many-throned powers entitled "The Divell
of Mascon; or, the true Relation of the Chief Things which an Unclean
Spirit did and said at Mascon, in Burgundy, in the house of one Mr.
Francis Pereaud: now made English by one that hath a Particular Knowledge
of the Truth of the Story."

Nor were these materials for Satanic history the only prosaic and
faithful chronicles which the bibliothecal blanket afforded.  Equally
wonderful, and equally indisputable, was the account of "a young lady,
the daughter of a duke, with three legs and the face of a porcupine." Nor
less so "The Awful Judgment of God upon Swearers, as exemplified in the
case of John Stiles, who Dropped down dead after swearing a Great Oath;
and on stripping the unhappy man they found 'Swear not at all' written on
the tail of his shirt!"

Twice had Mrs. Lobkins heaved a long sigh, as her eyes turned from Paul
to the tranquil countenance of Dummie Dunnaker, and now, re-settling
herself in her chair, as a motherly anxiety gathered over her visage,--

"Paul, my ben cull," said she, "what gibberish hast got there?"

"Turpin, the great highwayman!" answered the young student, without
lifting his eyes from the page, through which he was spelling his
instructive way.

"Oh! he be's a chip of the right block, dame!" said Mr. Dunnaker, as he
applied his pipe to an illumined piece of paper.  "He'll ride a 'oss
foaled by a hacorn yet, I varrants!"

To this prophecy the dame replied only with a look of indignation; and
rocking herself to and fro in her huge chair, she remained for some
moments in silent thought.  At last she again wistfully eyed the hopeful
boy, and calling him to her side, communicated some order, in a dejected
whisper.  Paul, on receiving it, disappeared behind the blanket, and
presently returned with a bottle and a wineglass.  With an abstracted
gesture, and an air that betokened continued meditation, the good dame
took the inspiring cordial from the hand of her youthful cupbearer,--

"And ere a man had power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of Lobkins had
devoured it up: So quick bright things come to confusion!"

The nectarean beverage seemed to operate cheerily on the matron's system;
and placing her hand on the boy's curly head, she said (like Andromache,
dakruon gelasasa, or, as Scott hath it, "With a smile on her cheek, but a
tear in her eye"),--

"Paul, thy heart be good, thy heart be good; thou didst not spill a drop
of the tape!  Tell me, my honey, why didst thou lick Tom Tobyson?"

"Because," answered Paul, "he said as how you ought to have been hanged
long ago."

"Tom Tobyson is a good-for-nought," returned the dame, "and deserves to
shove the tumbler [Be whipped at the cart's tail]; I but oh, my child, be
not too venturesome in taking up the sticks for a blowen,--it has been
the ruin of many a man afore you; and when two men goes to quarrel for a
'oman, they doesn't know the natur' of the thing they quarrels about.
Mind thy latter end, Paul, and reverence the old, without axing what they
has been before they passed into the wale of years.  Thou mayst get me my
pipe, Paul,--it is upstairs, under the pillow."

While Paul was accomplishing this errand, the lady of the Mug, fixing her
eyes upon Mr. Dunnaker, said, "Dummie, Dummie, if little Paul should come
to be scragged!"

"Whish!" muttered Dummie, glancing over his shoulder at MacGrawler;
"mayhap that gemman--" Here his voice became scarcely audible even to
Mrs. Lobkins; but his whisper seemed to imply an insinuation that the
illustrious editor of "The Asinaeum" might be either an informer, or one
of those heroes on whom an informer subsists.

Mrs. Lobkins's answer, couched in the same key, appeared to satisfy
Dunnaker, for with a look of great contempt he chucked up his head and
said, "Oho! that be all, be it!"

Paul here reappeared with the pipe; and the dame, having filled the tube,
leaned forward, and lighted the Virginian weed from the blower of Mr.
Dunnaker.  As in this interesting occupation the heads of the hostess and
the guest approached each other, the glowing light playing cheerily on
the countenance of each, there was an honest simplicity in the picture
that would have merited the racy and vigorous genius of a Cruikshank.  As
soon as the Promethean spark had been fully communicated to the lady's
tube, Mrs. Lobkins, still possessed by the gloomy idea she had conjured
up, repeated,--

"Ah, Dummie, if little Paul should be scragged!"

Dummie, withdrawing the pipe from his mouth, heaved a sympathizing puff,
but remained silent; and Mrs. Lobkins, turning to Paul, who stood with
mouth open and ears erect at this boding ejaculation, said,--

"Dost think, Paul, they'd have the heart to hang thee?"

"I think they'd have the rope, dame!" returned the youth.

"But you need not go for to run your neck into the noose!" said the
matron; and then, inspired by the spirit of moralizing, she turned round
to the youth, and gazing upon his attentive countenance, accosted him
with the following admonitions:--

"Mind thy kittychism, child, and reverence old age.  Never steal,
'specially when any one be in the way.  Never go snacks with them as be
older than you,--'cause why?  The older a cove be, the more he cares for
hisself, and the less for his partner.  At twenty, we diddles the public;
at forty, we diddles our cronies!  Be modest, Paul, and stick to your
sitivation in life.  Go not with fine tobymen, who burn out like a candle
wot has a thief in it,--all flare, and gone in a whiffy!  Leave liquor to
the aged, who can't do without it.  Tape often proves a halter, and there
be's no ruin like blue ruin!  Read your Bible, and talk like a pious 'un.
People goes more by your words than your actions.  If you wants what is
not your own, try and do without it; and if you cannot do without it,
take it away by insinivation, not bluster.  They as swindles does more
and risks less than they as robs; and if you cheats toppingly, you may
laugh at the topping cheat [Gallows].  And now go play."

Paul seized his hat, but lingered; and the dame, guessing at the
signification of the pause, drew forth and placed in the boy's hand the
sum of five halfpence and one farthing.

"There, boy," quoth she, and she stroked his head fondly when she spoke,
"you does right not to play for nothing,--it's loss of time; but play
with those as be less than yoursel', and then you can go for to beat 'em
if they says you go for to cheat!"

Paul vanished; and the dame, laying her hand on Dummie's shoulder,
said,--

"There be nothing like a friend in need, Dummie; and somehow or other, I
thinks as how you knows more of the horigin of that 'ere lad than any of
us!"

"Me, dame!" exclaimed Dummie, with a broad gaze of astonishment.

"Ah, you! you knows as how the mother saw more of you just afore she died
than she did of 'ere one of us.  Noar, now, noar, now!  Tell us all about
'un.  Did she steal 'un, think ye?"

"Lauk, Mother Margery, dost think I knows?  Vot put such a crotchet in
your 'ead?"

"Well!" said the dame, with a disappointed sigh, "I always thought as how
you were more knowing about it than you owns.  Dear, dear, I shall never
forgit the night when Judith brought the poor cretur here,--you knows she
had been some months in my house afore ever I see'd the urchin; and when
she brought it, she looked so pale and ghostly that I had not the heart
to say a word, so I stared at the brat, and it stretched out its wee
little hands to me.  And the mother frowned at it, and throwed it into my
lap."

"Ah!  she was a hawful voman, that 'ere!" said Dummie, shaking his head.
"But howsomever, the hurchin fell into good 'ands; for I be's sure you
'as been a better mother to 'un than the raal 'un!"

"I was always a fool about childer," rejoined Mrs. Lobkins; "and I thinks
as how little Paul was sent to be a comfort to my latter end!  Fill the
glass, Dummie."

"I 'as heard as 'ow Judith was once blowen to a great lord!" said Dummie.

"Like enough!" returned Mrs. Lobkins,--"like enough!  She was always a
favourite of mine, for she had a spuret [spirit] as big as my own; and
she paid her rint like a decent body, for all she was out of her sinses,
or 'nation like it."

"Ay, I knows as how you liked her,--'cause vy?  'T is not your vay to let
a room to a voman!  You says as how 't is not respectable, and you only
likes men to wisit the Mug!"

"And I doesn't like all of them as comes here!" answered the
dame,--"'specially for Paul's sake; but what can a lone 'oman do?  Many's
the gentleman highwayman wot comes here, whose money is as good as the
clerk's of the parish.  And when a bob [shilling] is in my hand, what
does it sinnify whose hand it was in afore?"

"That's what I call being sinsible and practical," said Dummie,
approvingly.  "And after all, though you 'as a mixture like, I does not
know a halehouse where a cove is better entertained, nor meets of a
Sunday more illegant company, than the Mug!"

Here the conversation, which the reader must know had been sustained in a
key inaudible to a third person, received a check from Mr. Peter
MacGrawler, who, having finished his revery and his tankard, now rose to
depart.  First, however, approaching Mrs. Lobkins, he observed that he
had gone on credit for some days, and demanded the amount of his bill.
Glancing towards certain chalk hieroglyphics inscribed on the wall at the
other side of the fireplace, the dame answered that Mr. MacGrawler was
indebted to her for the sum of one shilling and ninepence three
farthings.

After a short preparatory search in his waistcoat pockets, the critic
hunted into one corner a solitary half-crown, and having caught it
between his finger and thumb, he gave it to Mrs. Lobkins and requested
change.

As soon as the matron felt her hand anointed with what has been called by
some ingenious Johnson of St.  Giles's "the oil of palms," her
countenance softened into a complacent smile; and when she gave the
required change to Mr. MacGrawler, she graciously hoped as how he would
recommend the Mug to the public.

"That you may be sure of," said the editor of "The Asinaeum."  "There is
not a place where I am so much at home."

With that the learned Scotsman buttoned his coat and went his way.

"How spiteful the world be!" said Mrs. Lobkins, after a pause,
"'specially if a 'oman keeps a fashionable sort of a public!  When Judith
died, Joe, the dog's-meat man, said I war all the better for it, and that
she left I a treasure to bring up the urchin.  One would think a thumper
makes a man richer,--'cause why?  Every man thumps!  I  got nothing more
than a watch and ten guineas when Judy died, and sure that scarce paid
for the burrel [burial]."

"You forgits the two quids [Guineas] I giv' you for the hold box of
rags,--much of a treasure I found there!" said Dummie, with sycophantic
archness.

"Ay," cried the dame, laughing, "I fancies you war not pleased with the
bargain.  I thought you war too old a ragmerchant to be so free with the
blunt; howsomever, I supposes it war the tinsel petticoat as took you
in!"

"As it has mony a viser man than the like of I," rejoined Dummie, who to
his various secret professions added the ostensible one of a rag-merchant
and dealer in broken glass.

The recollection of her good bargain in the box of rags opened our
landlady's heart.

"Drink, Dummie," said she, good-humouredly,--"drink; I scorns to score
lush to a friend."

Dummie expressed his gratitude, refilled his glass, and the hospitable
matron, knocking out from her pipe the dying ashes, thus proceeded:

"You sees, Dummie, though I often beats the boy, I loves him as much as
if I war his raal mother,--I wants to make him an honour to his country,
and an ixciption to my family!"

"Who all flashed their ivories at Surgeons' Hall!" added the metaphorical
Dummie.

"True!" said the lady; "they died game, and I be n't ashamed of 'em.  But
I owes a duty to Paul's mother, and I wants Paul to have a long life.  I
would send him to school, but you knows as how the boys only corrupt one
another.  And so, I should like to meet with some decent man, as a tutor,
to teach the lad Latin and vartue!"

"My eyes!" cried Dummie; aghast at the grandeur of this desire.

"The boy is 'cute enough, and he loves reading," continued the dame; "but
I does not think the books he gets hold of will teach him the way to grow
old."

"And 'ow came he to read, anyhows?"

"Ranting Rob, the strolling player, taught him his letters, and said he'd
a deal of janius."

"And why should not Ranting Rob tache the boy Latin and vartue?"

"'Cause Ranting Rob, poor fellow, was lagged [Transported for burglary]
for doing a panny!" answered the dame, despondently.

There was a long silence; it was broken by Mr. Dummie.  Slapping his
thigh with the gesticulatory vehemence of a Ugo Foscolo, that gentleman
exclaimed,--

"I 'as it,--I 'as thought of a tutor for leetle Paul!"

"Who's that?  You quite frightens me; you 'as no marcy on my narves,"
said the dame, fretfully.

"Vy, it be the gemman vot writes," said Dummie, putting his finger to his
nose,--"the gemman vot paid you so flashly!"

"What!  the Scotch gemman?"

"The werry same!" returned Dummie.

The dame turned in her chair and refilled her pipe.  It was evident from
her manner that Mr. Dunnaker's suggestion had made an impression on her.
But she recognized two doubts as to its feasibility: one, whether the
gentleman proposed would be adequate to the task; the other, whether he
would be willing to undertake it.

In the midst of her meditations on this matter, the dame was interrupted
by the entrance of certain claimants on her hospitality; and Dummie soon
after taking his leave, the suspense of Mrs. Lobkins's mind touching the
education of little Paul remained the whole of that day and night utterly
unrelieved.




CHAPTER III.

  I own that I am envious of the pleasure you will have in finding yourself
  more learned than other boys,--even those who are older than yourself.
  What honour this will do you!  What distinctions, what applauses will
  follow wherever you go!
  --LORD CHESTERFIELD: Letters to his Son.

  Example, my boy,--example is worth a thousand precepts.
  --MAXIMILIAN SOLEMN.

Tarpeia was crushed beneath the weight of ornaments.  The language of the
vulgar is a sort of Tarpeia.  We have therefore relieved it of as many
gems as we were able, and in the foregoing scene presented it to the gaze
of our readers simplex munditiis.  Nevertheless, we could timidly imagine
some gentler beings of the softer sex rather displeased with the tone of
the dialogue we have given, did we not recollect how delighted they are
with the provincial barbarities of the sister kingdom, whenever they meet
them poured over the pages of some Scottish story-teller.  As, unhappily
for mankind, broad Scotch is not yet the universal language of Europe, we
suppose our countrywomen will not be much more unacquainted with the
dialect of their own lower orders than with that which breathes nasal
melodies over the paradise of the North.

It was the next day, at the hour of twilight, when Mrs. Margery Lobkins,
after a satisfactory tete-a-tete with Mr. MacGrawler, had the happiness
of thinking that she had provided a tutor for little Paul.  The critic
having recited to her a considerable portion of Propria qum Maribus, the
good lady had no longer a doubt of his capacities for teaching; and on
the other hand, when Mrs. Lobkins entered on the subject of remuneration,
the Scotsman professed himself perfectly willing to teach any and every
thing that the most exacting guardian could require.  It was finally
settled that Paul should attend Mr. MacGrawler two hours a day; that Mr.
MacGrawler should be entitled to such animal comforts of meat and drink
as the Mug afforded, and, moreover, to the weekly stipend of two
shillings and sixpence,--the shillings for instruction in the classics,
and the sixpence for all other humanities; or, as Mrs. Lobkins expressed
it, "two bobs for the Latin, and a site for the vartue."

Let not thy mind, gentle reader, censure us for a deviation from
probability in making so excellent and learned a gentleman as Mr. Peter
MacGrawler the familiar guest of the lady of the Mug.  First, thou must
know that our story is cast in a period antecedent to the present, and
one in which the old jokes against the circumstances of author and of
critic had their foundation in truth; secondly, thou must know that by
some curious concatenation of circumstances neither bailiff nor bailiff's
man was ever seen within the four walls continent of Mrs. Margery
Lobkins; thirdly, the Mug was nearer than any other house of public
resort to the abode of the critic; fourthly, it afforded excellent
porter; and fifthly, O reader, thou dost Mrs. Margery Lobkins a grievous
wrong if thou supposest that her door was only open to those mercurial
gentry who are afflicted with the morbid curiosity to pry into the
mysteries of their neighbours' pockets,--other visitors, of fair repute,
were not unoften partakers of the good matron's hospitality; although it
must be owned that they generally occupied the private room in preference
to the public one.  And sixthly, sweet reader (we grieve to be so
prolix), we would just hint to thee that Mr. MacGrawler was one of those
vast-minded sages who, occupied in contemplating morals in the great
scale, do not fritter down their intellects by a base attention to minute
details.  So that if a descendant of Langfanger did sometimes cross the
venerable Scot in his visit to the Mug, the apparition did not revolt
that benevolent moralist so much as, were it not for the above hint, thy
ignorance might lead thee to imagine.

It is said that Athenodorus the Stoic contributed greatly by his
conversation to amend the faults of Augustus, and to effect the change
visible in that fortunate man after his accession to the Roman empire. If
this be true, it may throw a new light on the character of Augustus, and
instead of being the hypocrite, he was possibly the convert.  Certain it
is that there are few vices which cannot be conquered by wisdom; and yet,
melancholy to relate, the instructions of Peter MacGrawler produced but
slender amelioration in the habits of the youthful Paul.  That ingenious
stripling had, we have already seen, under the tuition of Ranting Bob,
mastered the art of reading,--nay, he could even construct and link
together certain curious pot-hooks, which himself and Mrs. Lobkins were
wont graciously to term "writing."  So far, then, the way of MacGrawler
was smoothed and prepared.

But, unhappily, all experienced teachers allow that the main difficulty
is not to learn, but to unlearn; and the mind of Paul was already
occupied by a vast number of heterogeneous miscellanies which stoutly
resisted the ingress either of Latin or of virtue.  Nothing could wean
him from an ominous affection for the history of Richard Turpin; it was
to him what, it has been said, the Greek authors should be to the
Academician,--a study by day, and a dream by night.  He was docile enough
during lessons, and sometimes even too quick in conception for the
stately march of Mr. MacGrawler's intellect.  But it not unfrequently
happened that when that gentleman attempted to rise, he found himself,
like the Lady in "Comus," adhering to--

        "A venomed seat Smeared with gums of glutinous heat;"

or his legs had been secretly united under the table, and the tie was not
to be broken without overthrow to the superior powers.  These, and
various other little sportive machinations wherewith Paul was wont to
relieve the monotony of literature, went far to disgust the learned
critic with his undertaking.  But "the tape" and the treasury of Mrs.
Lobkins re-smoothed, as it were, the irritated bristles of his mind, and
he continued his labours with this philosophical reflection: "Why fret
myself?  If a pupil turns out well, it is clearly to the credit of his
master; if not, to the disadvantage of himself."  Of course, a similar
suggestion never forced itself into the mind of Dr. Keate  [A celebrated
principal of Eton]. At Eton the very soul of the honest headmaster is
consumed by his zeal for the welfare of the little gentlemen in stiff
cravats.

But to Paul, who was predestined to enjoy a certain quantum of knowledge,
circumstances happened, in the commencement of the second year of his
pupilage, which prodigiously accelerated the progress of his scholastic
career.

At the apartment of MacGrawler, Paul one morning encountered Mr. Augustus
Tomlinson, a young man of great promise, who pursued the peaceful
occupation of chronicling in a leading newspaper "Horrid Murders,"
"Enormous Melons," and "Remarkable Circumstances."  This gentleman,
having the advantage of some years' seniority over Paul, was slow in
unbending his dignity; but observing at last the eager and respectful
attention with which the stripling listened to a most veracious detail of
five men being inhumanly murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by the Reverend
Zedekiah Fooks Barnacle, he was touched by the impression he had created,
and shaking Paul graciously by the hand, he told him there was a deal of
natural shrewdness in his countenance, and that Mr. Augustus Tomlinson
did not doubt but that he (Paul) might have the honour to be murdered
himself one of these days.  "You understand me," continued Mr.
Augustus,--"I mean murdered in effigy,--assassinated in type,--while you
yourself, unconscious of the circumstance, are quietly enjoying what you
imagine to be your existence.  We never kill common persons,--to say
truth, our chief spite is against the Church; we destroy bishops by
wholesale.  Sometimes, indeed, we knock off a leading barrister or so,
and express the anguish of the junior counsel at a loss so destructive to
their interests.  But that is only a stray hit, and the slain barrister
often lives to become Attorney-General, renounce Whig principles, and
prosecute the very Press that destroyed him.  Bishops are our proper
food; we send them to heaven on a sort of flying griffin, of which the
back is an apoplexy, and the wings are puffs.  The Bishop of---, whom we
despatched in this manner the other day, being rather a facetious
personage, wrote to remonstrate with us thereon, observing that though
heaven was a very good translation for a bishop, yet that in such cases
he preferred 'the original to the translation.' As we murder bishop, so
is there another class of persons whom we only afflict with lethiferous
diseases.  This latter tribe consists of his Majesty and his Majesty's
ministers.  Whenever we cannot abuse their measures, we always fall foul
on their health.  Does the king pass any popular law, we immediately
insinuate that his constitution is on its last legs.  Does the minister
act like a man of sense, we instantly observe, with great regret, that
his complexion is remarkably pale.  There is one manifest advantage in
diseasinq people, instead of absolutely destroying them: the public may
flatly contradict us in one case, but it never can in the other; it is
easy to prove that a man is alive, but utterly impossible to prove that
he is in health.  What if some opposing newspaper take up the cudgels in
his behalf, and assert that the victim of all Pandora's complaints, whom
we send tottering to the grave, passes one half the day in knocking up a
'distinguished company' at a shooting-party, and the other half in
outdoing the same 'distinguished company' after dinner?  What if the
afflicted individual himself write us word that he never was better in
his life?  We have only mysteriously to shake our heads and observe that
to contradict is not to prove, that it is little likely that our
authority should have been mistaken, and (we are very fond of an
historical comparison), beg our readers to remember that when Cardinal
Richelieu was dying, nothing enraged him so much as hinting that he was
ill.  In short, if Horace is right, we are the very princes of poets; for
I dare say, Mr. MacGrawler, that you--and you, too, my little gentleman,
perfectly remember the words of the wise old Roman,--

     "'Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur
     Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit,
     Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet.'"

     ["He appears to me to be, to the fullest extent, a poet who
     airily torments my breast, irritates, soothes, fills it with
     unreal terrors."]

Having uttered this quotation with considerable self-complacency, and
thereby entirely completed his conquest over Paul, Mr. Augustus
Tomlinson, turning to MacGrawler, concluded his business with that
gentleman,--which was of a literary nature, namely, a joint composition
against a man who, being under five-and-twenty, and too poor to give
dinners, had had the impudence to write a sacred poem.  The critics were
exceedingly bitter at this; and having very little to say against the
poem, the Court journals called the author a "coxcomb," and the liberal
ones "the son of a pantaloon!"

There was an ease, a spirit, a life about Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, which
captivated the senses of our young hero; then, too, he was exceedingly
smartly attired,--wore red heels and a bag,--had what seemed to Paul
quite the air of a "man of fashion;" and, above all, he spouted the Latin
with a remarkable grace!

Some days afterwards, MacGrawler sent our hero to Mr. Tomlinson's
lodgings, with his share of the joint abuse upon the poet.

Doubly was Paul's reverence for Mr. Augustus Tomlinson increased by a
sight of his abode.  He found him settled in a polite part of the town,
in a very spruce parlour, the contents of which manifested the universal
genius of the inhabitant.  It hath been objected unto us, by a most
discerning critic, that we are addicted to the drawing of "universal
geniuses."  We plead Not Guilty in former instances; we allow the soft
impeachment in the instance of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson.  Over his
fireplace were arranged boxing-gloves and fencing foils; on his table lay
a cremona and a flageolet.  On one side of the wall were shelves
containing the Covent Garden Magazine, Burn's Justice, a pocket Horace, a
Prayer-Book, Excerpta ex Tacito, a volume of plays, Philosophy made Easy,
and a Key to all Knowledge.  Furthermore, there were on another table a
riding-whip and a driving-whip and a pair of spurs, and three guineas,
with a little mountain of loose silver.  Mr. Augustus was a tall, fair
young man, with a freckled complexion, green eyes and red eyelids, a
smiling mouth, rather under-jawed, a sharp nose, and a prodigiously large
pair of ears.  He was robed in a green damask dressing-gown; and he
received the tender Paul most graciously.

There was something very engaging about our hero.  He was not only
good-looking, and frank in aspect, but he had that appearance of
briskness and intellect which belongs to an embryo rogue.  Mr. Augustus
Tomlinson professed the greatest regard for him,--asked him if he could
box, made him put on a pair of gloves, and very condescendingly knocked
him down three times successively.  Next he played him, both upon his
flageolet and his cremona, some of the most modish airs.  Moreover, he
sang him a little song of his own composing.  He then, taking up the
driving-whip, flanked a fly from the opposite wall, and throwing himself
(naturally fatigued with his numerous exertions) on his sofa, observed,
in a careless tone, that he and his friend Lord Dunshunner were
universally esteemed the best whips in the metropolis.  "I," quoth Mr.
Augustus, "am the best on the road; but my lord is a devil at turning a
corner."

Paul, who had hitherto lived too unsophisticated a life to be aware of
the importance of which a lord would naturally be in the eyes of Mr.
Augustus Tomlinson, was not so much struck with the grandeur of the
connection as the murderer of the journals had expected.  He merely
observed, by way of compliment, that Mr. Augustus and his companion
seemed to be "rolling kiddies."

A little displeased with this metaphorical remark,--for it may be
observed that "rolling kiddy" is, among the learned in such lore, the
customary expression for "a smart thief,"--the universal Augustus took
that liberty to which by his age and station, so much superior to those
of Paul, he imagined himself entitled, and gently reproved our hero for
his indiscriminate use of flash phrases.

"A lad of your parts," said he,--"for I see you are clever, by your
eye,--ought to be ashamed of using such vulgar expressions.  Have a
nobler spirit, a loftier emulation, Paul, than that which distinguishes
the little ragamuffins of the street.  Know that in this country genius
and learning carry everything before them; and if you behave yourself
properly, you may, one day or another, be as high in the world as
myself."

At this speech Paul looked wistfully round the spruce parlour, and
thought what a fine thing it would be to be lord of such a domain,
together with the appliances of flageolet and cremona, boxing-gloves,
books, fly-flanking flagellum, three guineas, with the little mountain of
silver, and the reputation--shared only with Lord Dunshunner--of being
the best whip in London.

"Yes," continued Tomlinson, with conscious pride, "I owe my rise to
myself.  Learning is better than house and land.  'Doctrina sed vim,'
etc.  You know what old Horace says?  Why, sir, you would not believe it;
but I was the man who killed his Majesty the King of Sardinia in our
yesterday's paper.  Nothing is too arduous for genius.  Fag hard, my boy,
and you may rival (for the thing, though difficult, may not be
impossible) Augustus Tomlinson!"

At the conclusion of this harangue, a knock at the door being heard, Paul
took his departure, and met in the hall a fine-looking person dressed in
the height of the fashion, and wearing a pair of prodigiously large
buckles in his shoes.  Paul looked, and his heart swelled.  "I may
rival," thought he,--"those were his very words,--I may rival (for the
thing, though difficult, is not impossible) Augustus Tomlinson!" Absorbed
in meditation, he went silently home.  The next day the memoirs of the
great Turpin were committed to the flames, and it was noticeable that
henceforth Paul observed a choicer propriety of words, that he assumed a
more refined air of dignity, and that he paid considerably more attention
than heretofore to the lessons of Mr. Peter MacGrawler. Although it must
be allowed that our young hero's progress in the learned languages was
not astonishing, yet an early passion for reading, growing stronger and
stronger by application, repaid him at last with a tolerable knowledge of
the mother-tongue.  We must, however, add that his more favourite and
cherished studies were scarcely of that nature which a prudent preceptor
would have greatly commended.  They lay chiefly among novels, plays, and
poetry,--which last he affected to that degree that he became somewhat of
a poet himself.  Nevertheless these literary avocations, profitless as
they seemed, gave a certain refinement to his tastes which they were not
likely otherwise to have acquired at the Mug; and while they aroused his
ambition to see something of the gay life they depicted, they imparted to
his temper a tone of enterprise and of thoughtless generosity which
perhaps contributed greatly to counteract those evil influences towards
petty vice to which the examples around him must have exposed his tender
youth.  But, alas!  a great disappointment to Paul's hope of assistance
and companionship in his literary labours befell him. Mr.  Augustus
Tomlinson, one bright morning, disappeared, leaving word with his
numerous friends that he was going to accept a lucrative situation in the
North of England.  Notwithstanding the shock this occasioned to the
affectionate heart and aspiring temper of our friend Paul, it abated not
his ardour in that field of science which it seemed that the
distinguished absentee had so successfully cultivated. By little and
little, he possessed himself (in addition to the literary stores we have
alluded to) of all it was in the power of the wise and profound Peter
MacGrawler to impart unto him; and at the age of sixteen he began (oh the
presumption of youth!) to fancy himself more learned than his master.




CHAPTER IV.

He had now become a young man of extreme fashion, and as much repandu in
society as the utmost and most exigent coveter of London celebrity could
desire.  He was, of course, a member of the clubs, etc.  He was, in
short, of that oft-described set before whom all minor beaux sink into
insignificance, or among whom they eventually obtain a subaltern grade,
by a sacrifice of a due portion of their fortune.--Almack's Revisited.

By the soul of the great Malebranche, who made "A Search after Truth,"
and discovered everything beautiful except that which he searched
for,--by the soul of the great Malebranche, whom Bishop Berkeley found
suffering under an inflammation in the lungs, and very obligingly talked
to death (an instance of conversational powers worthy the envious
emulation of all great metaphysicians and arguers),--by the soul of that
illustrious man, it is amazing to us what a number of truths there are
broken up into little fragments, and scattered here and there through the
world.  What a magnificent museum a man might make of the precious
minerals, if he would but go out with his basket under his arm, and his
eyes about him!  We ourselves picked up this very day a certain small
piece of truth, with which we propose to explain to thee, fair reader, a
sinister turn in the fortunes of Paul.

"Wherever," says a living sage, "you see dignity, you may be sure there
is expense requisite to support it."  So was it with Paul.  A young
gentleman who was heir-presumptive to the Mug, and who enjoyed a handsome
person with a cultivated mind, was necessarily of a certain station of
society, and an object of respect in the eyes of the manoeuvring mammas
of the vicinity of Thames Court.  Many were the parties of pleasure to
Deptford and Greenwich which Paul found himself compelled to attend; and
we need not refer our readers to novels upon fashionable life to inform
them that in good society the gentlemen always pay for the ladies!  Nor
was this all the expense to which his expectations exposed him.  A
gentleman could scarcely attend these elegant festivities without
devoting some little attention to his dress; and a fashionable tailor
plays the deuce with one's yearly allowance.

We who reside, be it known to you, reader, in Little Brittany are not
very well acquainted with the manners of the better classes in St.
James's.  But there was one great vice among the fine people about Thames
Court which we make no doubt does not exist anywhere else,--namely, these
fine people were always in an agony to seem finer than they were; and the
more airs a gentleman or a lady gave him or her self, the more important
they became.  Joe, the dog's-meat man, had indeed got into society
entirely from a knack of saying impertinent things to everybody; and the
smartest exclusives of the place, who seldom visited any one where there
was not a silver teapot, used to think Joe had a great deal in him
because he trundled his cart with his head in the air, and one day gave
the very beadle of the parish "the cut direct."

Now this desire to be so exceedingly fine not only made the society about
Thames Court unpleasant, but expensive.  Every one vied with his
neighbour; and as the spirit of rivalry is particularly strong in
youthful bosoms, we can scarcely wonder that it led Paul into many
extravagances.  The evil of all circles that profess to be select is high
play; and the reason is obvious: persons who have the power to bestow on
another an advantage he covets would rather sell it than give it; and
Paul, gradually increasing in popularity and ton, found himself, in spite
of his classical education, no match for the finished, or, rather,
finishing gentlemen with whom he began to associate.  His first
admittance into the select coterie of these men of the world was formed
at the house of Bachelor Bill, a person of great notoriety among that
portion of the elite which emphatically entitles itself "Flash." However,
as it is our rigid intention in this work to portray at length no
episodical characters whatsoever, we can afford our readers but a slight
and rapid sketch of Bachelor Bill.

This personage was of Devonshire extraction.  His mother had kept the
pleasantest public-house in town, and at her death Bill succeeded to her
property and popularity.  All the young ladies in the neighbourhood of
Fiddler's Row, where he resided, set their caps at him: all the most
fashionable prigs, or tobymen, sought to get him into their set; and the
most crack blowen in London would have given her ears at any time for a
loving word from Bachelor Bill.  But Bill was a longheaded, prudent
fellow, and of a remarkably cautious temperament.  He avoided marriage
and friendship; namely, he was neither plundered nor cornuted. He was a
tall, aristocratic cove, of a devilish neat address, and very gallant, in
an honest way, to the blowens.  Like most single men, being very much the
gentleman so far as money was concerned, he gave them plenty of "feeds,"
and from time to time a very agreeable hop. His bingo [Brandy] was
unexceptionable; and as for his stark-naked [Gin], it was voted the most
brilliant thing in nature.  In a very short time, by his blows-out and
his bachelorship,--for single men always arrive at the apex of haut ton
more easily than married,--he became the very glass of fashion; and many
were the tight apprentices, even at the west end of the town, who used to
turn back in admiration of Bachelor Bill, when of a Sunday afternoon he
drove down his varment gig to his snug little box on the borders of
Turnham Green.  Bill's happiness was not, however, wholly without alloy.
The ladies of pleasure are always so excessively angry when a man does
not make love to them, that there is nothing they will not say against
him; and the fair matrons in the vicinity of Fiddler's Row spread all
manner of unfounded reports against poor Bachelor Bill. By degrees,
however,--for, as Tacitus has said, doubtless with a prophetic eye to
Bachelor Bill, "the truth gains by delay,"--these reports began to die
insensibly away; and Bill now waxing near to the confines of middle age,
his friends comfortably settled for him that he would be Bachelor Bill
all his life. For the rest, he was an excellent fellow,--gave his broken
victuals to the poor, professed a liberal turn of thinking, and in all
the quarrels among the blowens (your crack blowens are a quarrelsome
set!) always took part with the weakest. Although Bill affected to be
very select in his company, he was never forgetful of his old friends;
and Mrs. Margery Lobkins having been very good to him when he was a
little boy in a skeleton jacket, he invariably sent her a card to his
soirees.  The good lady, however, had not of late years deserted her
chimney-corner. Indeed, the racket of fashionable life was too much for
her nerves; and the invitation had become a customary form not expected
to be acted upon, but not a whit the less regularly used for that reason.
As Paul had now attained his sixteenth year, and was a fine, handsome
lad, the dame thought he would make an excellent representative of the
Mug's mistress; and that, for her protege, a ball at Bill's house would
be no bad commencement of "Life in London."  Accordingly, she intimated
to the Bachelor a wish to that effect; and Paul received the following
invitation from Bill:--

"Mr. William Duke gives a hop and feed in a quiet way on Monday next, and
hops Mr. Paul Lobkins will be of the party.  N. B.  Gentlemen is expected
to come in pumps."

When Paul entered, he found Bachelor Bill leading off the ball to the
tune of "Drops of Brandy," with a young lady to whom, because she had
been a strolling player, the Ladies Patronesses of Fiddler's Row had
thought proper to behave with a very cavalier civility.  The good
Bachelor had no notion, as he expressed it, of such tantrums, and he
caused it to be circulated among the finest of the blowens, that he
expected all who kicked their heels at his house would behave decent and
polite to young Mrs. Dot.  This intimation, conveyed to the ladies with
all that insinuating polish for which Bachelor Bill was so remarkable,
produced a notable effect; and Mrs. Dot, being now led off by the flash
Bachelor, was overpowered with civilities the rest of the evening.

When the dance was ended, Bill very politely shook hands with Paul, and
took an early opportunity of introducing him to some of the most "noted
characters" of the town.  Among these were the smart Mr. Allfair, the
insinuating Henry Finish, the merry Jack Hookey, the knowing Charles
Trywit, and various others equally noted for their skill in living
handsomely upon their own brains, and the personals of other people.  To
say truth, Paul, who at that time was an honest lad, was less charmed
than he had anticipated by the conversation of these chevaliers of
industry.  He was more pleased with the clever though self-sufficient
remarks of a gentleman with a remarkably fine head of hair, and whom we
would more impressively than the rest introduce to our reader under the
appellation of Mr. Edward Pepper, generally termed Long Ned.  As this
worthy was destined afterwards to be an intimate associate of Paul, our
main reason for attending the hop at Bachelor Bill's is to note, as the
importance of the event deserves, the epoch of the commencement of their
acquaintance.

Long Ned and, Paul happened to sit next to each other at supper, and they
conversed together so amicably that Paul, in the hospitality of his
heart, expressed a hope that he should see Mr. Pepper at the Mug!

"Mug,--Mug!" repeated Pepper, half shutting his eyes, with the air of a
dandy about to be impertinent; "ah, the name of a chapel, is it not?
There's a sect called Muggletonians, I think?"

"As to that," said Paul, colouring at this insinuation against the Mug,
"Mrs. Lobkins has no more religion than her betters; but the Mug is a
very excellent house, and frequented by the best possible company."

"Don't doubt it!" said Ned.  "Remember now that I was once there, and saw
one Dummie Dunnaker,--is not that the name?  I recollect some years ago,
when I first came out, that Dummie and I had an adventure together; to
tell you the truth, it was not the sort of thing I would do now.
But--would you believe it, Mr. Paul?--this pitiful fellow was quite rude
to me the only time I ever met him since; that is to say, the only time I
ever entered the Mug.  I have no notion of such airs in a merchant,--a
merchant of rags!  Those commercial fellows are getting quite
insufferable."

"You surprise me," said Paul.  "Poor Dummie is the last man to be rude;
he is as civil a creature as ever lived."

"Or sold a rag," said Ned.  "Possibly!  Don't doubt his amiable qualities
in the least.  Pass the bingo, my good fellow.  Stupid stuff, this
dancing!"

"Devilish stupid!" echoed Harry Finish, across the table.  "Suppose we
adjourn to Fish Lane, and rattle the ivories!  What say you, Mr.
Lobkins?"

Afraid of the "ton's stern laugh, which scarce the proud philosopher can
scorn," and not being very partial to dancing, Paul assented to the
proposition; and a little party, consisting of Harry Finish, Allfair,
Long Ned, and Mr. Hookey, adjourned to Fish Lane, where there was a club,
celebrated among men who live by their wits, at which "lush" and "baccy"
were gratuitously sported in the most magnificent manner.  Here the
evening passed away very delightfully, and Paul went home without a
"brad" in his pocket.

From that time Paul's visits to Fish Lane became unfortunately regular;
and in a very short period, we grieve to say, Paul became that
distinguished character, a gentleman of three outs,--"out of pocket, out
of elbows, and out of credit."  The only two persons whom he found
willing to accommodate him with a slight loan, as the advertisements
signed X.  Y.  have it, were Mr. Dummie Dunnaker and Mr. Pepper, surnamed
the Long.  The latter, however, while he obliged the heir to the Mug,
never condescended to enter that noted place of resort; and the former,
whenever he good-naturedly opened his purse-strings, did it with a hearty
caution to shun the acquaintance of Long Ned,--"a parson," said Dummie,
"of wery dangerous morals, and not by no manner of means a fit 'sociate
for a young gemman of cracter like leetle Paul!"  So earnest was this
caution, and so especially pointed at Long Ned,--although the company of
Mr. Allfair or Mr. Finish might be said to be no less prejudicial,--that
it is probable that stately fastidiousness of manner which Lord Normanby
rightly observes, in one of his excellent novels, makes so many enemies
in the world, and which sometimes characterized the behaviour of Long
Ned, especially towards the men of commerce, was a main reason why Dummie
was so acutely and peculiarly alive to the immoralities of that lengthy
gentleman.  At the same time we must observe that when Paul, remembering
what Pepper had said respecting his early adventure with Mr. Dunnaker,
repeated it to the merchant, Dummie could not conceal a certain
confusion, though he merely remarked, with a sort of laugh, that it was
not worth speaking about; and it appeared evident to Paul that something
unpleasant to the man of rags, which was not shared by the unconscious
Pepper, lurked in the reminiscence of their past acquaintance.  How beit,
the circumstance glided from Paul's attention the moment afterwards; and
he paid, we are concerned to say, equally little heed to the cautions
against Ned with which Dummie regaled him.

Perhaps (for we must now direct a glance towards his domestic concerns)
one great cause which drove Paul to Fish Lane was the uncomfortable life
he led at home.  For though Mrs. Lobkins was extremely fond of her
protege, yet she was possessed, as her customers emphatically remarked,
"of the devil's own temper;" and her native coarseness never having been
softened by those pictures of gay society which had, in many a novel and
comic farce, refined the temperament of the romantic Paul, her manner of
venting her maternal reproaches was certainly not a little revolting to a
lad of some delicacy of feeling.  Indeed, it often occurred to him to
leave her house altogether, and seek his fortunes alone, after the manner
of the ingenious Gil Blas or the enterprising Roderick Random; and this
idea, though conquered and reconquered, gradually swelled and increased
at his heart, even as swelleth that hairy ball found in the stomach of
some suffering heifer after its decease.  Among these projects of
enterprise the reader will hereafter notice that an early vision of the
Green Forest Cave, in which Turpin was accustomed, with a friend, a ham,
and a wife, to conceal himself, flitted across his mind.  At this time he
did not, perhaps, incline to the mode of life practised by the hero of
the roads; but he certainly clung not the less fondly to the notion of
the cave.

The melancholy flow of our hero's life was now, however, about to be
diverted by an unexpected turn, and the crude thoughts of boyhood to
burst, "like Ghilan's giant palm," into the fruit of a manly resolution.

Among the prominent features of Mrs. Lobkins's mind was a sovereign
contempt for the unsuccessful.  The imprudence and ill-luck of Paul
occasioned her as much scorn as compassion; and when for the third time
within a week he stood, with a rueful visage and with vacant pockets, by
the dame's great chair, requesting an additional supply, the tides of her
wrath swelled into overflow.

"Look you, my kinchin cove," said she,--and in order to give peculiar
dignity to her aspect, she put on while she spoke a huge pair of tin
spectacles,--"if so be as how you goes for to think as how I shall go for
to supply your wicious necessities, you will find yourself planted in
Queer Street.  Blow me tight, if I gives you another mag."

"But I owe Long Ned a guinea," said Paul; "and Dummie Dunnaker lent me
three crowns.  It ill becomes your heir apparent, my dear dame, to fight
shy of his debts of honour."

"Taradididdle, don't think for to wheedle me with your debts and your
honour," said the dame, in a passion.  "Long Ned is as long in the forks
[fingers] as he is in the back; may Old Harry fly off with him!  And as
for Durnmie Dunnaker, I wonders how you, brought up such a swell, and
blest with the wery best of hedications, can think of putting up with
such wulgar 'sociates.  I tells you what, Paul, you'll please to break
with them, smack and at once, or devil a brad you'll ever get from Peg
Lobkins."  So saying, the old lady turned round in her chair, and helped
herself to a pipe of tobacco.

Paul walked twice up and down the apartment, and at last stopped opposite
the dame's chair.  He was a youth of high spirit; and though he was
warm-hearted, and had a love for Mrs. Lobkins, which her care and
affection for hire well deserved, yet he was rough in temper, and not
constantly smooth in speech.  It is true that his heart smote him
afterwards, whenever he had said anything to annoy Mrs.  Lobkins, and he
was always the first to seek a reconciliation; but warm words produce
cold respect, and sorrow for the past is not always efficacious in
amending the future.  Paul then, puffed up with the vanity of his genteel
education, and the friendship of Long Ned (who went to Ranelagh, and wore
silver clocked stockings), stopped opposite to Mrs. Lobkins's chair, and
said with great solemnity,--

"Mr. Pepper, madam, says very properly that I must have money to support
myself like a gentleman; and as you won't give it me, I am determined,
with many thanks for your past favours, to throw myself on the world, and
seek my fortune."

If Paul was of no oily and bland temper, Dame Margaret Lobkins, it has
been seen, had no advantage on that score.  (We dare say the reader has
observed that nothing so enrages persons on whom one depends as any
expressed determination of seeking independence.)  Gazing therefore for
one moment at the open but resolute countenance of Paul, while all the
blood of her veins seemed gathering in fire and scarlet to her enlarging
cheeks, Dame Lobkins said,--

"Ifeaks, Master Pride-in-duds! seek your fortune yourself, will you? This
comes of my bringing you up, and letting you eat the bread of idleness
and charity, you toad of a thousand!  Take that and be d--d to you!" and,
suiting the action to the word, the tube which she had withdrawn from her
mouth in order to utter her gentle rebuke whizzed through the air, grazed
Paul's cheek, and finished its earthly career by coming in violent
contact with the right eye of Duinmie Dunnaker, who at that exact moment
entered the room.

Paul had winced for a moment to avoid the missive; in the next he stood
perfectly upright.  His cheeks glowed, his chest swelled; and the
entrance of Dummie Dunuaker, who was thus made the spectator of the
affront he had received, stirred his blood into a deeper anger and a more
bitter self-humiliation.  All his former resolutions of departure, all
the hard words, the coarse allusions, the practical insults he had at any
time received, rushed upon him at once.  He merely cast one look at the
old woman, whose rage was now half subsided, and turned slowly and in
silence to the door.

There is often something alarming in an occurrence merely because it is
that which we least expect.  The astute Mrs. Lobkins, remembering the
hardy temper and fiery passions of Paul, had expected some burst of rage,
some vehement reply; and when she caught with one wandering eye his
parting look, and saw him turn so passively and mutely to the door, her
heart misgave her, she raised herself from her chair, and made towards
him.  Unhappily for her chance of reconciliation, she had that day
quaffed more copiously of the bowl than usual; and the signs of
intoxication visible in her uncertain gait, her meaningless eye, her
vacant leer, her ruby cheek, all inspired Paul with feelings which at the
moment converted resentment into something very much like aversion.  He
sprang from her grasp to the threshold.

"Where be you going, you imp of the world?" cried the dame.  "Get in with
you, and say no more on the matter; be a bob-cull,--drop the bullies, and
you shall have the blunt!"

But Paul heeded not this invitation.

"I will eat the bread of idleness and charity no longer," said he,
sullenly.  "Good-by; and if ever I can pay you what I have cost you, I
will."

He turned away as he spoke; and the dame, kindling with resentment at his
unseemly return to her proffered kindness, hallooed after him, and bade
that dark-coloured gentleman who keeps the fire-office below go along
with him.

Swelling with anger, pride, shame, and a half-joyous feeling of
emancipated independence, Paul walked on, he knew not whither, with his
head in the air, and his legs marshalling themselves into a military gait
of defiance.  He had not proceeded far before he heard his name uttered
behind him; he turned, and saw the rueful face of Dummie Dunnaker.

Very inoffensively had that respectable person been employed during the
last part of the scene we have described in caressing his afflicted eye,
and muttering philosophical observations on the danger incurred by all
those who are acquainted with ladies of a choleric temperament; when Mrs.
Lobkins, turning round after Paul's departure, and seeing the pitiful
person of that Dummie Dunnaker, whose name she remembered Paul had
mentioned in his opening speech, and whom, therefore, with an illogical
confusion of ideas, she considered a party in the late dispute, exhausted
upon him all that rage which it was necessary for her comfort that she
should unburden somewhere.

She seized the little man by the collar,--the tenderest of all places in
gentlemen similarly circumstanced with regard to the ways of life,--and
giving him a blow, which took effect on his other and hitherto undamaged
eye, cried out,--

"I'll teach you, you blood-sucker [that is, parasite], to sponge upon
those as has expectations!  I'll teach you to cozen the heir of the Mug,
you snivelling, whey-faced ghost of a farthing rushlight!  What!  you'll
lend my Paul three crowns, will you, when you knows as how you told me
you could not pay me a pitiful tizzy?  Oh, you're a queer one, I
warrants; but you won't queer Margery Lobkins.  Out of my ken, you cur of
the mange!--out of my ken; and if ever I claps my sees on you again, or
if ever I knows as how you makes a flat of my Paul, blow me tight but
I'll weave you a hempen collar,--I'll hang you, you dog, I will.  What!
you will answer me, will you?  Oh, you viper, budge and begone!"

It was in vain that Dummie protested his innocence.  A violent
coup-de-pied broke off all further parlance.  He made a clear house of
the Mug; and the landlady thereof, tottering back to her elbow-chair,
sought out another pipe, and, like all imaginative persons when the world
goes wrong with them, consoled herself for the absence of realities by
the creations of smoke.

Meanwhile Dummie Dunnaker, muttering and murmuring bitter fancies,
overtook Paul, and accused that youth of having been the occasion of the
injuries he had just undergone.  Paul was not at that moment in the
humour best adapted for the patient bearing of accusations.  He answered
Mr. Dunnaker very shortly; and that respectable individual, still
smarting under his bruises, replied with equal tartness.  Words grew
high, and at length Paul, desirous of concluding the conference, clenched
his fist, and told the redoubted Dummie that he would "knock him down."
There is something peculiarly harsh and stunning in those three hard,
wiry, sturdy, stubborn monosyllables.  Their very sound makes you double
your fist if you are a hero, or your pace if you are a peaceable man.
They produced an instant effect upon Dummie Dunnaker, aided as they were
by the effect of an athletic and youthful figure, already fast
approaching to the height of six feet, a flushed cheek, and an eye that
bespoke both passion and resolution.  The rag-merchant's voice sank at
once, and with the countenance of a wronged Cassius he whimpered forth,--

"Knock me down?  O leetle Paul, vot wicked vhids are those!  Vot!  Dummie
Dunnaker, as has dandled you on his knee mony's a time and oft!  Vy, the
cove's 'art is as 'ard as junk, and as proud as a gardener's dog vith a
nosegay tied to his tail."  This pathetic remonstrance softened Paul's
anger.

"Well, Dummie," said he, laughing, "I did not mean to hurt you, and
there's an end of it; and I am very sorry for the dame's ill-conduct; and
so I wish you a good-morning."

"Vy, vere be you trotting to, leetle Paul?" said Dummie, grasping him by
the tail of the coat.

"The deuce a bit I know," answered our hero; "but I think I shall drop a
call on Long Ned."

"Avast there!" said Dummie, speaking under his breath; "if so be as you
von't blab, I'll tell you a bit of a secret.  I heered as 'ow Long Ned
started for Hampshire this werry morning on a toby [Highway expedition]
consarn!"

"Ha!" said Paul, "then hang me if I know what to do!"

As he uttered these words, a more thorough sense of his destitution (if
he persevered in leaving the Mug) than he had hitherto felt rushed upon
him; for Paul had designed for a while to throw himself on the
hospitality of his Patagonian friend, and now that he found that friend
was absent from London and on so dangerous an expedition, he was a little
puzzled what to do with that treasure of intellect and wisdom which he
carried about upon his legs.  Already he had acquired sufficient
penetration (for Charles Trywit and Harry Finish were excellent masters
for initiating a man into the knowledge of the world) to perceive that a
person, however admirable may be his qualities, does not readily find a
welcome without a penny in his pocket.  In the neighbourhood of Thames
Court he had, indeed, many acquaintances; but the fineness of his
language, acquired from his education, and the elegance of his air, in
which he attempted to blend in happy association the gallant effrontery
of Mr. Long Ned with the graceful negligence of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson,
had made him many enemies among those acquaintances; and he was not
willing--so great was our hero's pride--to throw himself on the chance of
their welcome, or to publish, as it were, his exiled and crestfallen
state.  As for those boon companions who had assisted him in making a
wilderness of his pockets, he had already found that that was the only
species of assistance which they were willing to render him.  In a word,
he could not for the life of him conjecture in what quarter he should
find the benefits of bed and board.  While he stood with his finger to
his lip, undecided and musing, but fully resolved at least on one
thing,--not to return to the Mug,--little Dummie, who was a good-natured
fellow at the bottom, peered up in his face, and said,--

"Vy, Paul, my kid, you looks down in the chops; cheer up,--care killed a
cat!"

Observing that this appropriate and encouraging fact of natural history
did not lessen the cloud upon Paul's brow, the acute Dummie Dunnaker
proceeded at once to the grand panacea for all evils, in his own profound
estimation.

"Paul, my ben cull," said he, with a knowing wink, and nudging the young
gentleman in the left side, "vot do you say to a drop o' blue ruin?  or,
as you likes to be conish [genteel], I does n't care if I sports you a
glass of port!" While Dunnaker was uttering this invitation, a sudden
reminiscence flashed across Paul: he bethought him at once of MacGrawler;
and he resolved forthwith to repair to the abode of that illustrious
sage, and petition at least for accommodation for the approaching night.
So soon as he had come to this determination, he shook off the grasp of
the amiable Dummie, and refusing with many thanks his hospitable
invitation, requested him to abstract from the dame's house, and lodge
within his own until called for, such articles of linen and clothing as
belonged to Paul and could easily be laid hold of, during one of the
matron's evening siestas, by the shrewd Dunnaker.  The merchant promised
that the commission should be speedily executed; and Paul, shaking hands
with him, proceeded to the mansion of MacGrawler.

We must now go back somewhat in the natural course of our narrative, and
observe that among the minor causes which had conspired with the great
one of gambling to bring our excellent Paul to his present situation, was
his intimacy with MacGrawler; for when Paul's increasing years and roving
habits had put an end to the sage's instructions, there was thereby
lopped off from the preceptor's finances the weekly sum of two shillings
and sixpence, as well as the freedom of the dame's cellar and larder; and
as, in the reaction of feeling, and the perverse course of human affairs,
people generally repent the most of those actions once the most ardently
incurred, so poor Mrs. Lobkins, imagining that Paul's irregularities were
entirely owing to the knowledge he had acquired from MacGrawler's
instructions, grievously upbraided herself for her former folly in
seeking for a superior education for her protege; nay, she even vented
upon the sacred head of MacGrawler himself her dissatisfaction at the
results of his instructions.  In like manner, when a man who can spell
comes to be hanged, the anti-educationists accuse the spelling-book of
his murder.  High words between the admirer of ignorant innocence and the
propagator of intellectual science ensued, which ended in MacGrawler's
final expulsion from the Mug.

There are some young gentlemen of the present day addicted to the
adoption of Lord Byron's poetry, with the alteration of new rhymes, who
are pleased graciously to inform us that they are born to be the ruin of
all those who love them,--an interesting fact, doubtless, but which they
might as well keep to themselves.  It would seem by the contents of this
chapter as if the same misfortune were destined to Paul.  The exile of
MacGrawler, the insults offered to Dummie Dunnaker,--alike occasioned by
him,--appear to sanction that opinion.  Unfortunately, though Paul was a
poet, he was not much of a sentimentalist; and he has never given us the
edifying ravings of his remorse on those subjects.  But MacGrawler, like
Dunnaker, was resolved that our hero should perceive the curse of his
fatality; and as he still retained some influence over the mind of his
quondam pupil, his accusations against Paul, as the origin of his
banishment, were attended with a greater success than were the complaints
of Dummie Dunnaker on a similar calamity.  Paul, who, like most people
who are good for nothing, had an excellent heart, was exceedingly grieved
at MacGrawler's banishment on his account; and he endeavoured to atone
for it by such pecuniary consolations as he was enabled to offer.  These
MacGrawler (purely, we may suppose, from a benevolent desire to lessen
the boy's remorse) scrupled not to accept; and thus, so similar often are
the effects of virtue and of vice, the exemplary MacGrawler conspired
with the unprincipled Long Ned and the heartless Henry Finish in
producing that unenviable state of vacuity which now saddened over the
pockets of Paul.

As our hero was slowly walking towards the sage's abode, depending on his
gratitude and friendship for a temporary shelter, one of those lightning
flashes of thought which often illumine the profoundest abyss of
affliction darted across his mind.  Recalling the image of the critic, he
remembered that he had seen that ornament of "The Asinaeum" receive
sundry sums for his critical lucubrations.

"Why," said Paul, seizing on that fact, and stopping short in the
street,--"why should I not turn critic myself?"

The only person to whom one ever puts a question with a tolerable
certainty of receiving a satisfactory answer is one's self.  The moment
Paul started this luminous suggestion, it appeared to him that he had
discovered the mines of Potosi.  Burning with impatience to discuss with
the great MacGrawler the feasibility of his project, he quickened his
pace almost into a run, and in a very few minutes, having only overthrown
one chimney-sweeper and two apple-women by the way, he arrived at the
sage's door.




CHAPTER V.

     Ye realms yet unrevealed to human sight,
     Ye canes athwart the hapless hands that write,
     Ye critic chiefs,-permit me to relate
     The mystic wonders of your silent state!

                       VIRGIL, AEneid, book vi.

Fortune had smiled upon Mr. MacGrawler since he first undertook the
tuition of Mrs. Lobkins's protege.  He now inhabited a second-floor, and
defied the sheriff and his evil spirits.  It was at the dusk of evening
that Paul found him at home and alone.

Before the mighty man stood a pot of London porter; a candle, with an
unregarded wick, shed its solitary light upon his labours; and an infant
cat played sportively at his learned feet, beguiling the weary moments
with the remnants of the spiral cap wherewith, instead of laurel, the
critic had hitherto nightly adorned his brows.

So soon as MacGrawler, piercing through the gloomy mist which hung about
the chamber, perceived the person of the intruder, a frown settled upon
his brow.

"Have I not told you, youngster," he growled, "never to enter a
gentleman's room without knocking?  I tell you, sir, that manners are no
less essential to human happiness than virtue; wherefore, never disturb a
gentleman in his avocations, and sit yourself down without molesting the
cat!"

Paul, who knew that his respected tutor disliked any one to trace the
source of the wonderful spirit which he infused into his critical
compositions, affected not to perceive the pewter Hippocrene, and with
many apologies for his want of preparatory politeness, seated himself as
directed.  It was then that the following edifying conversation ensued.

"The ancients," quoth Paul, "were very great men, Mr. MacGrawler."

"They were so, sir," returned the critic; "we make it a rule in our
profession to assert that fact."

"But, sir," said Paul, "they were wrong now and then."

"Never, Ignoramus; never!"

"They praised poverty, Mr. MacGrawler!" said Paul, with a sigh.

"Hem!" quoth the critic, a little staggered; but presently recovering his
characteristic, acumen, he observed, "It is true, Paul; but that was the
poverty of other people."

There was a slight pause.  "Criticism," renewed Paul, "must be a most
difficult art."

"A-hem!  And what art is there, sir, that is not difficult,--at least, to
become master of?"

"True," sighed Paul; "or else--"

"Or else what, boy?" repeated Mr. MacGrawler, seeing that Paul hesitated,
either from fear of his superior knowledge, as the critic's vanity
suggested, or from (what was equally likely) want of a word to express
his meaning.

"Why, I was thinking, sir," said Paul, with that desperate courage which
gives a distinct and loud intonation to the voice of all who set, or
think they set, their fate upon a cast,--"I was thinking that I should
like to become a critic myself!"

"W-h-e-w!" whistled MacGrawler, elevating his eyebrows; "w-h-e-w!  great
ends have come of less beginnings!"

Encouraging as this assertion was, coming as it did from the lips of so
great a man and so great a critic, at the very moment too when nothing
short of an anathema against arrogance and presumption was expected to
issue from those portals of wisdom, yet such is the fallacy of all human
hopes, that Paul's of a surety would have been a little less elated, had
he, at the same time his ears drank in the balm of these gracious words,
been able to have dived into the source whence they emanated.

"Know thyself!" was a precept the sage MacGrawler had endeavoured to
obey; consequently the result of his obedience was that even by himself
he was better known than trusted.  Whatever he might appear to others, he
had in reality no vain faith in the infallibility of his own talents and
resources; as well might a butcher deem himself a perfect anatomist from
the frequent amputation of legs of mutton, as the critic of "The
Asinaeum" have laid "the flattering unction to his soul" that he was
really skilled in the art of criticism, or even acquainted with one of
its commonest rules, because he could with all speed cut up and disjoint
any work, from the smallest to the greatest, from the most superficial to
the most superior; and thus it was that he never had the want of candour
to deceive himself as to his own talents.  Paul's wish therefore was no
sooner expressed than a vague but golden scheme of future profit
illumined the brain of MacGrawler,--in a word, he resolved that Paul
should henceforward share the labour of his critiques; and that he,
MacGrawler, should receive the whole profits in return for the honour
thereby conferred on his coadjutor.

Looking therefore at our hero with a benignant air, Mr. MacGrawler thus
continued:--

"Yes, I repeat,--great ends have come from less beginnings!  Rome was not
built in a day; and I, Paul, I myself was not always the editor of 'The
Asinaeum.' You say wisely, criticism is a great science, a very great
science; and it maybe divided into three branches,--namely, 'to tickle,
to slash, and to plaster.'  In each of these three I believe without
vanity I am a profound adept!  I will initiate you into all.  Your
labours shall begin this very evening.  I have three works on my table;
they must be despatched by tomorrow night.  I will take the most arduous;
I abandon to you the others.  The three consist of a Romance, an Epic in
twelve books, and an Inquiry into the Human Mind, in three volumes.  I,
Paul, will tickle the Romance; you this very evening shall plaster the
Epic, and slash the Inquiry!"

"Heavens, Mr. MacGrawler!" cried Paul, in consternation, "what do you
mean?  I should never be able to read an epic in twelve books, and I
should fall asleep in the first page of the Inquiry.  No, no, leave me
the Romance, and take the other two under your own protection!"

Although great genius is always benevolent, Mr. MacGrawler could not
restrain a smile of ineffable contempt at the simplicity of his pupil.

"Know, young gentleman," said he, solemnly, "that the Romance in question
must be tickled; it is not given to raw beginners to conquer that great
mystery of our science."

"Before we proceed further, explain the words of the art," said Paul,
impatiently.

"Listen, then," rejoined MacGrawler; and as he spoke, the candle cast an
awful glimmering on his countenance.  "To slash is, speaking
grammatically, to employ the accusative, or accusing case; you must cut
up your book right and left, top and bottom, root and branch.  To plaster
a book is to employ the dative, or giving case; and you must bestow on
the work all the superlatives in the language,--you must lay on your
praise thick and thin, and not leave a crevice untrowelled.  But to
tickle, sir, is a comprehensive word, and it comprises all the infinite
varieties that fill the interval between slashing and plastering.  This
is the nicety of the art, and you can only acquire it by practice; a few
examples will suffice to give you an idea of its delicacy.

"We will begin with the encouraging tickle: 'Although this work is full
of faults,--though the characters are unnatural, the plot utterly
improbable, the thoughts hackneyed, and the style ungrammatical,--yet we
would by no means discourage the author from proceeding; and in the mean
while we confidently recommend his work to the attention of the reading
public."

"Take, now, the advising tickle: 'There is a good deal of merit in these
little volumes, although we must regret the evident haste in which they
were written.  The author might do better,--we recommend him a study of
the best writers;' then conclude by a Latin quotation, which you may take
from one of the mottoes in the 'Spectator.'

"Now, young gentleman, for a specimen of the metaphorical tickle: 'We beg
this poetical aspirant to remember the fate of Pyrenaeus, who, attempting
to pursue the Muses, forgot that he had not the wings of the goddesses,
flung himself from the loftiest ascent he could reach, and perished.'

"This you see, Paul, is a loftier and more erudite sort of tickle, and
may be reserved for one of the Quarterly Reviews.  Never throw away a
simile unnecessarily.

"Now for a sample of the facetious tickle: 'Mr.---has obtained a
considerable reputation!  Some fine ladies think him a great philosopher,
and he has been praised in our hearing by some Cambridge Fellows for his
knowledge of fashionable society.'

"For this sort of tickle we generally use the dullest of our tribe; and I
have selected the foregoing example from the criticisms of a
distinguished writer in 'The Asinaeum,' whom we call, par excellence, the
Ass.

"There is a variety of other tickles,--the familiar, the vulgar, the
polite, the good-natured, the bitter; but in general all tickles may be
supposed to signify, however disguised, one or other of these meanings:
'This book would be exceedingly good if it were not exceedingly bad;' or,
'this book would be exceedingly bad if it were not exceedingly good.'

"You have now, Paul, a general idea of the superior art required by the
tickle?"

Our hero signified his assent by a sort of hysterical sound between a
laugh and a groan.  MacGrawler continued:--

"There is another grand difficulty attendant on this class of
criticism.--it is generally requisite to read a few pages of the work;
because we seldom tickle without extracting, and it requires some
judgment to make the context agree with the extract.  But it is not often
necessary to extract when you slash or when you plaster; when you slash,
it is better in general to conclude with: 'After what we have said, it is
unnecessary to add that we cannot offend the taste of our readers by any
quotation from this execrable trash.' And when you plaster, you may wind
up with: 'We regret that our limits will not allow us to give any
extracts from this wonderful and unrivalled work.  We must refer our
readers to the book itself.'

"And now, sir, I think I have given you a sufficient outline of the noble
science of Scaliger and MacGrawler.  Doubtless you are reconciled to the
task I have allotted you; and while I tickle the Romance, you will slash
the Inquiry and plaster the Epic!"

"I will do my best, sir!" said Paul, with that modest yet noble
simplicity which becomes the virtuously ambitious; and MacGrawler
forthwith gave him pen and paper, and set him down to his undertaking.

He had the good fortune to please MacGrawler, who, after having made a
few corrections in style, declared he evinced a peculiar genius in that
branch of composition.  And then it was that Paul, made conceited by
praise, said, looking contemptuously in the face of his preceptor, and
swinging his legs to and fro,--

"And what, sir, shall I receive for the plastered Epic and the slashed
Inquiry?"

As the face of the school-boy who, when guessing, as he thinks rightly,
at the meaning of some mysterious word in Cornelius Nepos, receiveth not
the sugared epithet of praise, but a sudden stroke across the os
humerosve [Face or shoulders] even so, blank, puzzled, and
thunder-stricken, waxed the face of Mr. MacGrawler at the abrupt and
astounding audacity of Paul.

"Receive!" he repeated,--"receive!  Why, you impudent, ungrateful puppy,
would you steal the bread from your old master?  If I can obtain for your
crude articles an admission into the illustrious pages of 'The Asinaeum,'
will you not be sufficiently paid, sir, by the honour?  Answer me that.
Another man, young gentleman, would have charged you a premium for his
instructions; and here have I, in one lesson, imparted to you all the
mysteries of the science, and for nothing!  And you talk to me of
'receive!--receive!'  Young gentleman, in the words of the immortal bard,
'I would as lief you had talked to me of ratsbane!'"

"In fine, then, Mr. MacGrawler, I shall get nothing for my trouble?" said
Paul.

"To be sure not, sir; the very best writer in 'The Asinaeum' only gets
three shillings an article!"  Almost more than he deserves, the critic
might have added; for he who writes for nobody should receive nothing!

"Then, sir," quoth the mercenary Paul, profanely, and rising, he kicked
with one kick the cat, the Epic, and the Inquiry to the other end of the
room,--"then, sir, you may all go to the devil!"

We do not, O gentle reader!  seek to excuse this hasty anathema.  The
habits of childhood will sometimes break forth despite of the after
blessings of education; and we set not up Paul for thine imitation as
that model of virtue and of wisdom which we design thee to discover in
MacGrawler.

When that great critic perceived Paul had risen and was retreating in
high dudgeon towards the door, he rose also, and repeating Paul's last
words, said,--

"'Go to the devil!'  Not so quick, young gentleman,--festinca lente,--all
in good time.  What though I did, astonished at your premature request,
say that you should receive nothing; yet my great love for you may induce
me to bestir myself on your behalf.  The 'Asinaeum,' I it is true, only
gives three shillings an article in general; but I am its editor, and
will intercede with the proprietors on your behalf.  Yes, yes; I will see
what is to be done.  Stop a bit, my boy."

Paul, though very irascible, was easily pacified; he reseated himself,
and taking MacGrawler's hand, said,--

"Forgive me for my petulance, my dear sir; but, to tell you the honest
truth, I am very low in the world just at present, and must get money in
some way or another,--in short, I must either pick pockets or write (not
gratuitously) for 'The Asinaeum. '"

And without further preliminary Paul related his present circumstances to
the critic, declared his determination not to return to the Mug, and
requested, at least, from the friendship of his old preceptor the
accommodation of shelter for that night.

MacGrawler was exceedingly disconcerted at hearing so bad an account of
his pupil's finances as well as prospects, for he had secretly intended
to regale himself that evening with a bowl of punch, for which he
purposed that Paul should pay; but as he knew the quickness of parts
possessed by the young gentleman, as also the great affection entertained
for him by Mrs. Lobkins, who in all probability would solicit his return
the next day, he thought it not unlikely that Paul would enjoy the same
good fortune as that presiding over his feline companion, which, though
it had just been kicked to the other end of the apartment, was now
resuming its former occupation, unhurt, and no less merrily than before.
He therefore thought it would be imprudent to discard his quondam pupil,
despite of his present poverty; and, moreover, although the first happy
project of pocketing all the profits derivable from Paul's industry was
now abandoned, he still perceived great facility in pocketing a part of
the same receipts.  He therefore answered Paul very warmly, that he fully
sympathized with him in his present melancholy situation; that, so far as
he was concerned, he would share his last shilling with his beloved
pupil, but that he regretted at that moment he had only eleven-pence
halfpenny in his pocket; that he would, however, exert himself to the
utmost in procuring an opening for Paul's literary genius; and that, if
Paul liked to take the slashing and plastering part of the business on
himself, he would willingly surrender it to him, and give him all the
profits whatever they might be.  En attendant, he regretted that a
violent rheumatism prevented his giving up his own bed to his pupil, but
that he might, with all the pleasure imaginable, sleep upon the rug
before the fire.  Paul was so affected by this kindness in the worthy
man, that, though not much addicted to the melting mood, he shed tears of
gratitude.  He insisted, however, on not receiving the whole reward of
his labours; and at length it was settled, though with a noble reluctance
on the part of MacGrawler, that it should be equally shared between the
critic and the critic's protege,--the half profits being reasonably
awarded to MacGrawler for his instructions and his recommendation.




CHAPTER VI.

Bad events peep out o' the tail of good purposes.--Bartholomew Fair.

IT was not long before there was a visible improvement in the pages of
"The Asinaeum."  The slashing part of that incomparable journal was
suddenly conceived and carried on with a vigour and spirit which
astonished the hallowed few who contributed to its circulation.  It was
not difficult to see that a new soldier had been enlisted in the service;
there was something so fresh and hearty about the abuse that it could
never have proceeded from the worn-out acerbity of an old slasher.  To be
sure, a little ignorance of ordinary facts, and an innovating method of
applying words to meanings which they never were meant to denote, were
now and then distinguishable in the criticisms of the new Achilles;
nevertheless, it was easy to attribute these peculiarities to an original
turn of thinking; and the rise of the paper on the appearance of a series
of articles upon contemporary authors, written by this "eminent hand,"
was so remarkable that fifty copies--a number perfectly unprecedented in
the annals of "The Asinaeum"--were absolutely sold in one week; indeed,
remembering the principle on which it was founded, one sturdy old writer
declared that the journal would soon do for itself and become popular.
There was a remarkable peculiarity about the literary debutant who signed
himself "Nobilitas:" he not only put old words to a new sense, but he
used words which had never, among the general run of writers, been used
before.  This was especially remarkable in the application of hard names
to authors.  Once, in censuring a popular writer for pleasing the public
and thereby growing rich, the "eminent hand" ended with "He who
surreptitiously accumulates bustle [money] is, in fact, nothing better
than a buzz gloak!" [Pickpocket].

These enigmatical words and recondite phrases imparted a great air of
learning to the style of the new critic; and from the unintelligible
sublimity of his diction, it seemed doubtful whether he was a poet from
Highgate or a philosopher from Konigsberg.  At all events, the reviewer
preserved his incognito, and while his praises were rung at no less than
three tea-tables, even glory appeared to him less delicious than
disguise.

In this incognito, reader, thou hast already discovered Paul; and now we
have to delight thee with a piece of unexampled morality in the excellent
MacGrawler.  That worthy Mentor, perceiving that there was an inherent
turn for dissipation and extravagance in our hero, resolved magnanimously
rather to bring upon himself the sins of treachery and malappropriation
than suffer his friend and former pupil to incur those of wastefulness
and profusion.  Contrary therefore to the agreement made with Paul,
instead of giving that youth the half of those profits consequent on his
brilliant lucubrations, he imparted to him only one fourth, and, with the
utmost tenderness for Paul's salvation, applied the other three portions
of the same to his own necessities.  The best actions are, alas!  often
misconstrued in this world; and we are now about to record a remarkable
instance of that melancholy truth.

One evening MacGrawler, having "moistened his virtue" in the same manner
that the great Cato is said to have done, in the confusion which such a
process sometimes occasions in the best regulated heads, gave Paul what
appeared to him the outline of a certain article which he wished to be
slashingly filled up, but what in reality was the following note from the
editor of a monthly periodical:--

SIR,--Understanding that my friend, Mr.---, proprietor of "The Asinaeum,"
allows the very distinguished writer whom you have introduced to the
literary world, and who signs himself "Nobilitas," only five shillings an
article, I beg, through you, to tender him double that sum.  The article
required will be of an ordinary length.

I am, sir, etc.,

Now, that very morning, MacGrawler had informed Paul of this offer,
altering only, from the amiable motives we have already explained, the
sum of ten shillings to that of four; and no sooner did Paul read the
communication we have placed before the reader than, instead of gratitude
to MacGrawler for his consideration of Paul's moral infirmities, he
conceived against that gentleman the most bitter resentment.  He did not,
however, vent his feelings at once upon the Scotsman,--indeed, at that
moment, as the sage was in a deep sleep under the table, it would have
been to no purpose had he unbridled his indignation,--but he resolved
without loss of time to quit the abode of the critic.  "And, indeed,"
said he, soliloquizing, "I am heartily tired of this life, and shall be
very glad to seek some other employment.  Fortunately, I have hoarded up
five guineas and four shillings; and with that independence in my
possession, since I have forsworn gambling, I cannot easily starve."

To this soliloquy succeeded a misanthropical revery upon the
faithlessness of friends; and the meditation ended in Paul's making up a
little bundle of such clothes, etc., as Dummie had succeeded in removing
from the Mug, and which Paul had taken from the rag-merchant's abode one
morning when Dummie was abroad.

When this easy task was concluded, Paul wrote a short and upbraiding note
to his illustrious preceptor, and left it unsealed on the table.  He
then, upsetting the ink-bottle on MacGrawler's sleeping countenance,
departed from the house, and strolled away he cared not whither.

The evening was gradually closing as Paul, chewing the cud of his bitter
fancies, found himself on London Bridge.  He paused there, and leaning
over the bridge, gazed wistfully on the gloomy waters that rolled onward,
caring not a minnow for the numerous charming young ladies who have
thought proper to drown themselves in those merciless waves, thereby
depriving many a good mistress of an excellent housemaid or an invaluable
cook, and many a treacherous Phaon of letters beginning with "Parjured
Villen," and ending with "Your affectionot but melancholy Molly."

While thus musing, he was suddenly accosted by a gentleman in boots and
spurs, having a riding-whip in one hand, and the other hand stuck in the
pocket of his inexpressibles.  The hat of the gallant was gracefully and
carefully put on, so as to derange as little as possible a profusion of
dark curls, which, streaming with unguents, fell low not only on either
side of the face, but on the neck and even the shoulders of the owner.
The face was saturnine and strongly marked, but handsome and
striking.  There was a mixture of frippery and sternness in its
expression,--something between Madame Vestries and T. P. Cooke, or
between "lovely Sally" and a "Captain bold of Halifax."  The stature of
this personage was remarkably tall, and his figure was stout, muscular,
and well knit. In fine, to complete his portrait, and give our readers of
the present day an exact idea of this hero of the past, we shall add that
he was altogether that sort of gentleman one sees swaggering in the
Burlington Arcade, with his hair and hat on one side, and a military
cloak thrown over his shoulders; or prowling in Regent Street, towards
the evening, whiskered and cigarred.

Laying his hand on the shoulder of our hero, this gentleman said, with an
affected intonation of voice,--

"How dost, my fine fellow?  Long since I saw you!  Damme, but you look
the worse for wear.  What hast thou been doing with thyself?"

"Ha!" cried our hero, returning the salutation of the stranger, "and is
it Long Ned whom I behold?  I am indeed glad to meet you; and I say, my
friend, I hope what I heard of you is not true!"

"Hist!" said Long Ned, looking round fearfully, and sinking his voice;
"never talk of what you hear of gentlemen, except you wish to bring them
to their last dying speech and confession.  But come with me, my lad;
there is a tavern hard by, and we may as well discuss matters over a pint
of wine.  You look cursed seedy, to be sure; but I can tell Bill the
waiter--famous fellow, that Bill!--that you are one of my tenants, come
to complain of my steward, who has just distrained you for rent, you dog!
No wonder you look so worn in the rigging.  Come, follow me.  I can't
walk with thee.  It would look too like Northumberland House and the
butcher's abode next door taking a stroll together."

"Really, Mr. Pepper," said our hero, colouring, and by no means pleased
with the ingenious comparison of his friend, "if you are ashamed of my
clothes, which I own might be newer, I will not wound you with my--"

"Pooh! my lad, pooh!" cried Long Ned, interrupting him; "never take
offence.  I never do.  I never take anything but money, except, indeed,
watches.  I don't mean to hurt your feelings; all of us have been poor
once.  'Gad, I remember when I had not a dud to my back; and now, you see
me,--you see me, Paul!  But come, 't is only through the streets you need
separate from me.  Keep a little behind, very little; that will do.  Ay,
that will do," repeated Long Ned, mutteringly to himself; "they'll take
him for a bailiff.  It looks handsome nowadays to be so attended; it
shows one had credit once!"

Meanwhile Paul, though by no means pleased with the contempt expressed
for his personal appearance by his lengthy associate, and impressed with
a keener sense than ever of the crimes of his coat and the vices of his
other garment,--"Oh, breathe not its name!"--followed doggedly and
sullenly the strutting steps of the coxcombical Mr. Pepper.  That
personage arrived at last at a small tavern, and arresting a waiter who
was running across the passage into the coffee-room with a dish of
hung-beef, demanded (no doubt from a pleasing anticipation of a similar
pendulous catastrophe) a plate of the same excellent cheer, to be
carried, in company with a bottle of port, into a private apartment.  No
sooner did he find himself alone with Paul than, bursting into a loud
laugh, Mr. Ned surveyed his comrade from head to foot through an eyeglass
which he wore fastened to his button-hole by a piece of blue ribbon.

"Well, 'gad now," said he, stopping ever and anon, as if to laugh the
more heartily, "stab my vitals, but you are a comical quiz.  I wonder
what the women would say, if they saw the dashing Edward Pepper, Esquire,
walking arm in arm with thee at Ranelagh or Vauxhall!  Nay, man, never be
downcast; if I laugh at thee, it is only to make thee look a little
merrier thyself.  Why, thou lookest like a book of my grandfather's
called Burton's ''Anatomy of Melancholy;' and faith, a shabbier bound
copy of it I never saw."

"These jests are a little hard," said Paul, struggling between anger and
an attempt to smile; and then recollecting his late literary occupations,
and the many extracts he had taken from "Gleanings of the Belles
Lettres," in order to impart elegance to his criticisms, he threw out his
hand theatrically, and spouted with a solemn face,--

       "'Of all the griefs that harass the distrest,
       Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest!'"

"Well, now, prithee forgive me," said Long Ned, composing his features,
"and just tell me what you have been doing the last two months."

"Slashing and plastering!" said Paul, with conscious pride.

"Slashing and what?  The boy's mad.  What do you mean, Paul?"

"In other words," said our hero, speaking very slowly, "know, O very Long
Ned!  that I have been critic to 'The Asinaeum.'"

If Paul's comrade laughed at first, he now laughed ten times more merrily
than ever.  He threw his full length of limb upon a neighbouring sofa,
and literally rolled with cachinnatory convulsions; nor did his risible
emotions subside until the entrance of the hung-beef restored him to
recollection.  Seeing, then, that a cloud lowered over Paul's
countenance, he went up to him with something like gravity, begged his
pardon for his want of politeness, and desired him to wash away all
unkindness in a bumper of port.  Paul, whose excellent dispositions we
have before had occasion to remark, was not impervious to his friend's
apologies.  He assured Long Ned that he quite forgave him for his
ridicule of the high situation he (Paul) had enjoyed in the literary
world; that it was the duty of a public censor to bear no malice, and
that he should be very glad to take his share in the interment of the
hung-beef.

The pair now sat down to their repast; and Paul, who had fared but
meagerly in that Temple of Athena over which MacGrawler presided, did
ample justice to the viands before him.  By degrees, as he ate and drank,
his heart opened to his companion; and laying aside that Asinaeum dignity
which he had at first thought it incumbent on him to assume, he
entertained Pepper with all the particulars of the life he had lately
passed.  He narrated to him his breach with Dame Lobkins, his agreement
with MacGrawler, the glory he had acquired, and the wrongs he had
sustained; and he concluded, as now the second bottle made its
appearance, by stating his desire of exchanging for some more active
profession that sedentary career which he had so promisingly begun.

This last part of Paul's confessions secretly delighted the soul of Long
Ned; for that experienced collector of the highways--Ned was, indeed, of
no less noble a profession--had long fixed an eye upon our hero, as one
whom he thought likely to be an honour to that enterprising calling which
he espoused, and an useful assistant to himself.  He had not, in his
earlier acquaintance with Paul, when the youth was under the roof and the
surveillance of the practised and wary Mrs. Lobkins, deemed it prudent to
expose the exact nature of his own pursuits, and had contented himself by
gradually ripening the mind and the finances of Paul into that state when
the proposition of a leap from a hedge would not be likely greatly to
revolt the person to whom it was made.  He now thought that time near at
hand; and filling our hero's glass up to the brim, thus artfully
addressed him:--

"Courage, my friend!  Your narration has given me a sensible pleasure;
for curse me if it has not strengthened my favourite opinion,--that
everything is for the best.  If it had not been for the meanness of that
pitiful fellow, MacGrawler, you might still be inspired with the paltry
ambition of earning a few shillings a week and vilifying a parcel of poor
devils in the what-d'ye-call it, with a hard name; whereas now, my good
Paul, I trust I shall be able to open to your genius a new career, in
which guineas are had for the asking,--in which you may wear fine
clothes, and ogle the ladies at Ranelagh; and when you are tired of glory
and liberty, Paul, why, you have only to make your bow to an heiress, or
a widow with a spanking jointure, and quit the hum of men like a
Cincinnatus!"

Though Paul's perception into the abstruser branches of morals was not
very acute,--and at that time the port wine had considerably confused the
few notions he possessed upon "the beauty of virtue,"--yet he could not
but perceive that Mr. Pepper's insinuated proposition was far from being
one which the bench of bishops or a synod of moralists would
conscientiously have approved.  He consequently remained silent; and Long
Ned, after a pause, continued:--

"You know my genealogy, my good fellow?  I was the son of Lawyer Pepper,
a shrewd old dog, but as hot as Calcutta; and the grandson of Sexton
Pepper, a great author, who wrote verses on tombstones, and kept a stall
of religious tracts in Carlisle.  My grandfather, the sexton, was the
best temper of the family; for all of us are a little inclined to be hot
in the mouth.  Well, my fine fellow, my father left me his blessing, and
this devilish good head of hair.  I lived for some years on my own
resources.  I found it a particularly inconvenient mode of life, and of
late I have taken to live on the public.  My father and grandfather did
it before me, though in a different line.  'T is the pleasantest plan in
the world.  Follow my example, and your coat shall be as spruce as my
own.  Master Paul, your health!"

"But, O longest of mortals!" said Paul, refilling his glass, "though the
public may allow you to eat your mutton off their backs for a short time,
they will kick up at last, and upset you and your banquet; in other words
(pardon my metaphor, dear Ned, in remembrance of the part I have lately
maintained in 'The Asinaeum,' that most magnificent and metaphorical of
journals!),--in other words, the police will nab thee at last; and thou
wilt have the distinguished fate, as thou already hast the distinguishing
characteristic, of Absalom!"

"You mean that I shall be hanged," said Long Ned, "that may or may not
be; but he who fears death never enjoys life.  Consider, Paul, that
though hanging is a bad fate, starving is a worse; wherefore fill your
glass, and let us drink to the health of that great donkey, the people,
and may we never want saddles to ride it!"

"To the great donkey," cried Paul, tossing off his bumper; "may your
(y)ears be as long!  But I own to you, my friend, that I cannot enter
into your plans.  And, as a token of my resolution, I shall drink no
more, for my eyes already begin to dance in the air; and if I listen
longer to your resistless eloquence, my feet may share the same fate!"

So saying, Paul rose; nor could any entreaty, on the part of his
entertainer, persuade him to resume his seat.

"Nay, as you will," said Pepper, affecting a nonchalant tone, and
arranging his cravat before the glass,--"nay, as you will.  Ned Pepper
requires no man's companionship against his liking; and if the noble
spark of ambition be not in your bosom, 't is no use spending my breath
in blowing at what only existed in my too flattering opinion of your
qualities.  So then, you propose to return to MacGrawler (the scurvy old
cheat!), and pass the inglorious remainder of your life in the mangling
of authors and the murder of grammar?  Go, my good fellow, go!  scribble
again and forever for MacGrawler, and let him live upon thy brains
instead of suffering thy brains to--"

"Hold!" cried Paul.  "Although I may have some scruples which prevent my
adoption of that rising line of life you have proposed to me, yet you are
very much mistaken if you imagine me so spiritless as any longer to
subject myself to the frauds of that rascal MacGrawler.  No!  My present
intention is to pay my old nurse a visit.  It appears to me passing
strange that though I have left her so many weeks, she has never relented
enough to track me out, which one would think would have been no
difficult matter; and now, you see, that I am pretty well off, having
five guineas and four shillings all my own, and she can scarcely think I
want her money, my heart melts to her, and I shall go and ask pardon for
my haste!"

"Pshaw!  sentimental," cried Long Ned, a little alarmed at the thought of
Paul's gliding from those clutches which he thought had now so firmly
closed upon him.  "Why, you surely don't mean, after having once tasted
the joys of independence, to go back to the boozing-ken, and bear all
Mother Lobkins's drunken tantrums!  Better have stayed with MacGrawler,
of the two!"

"You mistake me," answered Paul; "I mean solely to make it up with her,
and get her permission to see the world.  My ultimate intention is--to
travel."

"Right," cried Ned, "on the high-road,--and on horseback, I hope."

"No, my Colossus of Roads!  no.  I am in doubt whether or not I shall
enlist in a marching regiment, or--Give me your advice on it!  I fancy I
have a great turn for the stage, ever since I saw Garrick in 'Richard.'
Shall I turn stroller?  It must be a merry life."

"Oh, the devil!" cried Ned.  "I myself once did Cassio in a barn, and
every one swore I enacted the drunken scene to perfection; but you have
no notion what a lamentable life it is to a man of any susceptibility.
No, my friend, no!  There is only one line in all the old plays worthy
thy attention,--

"'Toby [The highway] or not toby, that is the question.'

"I forget the rest!"

"Well," said our hero, answering in the same jocular vein, "I confess I
have 'the actor's high ambition.'  It is astonishing how my heart beat
when Richard cried out, 'Come bustle, bustle!' Yes, Pepper, avaunt!--

"'A thousand hearts are great within my bosom.'"

"Well, well," said Long Ned, stretching himself, "since you are so fond
of the play, what say you to an excursion thither to-night?  Garrick
acts."

"Done!" cried Paul.

"Done!" echoed lazily Long Ned, rising with that blase air which
distinguishes the matured man of the world from the enthusiastic
tyro,-"done!  and we will adjourn afterwards to the White Horse."

"But stay a moment," said Paul; "if you remember, I owed you a guinea
when I last saw you,--here it is!"

"Nonsense," exclaimed Long Ned, refusing the money,--"nonsense!  You want
the money at present; pay me when you are richer.  Nay, never be coy
about it; debts of honour are not paid now as they used to be.  We lads
of the Fish Lane Club have changed all that.  Well, well, if I must!"

And Long Ned, seeing that Paul insisted, pocketed the guinea.  When this
delicate matter had been arranged,--"Come," said Pepper, "come, get your
hat; but, bless me!  I have forgotten one thing."

"What?"

"Why, my fine Paul, consider.  The play is a bang-up sort of a place;
look at your coat and your waistcoat, that's all!"

Our hero was struck dumb with this arqumentum ad hominem.  But Long Ned,
after enjoying his perplexity, relieved him of it by telling him that he
knew of an honest tradesman who kept a ready-made shop just by the
theatre, and who could fit him out in a moment.

In fact, Long Ned was as good as his word; he carried Paul to a tailor,
who gave him for the sum of thirty shillings--half ready money, half on
credit-a green coat with a tarnished gold lace, a pair of red
inexpressibles, and a pepper-and-salt waistcoat.  It is true, they were
somewhat of the largest, for they had once belonged to no less a person
than Long Ned himself; but Paul did not then regard those niceties of
apparel, as he was subsequently taught to do by Gentleman George (a
personage hereafter to be introduced to our reader), and he went to the
theatre as well satisfied with himself as if he had been Mr. T---- or the
Count de ----.

Our adventurers are now quietly seated in the theatre; and we shall not
think it necessary to detail the performances they saw, or the
observations they made.  Long Ned was one of those superior beings of the
road who would not for the world have condescended to appear anywhere but
in the boxes; and, accordingly, the friends procured a couple of places
in the dress-tier.  In the next box to the one our adventurers adorned
they remarked, more especially than the rest of the audience, a gentleman
and a young lady seated next each other; the latter, who was about
thirteen years old, was so uncommonly beautiful that Paul, despite his
dramatic enthusiasm, could scarcely divert his eyes from her countenance
to the stage.  Her hair, of a bright and fair auburn, hung in profuse
ringlets about her neck, shedding a softer shade upon a complexion in
which the roses seemed just budding as it were into blush.  Her eyes,
large, blue, and rather languishing than brilliant, were curtained by the
darkest lashes; her mouth seemed literally girt with smiles, so
numberless were the dimples that every time the full, ripe, dewy lips
were parted rose into sight; and the enchantment of the dimples was aided
by two rows of teeth more dazzling than the richest pearls that ever
glittered on a bride.  But the chief charm of the face was its exceeding
and touching air of innocence and girlish softness; you might have gazed
forever upon that first unspeakable bloom, that all untouched and
stainless down, which seemed as if a very breath could mar it.  Perhaps
the face might have wanted animation; but perhaps, also, it borrowed from
that want an attraction.  The repose of the features was so soft and
gentle that the eye wandered there with the same delight, and left it
with the same reluctance, which it experiences in dwelling on or in
quitting those hues which are found to harmonize the most with its
vision.  But while Paul was feeding his gaze on this young beauty, the
keen glances of Long Ned had found an object no less fascinating in a
large gold watch which the gentleman who accompanied the damsel ever and
anon brought to his eye, as if he were waxing a little weary of the
length of the pieces or the lingering progression of time.

"What a beautiful face!" whispered Paul.

"Is the face gold, then, as well as the back?" whispered Long Ned, in
return.

Our hero started, frowned, and despite the gigantic stature of his
comrade, told him, very angrily, to find some other subject for jesting.
Ned in his turn stared, but made no reply.

Meanwhile Paul, though the lady was rather too young to fall in love
with, began wondering what relationship her companion bore to her. Though
the gentleman altogether was handsome, yet his features and the whole
character of his face were widely different from those on which Paul
gazed with such delight.  He was not, seemingly, above five-and-forty,
but his forehead was knit into many a line and furrow; and in his eyes
the light, though searching, was more sober and staid than became his
years.  A disagreeable expression played about the mouth; and the shape
of the face, which was long and thin, considerably detracted from the
prepossessing effect of a handsome aquiline nose, fine teeth, and a dark,
manly, though sallow complexion.  There was a mingled air of shrewdness
and distraction in the expression of his face.  He seemed to pay very
little attention to the play, or to anything about him; but he testified
very considerable alacrity, when the play was over, in putting her cloak
around his young companion, and in threading their way through the thick
crowd that the boxes were now pouring forth.

Paul and his companion silently, and each with very different motives
from the other, followed them.  They were now at the door of the theatre.

A servant stepped forward and informed the gentleman that his carriage
was a few paces distant, but that it might be some time before it could
drive up to the theatre.

"Can you walk to the carriage, my dear?" said the gentleman to his young
charge; and she answering in the affirmative, they both left the house,
preceded by the servant.

"Come on!" said Long Ned, hastily, and walking in the same direction
which the strangers had taken.  Paul readily agreed.  They soon overtook
the strangers.  Long Ned walked the nearest to the gentleman, and brushed
by him in passing.  Presently a voice cried, "Stop thief!" and Long Ned,
saying to Paul, "Shift for yourself, run!" darted from our hero's side
into the crowd, and vanished in a twinkling.  Before Paul could recover
his amaze, he found himself suddenly seized by the collar; he turned
abruptly, and saw the dark face of the young lady's companion.

"Rascal!" cried the gentleman, "my watch!"

"Watch!" repeated Paul, bewildered, and only for the sake of the young
lady refraining from knocking down his arrester,--"watch!"

"Ay, young man!" cried a fellow in a great-coat, who now suddenly
appeared on the other side of Paul; "this gentleman's watch.  Please your
honour," addressing the complainant, "I be a watch too; shall I take up
this chap?"

"By all means," cried the gentleman; "I would not have lost my watch for
twice its value.  I can swear I saw this fellow's companion snatch it
from my fob.  The thief's gone; but we have at least the accomplice.  I
give him in strict charge to you, watchman; take the consequences if you
let him escape."  The watchman answered, sullenly, that he did not want
to be threatened, and he knew how to discharge his duty.

"Don't answer me, fellow!" said the gentleman, haughtily; "do as I tell
you!"  And after a little colloquy, Paul found himself suddenly marched
off between two tall fellows, who looked prodigiously inclined to eat
him.  By this time he had recovered his surprise and dismay.  He did not
want the penetration to see that his companion had really committed the
offence for which he was charged; and he also foresaw that the
circumstance might be attended with disagreeable consequences to himself.
Under all the features of the case, he thought that an attempt to escape
would not be an imprudent proceeding on his part; accordingly, after
moving a few paces very quietly and very passively, he watched his
opportunity, wrenched himself from the gripe of the gentleman on his
left, and brought the hand thus released against the cheek of the
gentleman on his right with so hearty a good will as to cause him to
relinquish his hold, and retreat several paces towards the areas in a
slanting position.  But that roundabout sort of blow with the left fist
is very unfavourable towards the preservation of a firm balance; and
before Paul had recovered sufficiently to make an effectual bolt, he was
prostrated to the earth by a blow from the other and undamaged watchman,
which utterly deprived him of his senses; and when he recovered those
useful possessions (which a man may reasonably boast of losing, since it
is only the minority who have them to lose), he found himself stretched
on a bench in the watchhouse.




CHAPTER VII.

     Begirt with many a gallant slave,
     Apparelled as becomes the brave,
     Old Giaffir sat in his divan:
     .    .    .    .    .    .    .
     Much I misdoubt this wayward boy
     Will one day work me more annoy.
            Bride of Abydos.

The learned and ingenious John Schweighaeuser (a name facile to spell and
mellifluous to pronounce) hath been pleased, in that Appendix continens
particulam doctrinae de mente humana, which closeth the volume of his
"Opuscula Academica," to observe (we translate from memory) that, "in the
infinite variety of things which in the theatre of the world occur to a
man's survey, or in some manner or another affect his body or his mind,
by far the greater part are so contrived as to bring to him rather some
sense of pleasure than of pain or discomfort."  Assuming that this holds
generally good in well-constituted frames, we point out a notable example
in the case of the incarcerated Paul; for although that youth was in no
agreeable situation at the time present, and although nothing very
encouraging smiled upon him from the prospects of the future, yet, as
soon as he had recovered his consciousness, and given himself a rousing
shake, he found an immediate source of pleasure in discovering, first,
that several ladies and gentlemen bore him company in his imprisonment;
and, secondly, in perceiving a huge jug of water within his reach, which,
as his awaking sensation was that of burning thirst, he delightedly
emptied at a draught.  He then, stretching himself, looked around with a
wistful earnestness, and discovered a back turned towards him, and
recumbent on the floor, which at the very first glance appeared to him
familiar.  "Surely," thought he, "I know that frieze coat, and the
peculiar turn of those narrow shoulders."  Thus soliloquizing, he raised
himself, and putting out his leg, he gently kicked the reclining form.
"Muttering strange oaths," the form turned round, and raising itself upon
that inhospitable part of the body in which the introduction of foreign
feet is considered anything but an honour, it fixed its dull blue eyes
upon the face of the disturber of its slumbers, gradually opening them
wider and wider, until they seemed to have enlarged themselves into
proportions fit for the swallowing of the important truth that burst upon
them, and then from the mouth of the creature issued,--

"Queer my glims, if that be n't little Paul!"

"Ay, Dummie, here I am!  Not been long without being laid by the heels,
you see!  Life is short; we must make the best use of our time!"

Upon this, Mr. Dunnaker (it was no less respectable a person) scrambled
up from the floor, and seating himself on the bench beside Paul, said in
a pitying tone,--

"Vy, laus-a-me!  if you be n't knocked o' the head!  Your poll's as
bloody as Murphy's face ven his throat's cut!"

     ["Murphy's face,"unlearned reader, appeareth, in Irish phrase,
     to mean "pig's head."]

"'T is only the fortune of war, Dummie, and a mere trifle; the heads
manufactured at Thames Court are not easily put out of order.  But tell
me, how come you here?"

"Vy, I had been lushing heavy vet--"

"'Till you grew light in the head, eh,--and fell into the kennel?"

"Yes."

"Mine is a worse business than that, I fear;" and therewith Paul, in a
lower voice, related to the trusty Dummie the train of accidents which
had conducted him to his present asylum.  Dummie's face elongated as he
listened; however, when the narrative was over, he endeavoured such
consolatory palliatives as occurred to him.  He represented, first, the
possibility that the gentleman might not take the trouble to appear;
secondly, the certainty that no watch was found about Paul's person;
thirdly, the fact that, even by the gentleman's confession, Paul had not
been the actual offender; fourthly, if the worst came to the worst, what
were a few weeks' or even months' imprisonment?

"Blow me tight!" said Dummie, "if it be n't as good a vay of passing the
time as a cove as is fond of snuggery need desire!"

This observation had no comfort for Paul, who recoiled, with all the
maiden coyness of one to whom such unions are unfamiliar, from a
matrimonial alliance with the snuggery of the House of Correction.  He
rather trusted to another source for consolation.  In a word, he
encouraged the flattering belief that Long Ned, finding that Paul had
been caught instead of himself, would have the generosity to come forward
and exculpate him from the charge.  On hinting this idea to Dummie, that
accomplished "man about town" could not for some time believe that any
simpleton could be so thoroughly unacquainted with the world as seriously
to entertain so ridiculous a notion; and, indeed, it is somewhat
remarkable that such a hope should ever have told its flattering tale to
one brought up in the house of Mrs. Margaret Lobkins.  But Paul, we have
seen, had formed many of his notions from books; and he had the same fine
theories of your "moral rogue" that possess the minds of young patriots
when they first leave college for the House of Commons, and think
integrity a prettier thing than office.

Mr. Dunnaker urged Paul, seriously, to dismiss so vague and childish a
fancy from his breast, and rather to think of what line of defence it
would be best for him to pursue.  This subject being at length exhausted,
Paul recurred to Mrs. Lobkins, and inquired whether Dummie had lately
honoured that lady with a visit.

Mr. Dunnaker replied that he had, though with much difficulty, appeased
her anger against him for his supposed abetment of Paul's excesses, and
that of late she had held sundry conversations with Dummie respecting our
hero himself.  Upon questioning Dummie further, Paul learned the good
matron's reasons for not evincing that solicitude for his return which
our hero had reasonably anticipated.  The fact was, that she, having no
confidence whatsoever in his own resources independent of her, had not
been sorry of an opportunity effectually, as she hoped, to humble that
pride which had so revolted her; and she pleased her vanity by
anticipating the time when Paul, starved into submission, would gladly
and penitently re-seek the shelter of her roof, and, tamed as it were by
experience, would never again kick against the yoke which her matronly
prudence thought it fitting to impose upon him.  She contented herself,
then, with obtaining from Dummie the intelligence that our hero was under
MacGrawler's roof, and therefore out of all positive danger to life and
limb; and as she could not foresee the ingenious exertions of intellect
by which Paul had converted himself into the "Nobilitas" of "The
Asinaeum," and thereby saved himself from utter penury, she was perfectly
convinced, from her knowledge of character, that the illustrious
MacGrawler would not long continue that protection to the rebellious
protege which in her opinion was his only preservative from picking
pockets or famishing.  To the former decent alternative she knew Paul's
great and jejune aversion; and she consequently had little fear for his
morals or his safety, in thus abandoning him for a while to chance.  Any
anxiety, too, that she might otherwise have keenly experienced was
deadened by the habitual intoxication now increasing upon the good lady
with age, and which, though at times she could be excited to all her
characteristic vehemence, kept her senses for the most part plunged into
a Lethean stupor, or, to speak more courteously, into a poetical
abstraction from the things of the external world.

"But," said Dummie, as by degrees he imparted the solution of the dame's
conduct to the listening ear of his companion,--"but I hopes as how ven
you be out of this 'ere scrape, leetle Paul, you vill take varning, and
drop Meester Pepper's acquaintance (vich, I must say, I vas alvays a
sorry to see you hencourage), and go home to the Mug, and fam grasp the
old mort, for she has not been like the same cretur ever since you vent.
She's a delicate-'arted 'oman, that Piggy Lob!"

So appropriate a panegyric on Mrs. Margaret Lobkins might at another time
have excited Paul's risible muscles; but at that moment he really felt
compunction for the unceremonious manner in which he had left her, and
the softness of regretful affection imbued in its hallowing colours even
the image of Piggy Lob.

In conversation of this intellectual and domestic description, the night
and ensuing morning passed away, till Paul found himself in the awful
presence of Justice Burnflat.  Several cases were disposed of before his
own; and among others Mr. Duminie Dunnaker obtained his release, though
not without a severe reprimand for his sin of inebriety, which no doubt
sensibly affected the ingenuous spirit of that noble character.  At
length Paul's turn came.  He heard, as he took his station, a general
buzz.  At first he imagined it was at his own interesting appearance; but
raising his eyes, he perceived that it was at the entrance of the
gentleman who was to become his accuser.

"Hush," said some one near him, "'t is Lawyer Brandon. Ah, he's a 'cute
fellow!  it will go hard with the person he complains of."

There was a happy fund of elasticity of spirit about our hero; and though
he had not the good fortune to have "a blighted heart,"--a circumstance
which, by the poets and philosophers of the present day, is supposed to
inspire a man with wonderful courage, and make him impervious to all
misfortunes,--yet he bore himself up with wonderful courage under his
present trying situation, and was far from overwhelmed, though he was
certainly a little damped, by the observation he had just heard.

Mr. Brandon was, indeed, a barrister of considerable reputation, and in
high esteem in the world, not only for talent, but also for a great
austerity of manners, which, though a little mingled with sternness and
acerbity for the errors of other men, was naturally thought the more
praiseworthy on that account; there being, as persons of experience are
doubtless aware, two divisions in the first class of morality,--imprimis,
a great hatred for the vices of one's neighbour; secondly, the possession
of virtues in one's self.

Mr. Brandon was received with great courtesy by Justice Burnflat; and as
he came, watch in hand (a borrowed watch), saying that his time was worth
five guineas a moment, the justice proceeded immediately to business.

Nothing could be clearer, shorter, or more satisfactory than the evidence
of Mr. Brandon.  The corroborative testimony of the watchman followed;
and then Paul was called upon for his defence.  This was equally brief
with the charge; but, alas! it was not equally satisfactory.  It
consisted in a firm declaration of his innocence.  His comrade, he
confessed, might have stolen the watch; but he humbly suggested that that
was exactly the very reason why he had not stolen it.

"How long, fellow," asked Justice Burnflat, "have you known your
companion?"

"About half a year."

"And what is his name and calling?" Paul hesitated, and declined to
answer.

"A sad piece of business!" said the justice, in a melancholy tone, and
shaking his head portentously.

The lawyer acquiesced in the aphorism, but with great magnanimity
observed that he did not wish to be hard upon the young man.  His youth
was in his favour, and his offence was probably the consequence of evil
company.  He suggested, therefore, that as he must be perfectly aware of
the address of his friend, he should receive a full pardon if he would
immediately favour the magistrate with that information.  He concluded by
remarking, with singular philanthropy, that it was not the punishment of
the youth, but the recovery of his watch, that he desired.

Justice Burnflat, having duly impressed upon our hero's mind the
disinterested and Christian mercy of the complainant, and the everlasting
obligation Paul was under to him for its display, now repeated, with
double solemnity, those queries respecting the habitation and name of
Long Ned which our hero had before declined to answer.

Grieved are we to confess that Paul, ungrateful for and wholly untouched
by the beautiful benignity of Lawyer Brandon, continued firm in his
stubborn denial to betray his comrade; and with equal obduracy he
continued to insist upon his own innocence and unblemished respectability
of character.

"Your name, young man?" quoth the justice.  "Your name, you say, is
Paul,--Paul what?  You have many an alias, I'll be bound."

Here the young gentleman again hesitated; at length he replied,--

"Paul Lobkins, your worship."

"Lobkins!"  repeated the judge,--"Lobkins!  Come hither, Saunders; have
not we that name down in our black books?"

"So, please your worship," quoth a little stout man, very useful in many
respects to the Festus of the police, "there is one Peggy Lobkins, who
keeps a public-house, a sort of flash ken, called the Mug, in Thames
Court,--not exactly in our beat, your worship."

"Ho, ho!" said Justice Burnflat; winking at Mr. Brandon, "we must sift
this a little.  Pray, Mr. Paul Lobkins, what relation is the good
landlady of the Mug, in Thames Court, to yourself?"

"None at all, sir," said Paul, hastily; "she's only a friend!"

Upon this there was a laugh in the court.

"Silence!" cried the justice.  "And I dare say, Mr. Paul Lobkins, that
this friend of yours will vouch for the respectability of your character,
upon which you are pleased to value yourself?"

"I have not a doubt of it, sir," answered Paul; and there was another
laugh.

"And is there any other equally weighty and praiseworthy friend of yours
who will do you the like kindness?"

Paul hesitated; and at that moment, to the surprise of the court, but
above all to the utter and astounding surprise of himself, two gentlemen,
dressed in the height of the fashion, pushed forward, and bowing to the
justice, declared themselves ready to vouch for the thorough
respectability and unimpeachable character of Mr. Paul Lobkins, whom they
had known, they said, for many years, and for whom they had the greatest
respect.  While Paul was surveying the persons of these kind friends,
whom he never remembered to have seen before in the course of his life,
the lawyer, who was a very sharp fellow, whispered to the magistrate; and
that dignitary nodding as in assent, and eying the new-comers, inquired
the names of Mr. Lobkins's witnesses.

"Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert" and "Mr. William Howard Russell," were the
several replies.

Names so aristocratic produced a general sensation.  But the impenetrable
justice, calling the same Mr. Saunders he had addressed before, asked him
to examine well the countenances of Mr. Lobkins's friends.

As the alguazil eyed the features of the memorable Don Raphael and the
illustrious Manuel Morales, when the former of those accomplished
personages thought it convenient to assume the travelling dignity of an
Italian prince, son of the sovereign of the valleys which lie between
Switzerland, the Milanese, and Savoy, while the latter was contented with
being servant to Monseigneur le Prince; even so, with far more
earnestness than respect; did Mr. Saunders eye the features of those
high-born gentlemen, Messrs. Eustace Fitzherbert and William Howard
Russell; but after a long survey he withdrew his eyes, made an
unsatisfactory and unrecognizing gesture to the magistrate, and said,--

"Please your worship, they are none of my flock; but Bill Troutling knows
more of this sort of genteel chaps than I does."

"Bid Bill Troutling appear!" was the laconic order.

At that name a certain modest confusion might have been visible in the
faces of Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert and Mr. William Howard Russell, had not
the attention of the court been immediately directed to another case.  A
poor woman had been committed for seven days to the House of Correction
on a charge of disrespectability.  Her husband, the person most
interested in the matter, now came forward to disprove the charge; and by
help of his neighbours he succeeded.

"It is all very true," said Justice Burnflat; "but as your wife, my good
fellow, will be out in five days, it will be scarcely worth while to
release her now."

     [A fact, occurring in the month of January, 1830.  Vide
     "The Morning Herald."]

So judicious a decision could not fail of satisfying the husband; and the
audience became from that moment enlightened as to a very remarkable
truth,--namely, that five days out of seven bear a peculiarly small
proportion to the remaining two; and that people in England have so
prodigious a love for punishment that though it is not worth while to
release an innocent woman from prison five days sooner than one would
otherwise have done, it is exceedingly well worth while to commit her to
prison for seven!

When the husband, passing his rough hand across his eyes, and muttering
some vulgar impertinence or another had withdrawn, Mr. Saunders said,--

"Here be Bill Troutling, your worship!"

"Oh, well," quoth the justice; "and now, Mr. Eustace Fitz---- Hallo,
how's this!  Where are Mr. William Howard Russell and his friend Mr.
Eustace Fitzherbert?"

       "Echo answered,--where?"

Those noble gentlemen, having a natural dislike to be confronted with so
low a person as Mr. Bill Troutling, had, the instant public interest was
directed from them, silently disappeared from a scene where their rank in
life seemed so little regarded.  If, reader, you should be anxious to
learn from what part of the world the transitory visitants appeared, know
that they were spirits sent by that inimitable magician, Long Ned, partly
to report how matters fared in the court; for Mr. Pepper, in pursuance of
that old policy which teaches that the nearer the fox is to the hunters,
the more chance he has of being overlooked, had, immediately on his
abrupt departure from Paul, dived into a house in the very street where
his ingenuity had displayed itself, and in which oysters and ale nightly
allured and regaled an assembly that, to speak impartially, was more
numerous than select.  There had he learned how a pickpocket had been
seized for unlawful affection to another man's watch; and there, while he
quietly seasoned his oysters, had he, with his characteristic acuteness,
satisfied his mind by the conviction that that arrested unfortunate was
no other than Paul.  Partly, therefore, as a precaution for his own
safety, that he might receive early intelligence should Paul's defence
make a change of residence expedient, and partly (out of the friendliness
of fellowship) to back his companion with such aid as the favourable
testimony of two well-dressed persons, little known "about town," might
confer, he had despatched those celestial beings who had appeared under
the mortal names of Eustace Fitzherbert and William Howard Russell to the
imperial court of Justice Burnflat.  Having thus accounted for the
apparition (the disapparition requires no commentary) of Paul's
"friends," we return to Paul himself.

Despite the perils with which he was girt, our young hero fought out to
the last; but the justice was not by any means willing to displease Mr.
Brandon, and observing that an incredulous and biting sneer remained
stationary on that gentleman's lip during the whole of Paul's defence, he
could not but shape his decision according to the well-known acuteness of
the celebrated lawyer.  Paul was sentenced to retire for three months to
that country-house situated at Bridewell, to which the ungrateful
functionaries of justice often banish their most active citizens.

As soon as the sentence was passed, Brandon, whose keen eyes saw no hope
of recovering his lost treasure, declared that the rascal had perfectly
the Old Bailey cut of countenance, and that he did not doubt but, if ever
he lived to be a judge, he should also live to pass a very different
description of sentence on the offender.

So saying, he resolved to lose no more time, and very abruptly left the
office, without any other comfort than the remembrance that, at all
events, he had sent the boy to a place where, let him be ever so innocent
at present, he was certain to come out as much inclined to be guilty as
his friends could desire; joined to such moral reflection as the tragedy
of Bombastes Furioso might have afforded to himself in that sententious
and terse line,--

       "Thy watch is gone,--watches are made to go."

Meanwhile Paul was conducted in state to his retreat, in company with two
other offenders,--one a middle-aged man, though a very old "file," who
was sentenced for getting money under false pretences, and the other a
little boy who had been found guilty of sleeping under a colonnade; it
being the especial beauty of the English law to make no fine-drawn and
nonsensical shades of difference between vice and misfortune, and its
peculiar method of protecting the honest being to make as many rogues as
possible in as short a space of time.




CHAPTER VIII.

Common Sense.  What is the end of punishment as regards the individual
punished?

Custom.  To make him better!

Common Sense.  How do you punish young offenders who are (from their
youth) peculiarly alive to example, and whom it is therefore more easy
either to ruin or reform than the matured?

Custom.  We send them to the House of Correction, to associate with the
d--dest rascals in the country!

Dialogue between Common Sense and Custom.--Very scarce.

As it was rather late in the day when Paul made his first entree at
Bridewell, he passed that night in the "receiving-room."  The next
morning, as soon as he had been examined by the surgeon and clothed in
the customary uniform, he was ushered, according to his classification,
among the good company who had been considered guilty of that compendious
offence, "a misdemeanour."  Here a tall gentleman marched up to him, and
addressed him in a certain language, which might be called the
freemasonry of flash, and which Paul, though he did not comprehend
verbatim, rightly understood to be an inquiry whether he was a thorough
rogue and an entire rascal.  He answered half in confusion, half in
anger; and his reply was so detrimental to any favourable influence he
might otherwise have exercised over the interrogator, that the latter
personage, giving him a pinch in the ear, shouted out, "Ramp, ramp!" and
at that significant and awful word, Paul found himself surrounded in a
trice by a whole host of ingenious tormentors.  One pulled this member,
another pinched that; one cuffed him before, and another thrashed him
behind.  By way of interlude to this pleasing occupation, they stripped
him of the very few things that in his change of dress he had retained.
One carried off his handkerchief, a second his neckcloth, and a third,
luckier than either, possessed himself of a pair of carnelian
shirt-buttons, given to Paul as a gage d'amour by a young lady who sold
oranges near the Tower.  Happily, before this initiatory
process--technically termed "ramping," and exercised upon all new-comers
who seem to have a spark of decency in them--had reduced the bones of
Paul, who fought tooth and nail in his defence, to the state of magnesia,
a man of a grave aspect, who had hitherto plucked his oakum in quiet,
suddenly rose, thrust himself between the victim and the assailants, and
desired the latter, like one having authority, to leave the lad alone,
and go and be d--d.

This proposal to resort to another place for amusement, though uttered in
a very grave and tranquil manner, produced that instantaneous effect
which admonitions from great rogues generally work upon little. Messieurs
the ravmpers ceased from their amusements; and the ringleader of the
gang, thumping Paul heartily on the back, declared he was a capital
fellow, and it was only a bit of a spree like, which he hoped had not
given any offence.

Paul, still clenching his fist, was about to answer in no pacific mood,
when a turnkey, who did not care in the least how many men he locked up
for an offence, but who did not at all like the trouble of looking after
any one of his flock to see that the offence was not committed, now
suddenly appeared among the set; and after scolding them for the
excessive plague they were to him, carried off two of the poorest of the
mob to solitary confinement.  It happened, of course, that these two had
not taken the smallest share in the disturbance.  This scene over, the
company returned to picking oakum; the tread-mill, that admirably just
invention by which a strong man suffers no fatigue and a weak one loses
his health for life, not having been then introduced into our excellent
establishments for correcting crime.  Bitterly and with many dark and
wrathful feelings, in which the sense of injustice at punishment alone
bore him up against the humiliations to which he was subjected,--bitterly
and with a swelling heart, in which the thoughts that lead to crime were
already forcing their way through a soil suddenly warmed for their
growth, did Paul bend over his employment.  He felt himself touched on
the arm; he turned, and saw that the gentleman who had so kindly
delivered him from his tormentors was now sitting next to him.  Paul
gazed long and earnestly upon his neighbour, struggling with the thought
that he had beheld that sagacious countenance in happier times, although
now, alas!  it was altered not only by time and vicissitudes but by that
air of gravity which the cares of manhood spread gradually over the face
of the most thoughtless,--until all doubt melted away, and he
exclaimed,--

"Is that you, Mr. Tomlinson?  How glad I am to see you here!"

"And I," returned the quondam murderer for the newspapers, with a nasal
twang, "should be very glad to see myself anywhere else."

Paul made no answer; and Augustus continued,--

"'To a wise man all places are the same,'--so it has been said.  I don't
believe it, Paul,--I don't believe it.  But a truce to reflection!  I
remembered you the moment I saw you, though you are surprisingly grown.
How is my friend MacGrawler?--still hard at work for 'The Asinaeum'?"

"I believe so," said Paul, sullenly, and hastening to change the
conversation; "but tell me, Mr. Tomlinson, how came you hither?  I heard
you had gone down to the North of England to fulfil a lucrative
employment."

"Possibly!  The world always misrepresents the actions of those who are
constantly before it."

"It is very true," said Paul; "and I have said the same thing myself a
hundred times in 'The Asinaeum,' for we were never too lavish of our
truths in that magnificent journal.  'T is astonishing what a way we made
three ideas go."

"You remind me of myself and my newspaper labours," rejoined Augustus
Tomlinson.  "I am not quite sure that I had so many as three ideas to
spare; for, as you say, it is astonishing how far that number may go,
properly managed.  It is with writers as with strolling players,--the
same three ideas that did for Turks in one scene do for Highlanders in
the next; but you must tell me your history one of these days, and you
shall hear mine."

"I should be excessively obliged to you for your confidence," said Paul,
"and I doubt not but your life must be excessively entertaining.  Mine,
as yet, has been but insipid.  The lives of literary men are not fraught
with adventure; and I question whether every writer in 'The Asinaeum' has
not led pretty nearly the same existence as that which I have sustained
myself."

In conversation of this sort our newly restored friends passed the
remainder of the day, until the hour of half-past four, when the
prisoners are to suppose night has begun, and be locked up in their
bedrooms.  Tomlinson then, who was glad to re-find a person who had known
him in his beaux jours, spoke privately to the turnkey; and the result of
the conversation was the coupling Paul and Augustus in the same chamber,
which was a sort of stone box, that generally accommodated three, and
was--for we have measured it, as we would have measured the cell of the
prisoner of Chillon--just eight feet by six.

We do not intend, reader, to indicate, by broad colours and in long
detail, the moral deterioration of our hero; because we have found, by
experience, that such pains on our part do little more than make thee
blame our stupidity instead of lauding our intention.  We shall therefore
only work out our moral by subtle hints and brief comments; and we shall
now content ourselves with reminding thee that hitherto thou hast seen
Paul honest in the teeth of circumstances.  Despite the contagion of the
Mug, despite his associates in Fish Lane, despite his intimacy with Long
Ned, thou hast seen him brave temptation, and look forward to some other
career than that of robbery or fraud.  Nay, even in his destitution, when
driven from the abode of his childhood, thou hast observed how, instead
of resorting to some more pleasurable or libertine road of life, he
betook himself at once to the dull roof and insipid employments of
MacGrawler, and preferred honestly earning his subsistence by the sweat
of his brain to recurring to any of the numerous ways of living on others
with which his experience among the worst part of society must have
teemed, and which, to say the least of them, are more alluring to the
young and the adventurous than the barren paths of literary labour.
Indeed, to let thee into a secret, it had been Paul's daring ambition to
raise himself into a worthy member of the community.  His present
circumstances, it may hereafter be seen, made the cause of a great change
in his desires; and the conversation he held that night with the
ingenious and skilful Augustus went more towards fitting him for the hero
of this work than all the habits of his childhood or the scenes of his
earlier youth.  Young people are apt, erroneously, to believe that it is
a bad thing to be exceedingly wicked.  The House of Correction is so
called, because it is a place where so ridiculous a notion is invariably
corrected.  The next day Paul was surprised by a visit from Mrs. Lobkins,
who had heard of his situation and its causes from the friendly Dummie,
and who had managed to obtain from Justice Burnflat an order of
admission.  They met, Pyramus and Thisbe like, with a wall, or rather an
iron gate, between them; and Mrs. Lobkins, after an ejaculation of
despair at the obstacle, burst weepingly into the pathetic reproach,--

"O Paul, thou hast brought thy pigs to a fine market!"

"'T is a market proper for pigs, dear dame," said Paul, who, though with
a tear in his eye, did not refuse a joke as bitter as it was inelegant;
"for, of all others, it is the spot where a man learns to take care of
his bacon."

"Hold your tongue!" cried the dame, angrily.  "What business has you to
gabble on so while you are in limbo?"

"Ah, dear dame," said Paul, "we can't help these rubs and stumbles on our
road to preferment!"

"Road to the scragging-post!" cried the dame.  "I tells you, child,
you'll live to be hanged in spite of all my care and 'tention to you,
though I hedicated you as a scholard, and always hoped as how you would
grow up to be an honour to your--"

"King and country," interrupted Paul.  "We always say, honour to king and
country, which means getting rich and paying taxes.  'The more taxes a
man pays, the greater  honour he is to both,' as Augustus says.  Well,
dear dame, all in good time."

"What! you is merry, is you?  Why does not you weep? Your heart is as
hard as a brickbat.  It looks quite unnatural and hyena-like to be so
devil-me-careish!"  So saying, the good dame's tears gushed forth with
the bitterness of a despairing Parisina.

"Nay, nay," said Paul, who, though he suffered far more intensely, bore
the suffering far more easily than his patroness, "we cannot mend the
matter by crying.  Suppose you see what can be done for me.  I dare say
you may manage to soften the justice's sentence by a little 'oil of
palms;' and if you can get me out before I am quite corrupted,--a day or
two longer in this infernal place will do the business,--I promise you
that I will not only live honestly myself, but with people who live in
the same manner."

"Buss me, Paul," said the tender Mrs. Lobkins, "buss me--Oh!  but I
forgits the gate.  I'll see what can be done.  And here, my lad, here's
summat for you in the mean while,--a drop o' the cretur, to preach
comfort to your poor stomach.  Hush!  smuggle it through, or they'll see
you."

Here the dame endeavoured to push a stone bottle through the bars of the
gate; but, alas!  though the neck passed through, the body refused, and
the dame was forced to retract the "cretur."  Upon this, the kind-hearted
woman renewed her sobbings; and so absorbed was she in her grief that
seemingly quite forgetting for what purpose she had brought the bottle,
she applied it to her own mouth, and consoled herself with that elixir
vitae which she had originally designed for Paul.

This somewhat restored her; and after a most affecting scene the dame
reeled off with the vacillating steps natural to woe, promising, as she
went, that if love or money could shorten Paul's confinement, neither
should be wanting.  We are rather at a loss to conjecture the exact
influence which the former of these arguments, urged by the lovely
Margaret, might have had upon Justice Burnflat.

When the good dame had departed, Paul hastened to repick his oakum and
rejoin his friend.  He found the worthy Augustus privately selling little
elegant luxuries, such as tobacco, gin, and rations of daintier viands
than the prison allowed; for Augustus, having more money than the rest of
his companions, managed, through the friendship of the turnkey, to
purchase secretly, and to resell at about four hundred per cent, such
comforts as the prisoners especially coveted.

     [A very common practice at the Bridewell.  The Governor at the
     Coldbath-Fields, apparently a very intelligent and active man, every
     way fitted for a most arduous undertaking, informed us, in the only
     conversation we have had the honour to hold with him, that he
     thought he had nearly or quite destroyed in his jurisdiction this
     illegal method of commerce.]

"A proof," said Augustus, dryly, to Paul, "that by prudence and exertion
even in those places where a man cannot turn himself he may manage to
turn a penny."




CHAPTER IX.

     "Relate at large, my godlike guest," she said,
     "The Grecian stratagems,--the town betrayed!"
                             DRYDEN: Virgil, AEneid, book ii.

     Descending thence, they 'scaped!--Ibid.

A great improvement had taken place in the character of Augustus
Tomlinson since Paul had last encountered that illustrious man.  Then
Augustus had affected the man of pleasure, the learned lounger about
town, the all-accomplished Pericles of the papers, gayly quoting Horace,
gravely flanking a fly from the leader of Lord Dunshunner.  Now a more
serious yet not a less supercilious air had settled upon his features;
the pretence of fashion had given way to the pretence of wisdom; and from
the man of pleasure Augustus Tomlinson had grown to the philosopher. With
this elevation alone, too, he was not content: he united the philosopher
with the politician; and the ingenious rascal was pleased especially to
pique himself upon being "a moderate Whig"!

"Paul," he was wont to observe, "believe me, moderate Whiggism is a most
excellent creed.  It adapts itself to every possible change, to every
conceivable variety of circumstance.  It is the only politics for us who
are the aristocrats of that free body who rebel against tyrannical laws;
for, hang it, I am none of your democrats.  Let there be dungeons and
turnkeys for the low rascals who whip clothes from the hedge where they
hang to dry, or steal down an area in quest of a silver spoon; but houses
of correction are not made for men who have received an enlightened
education,--who abhor your petty thefts as much as a justice of peace.
can do,--who ought never to be termed dishonest in their dealings, but,
if they are found out, 'unlucky in their speculations'!  A pretty thing,
indeed, that there should be distinctions of rank among other members of
the community, and none among us!  Where's your boasted British
Constitution, I should like to know, where are your privileges of
aristocracy, if I, who am a gentleman born, know Latin, and have lived in
the best society, should be thrust into this abominable place with a
dirty fellow who was born in a cellar, and could never earn more at a
time than would purchase a sausage?  No, no!  none of your levelling
principles for me!  I am liberal, Paul, and love liberty; but, thank
Heaven, I despise your democracies!"

Thus, half in earnest, half veiling a natural turn to sarcasm, would this
moderate Whig run on for the hour together during those long nights,
commencing at half-past four, in which he and Paul bore each other
company.

One evening, when Tomlinson was so bitterly disposed to be prolix that
Paul felt himself somewhat wearied by his eloquence, our hero, desirous
of a change in the conversation, reminded Augustus of his promise to
communicate his history; and the philosophical Whig, nothing loath to
speak of himself, cleared his throat, and began.

"Never mind who was my father, nor what was my native place!  My first
ancestor was Tommy Linn (his heir became Tom Linn's son),--you have heard
the ballad made in his praise,

             "'Tommy Linn is a Scotchman born,
               His head is bald and his beard is shorn;
               He had a cap made of a hare skin,
               An elder man is Tommy Limn!'

"There was a sort of prophecy respecting my ancestor's descendants darkly
insinuated in the concluding stanza of this ballad:--

             "'Tommy Linn, and his wife, and his wife's mother,
               They all fell into the fire together;
               They that lay undermost got a hot skin,--

               "We are not enough!" said Tommy Linn.'"

"You see the prophecy: it is applicable both to gentlemen rogues and to
moderate Whigs; for both are undermost in the world, and both are
perpetually bawling out, 'We are not enough!'

"I shall begin my own history by saying, I went to a North Country
school, where I was noted for my aptness in learning; and my skill at
'prisoner's base,'--upon my word I purposed no pun!  I was intended for
the Church.  Wishing, betimes, to instruct myself in its ceremonies, I
persuaded my schoolmaster's maidservant to assist me towards promoting a
christening.  My father did not like this premature love for the sacred
rites.  He took me home; and wishing to give my clerical ardour a
different turn, prepared me for writing sermons by reading me a dozen a
day.  I grew tired of this, strange as it may seem to you.  'Father,'
said I, one morning, 'it is no use talking; I will not go into the
Church,--that's positive.  Give me your blessing and a hundred pounds,
and I'll go up to London and get a living instead of a curacy.'  My
father stormed; but I got the better at last.  I talked of becoming a
private tutor; swore I had heard nothing was so easy,--the only things
wanted were pupils; and the only way to get them was to go to London and
let my learning be known.  My poor father,--well, he's gone, and I am
glad of it now!"  The speaker's voice faltered.  "I got the better, I
say, and I came to town, where I had a relation a bookseller.  Through
his interest, I wrote a book of Travels in Ethiopia for an earl's son,
who wanted to become a lion; and a Treatise on the Greek Particle,
dedicated to the prime minister, for a dean, who wanted to become a
bishop,--Greek being, next to interest, the best road to the mitre. These
two achievements were liberally paid; so I took a lodging in a first
floor, and resolved to make a bold stroke for a wife.  What do you think
I did?--nay, never guess; it would be hopeless.  First, I went to the
best tailor, and had my clothes sewn on my back; secondly, I got the
peerage and its genealogies by heart; thirdly, I marched one night, with
the coolest deliberation possible, into the house of a duchess, who was
giving an immense rout!  The newspapers had inspired me with this idea. I
had read of the vast crowds which a lady 'at home' sought to win to her
house.  I had read of staircases impassable, and ladies carried out in a
fit; and common-sense told me how impossible it was that the fair
receiver should be acquainted with the legality of every importation. I
therefore resolved to try my chance, and--entered the body of Augustus
Tomlinson, as a piece of stolen goods.  Faith!  the first night I was
shy,--I stuck to the staircase, and ogled an old maid of quality, whom I
had heard announced as Lady Margaret Sinclair.  Doubtless she had never
been ogled before; and she was evidently enraptured with my glances.  The
next night I read of a ball at the Countess of -------'s.  My heart beat
as if I were going to be whipped; but I plucked up courage, and repaired
to her ladyship's.  There I again beheld the divine Lady Margaret; and
observing that she turned yellow, by way of a blush, when she saw me, I
profited by the port I had drunk as an encouragement to my entree, and
lounging up in the most modish way possible, I reminded her ladyship of
an introduction with which I said I had once been honoured at the Duke of
Dashwell's, and requested her hand for the next cotillion.  Oh, Paul,
fancy my triumph!  The old damsel said, with a sigh, she remembered me
very well, ha, ha, ha!--and I carried her off to the cotillion like
another Theseus bearing away a second Ariadne.  Not to be prolix on this
part of my life, I went night after night to balls and routs, for
admission to which half the fine gentlemen in London would have given
their ears.  And I improved my time so well with Lady Margaret, who was
her own mistress and had L5,000,--a devilish bad portion for some, but
not to be laughed at by me,--that I began to think when the happy day
should be fixed.  Meanwhile, as Lady Margaret introduced me to some of
her friends, and my lodgings were in a good situation, I had been
honoured with some real invitations.  The only two questions I ever was
asked were (carelessly), 'Was I the only son?' and on my veritable answer
'Yes!'  'What' (this was more warmly put),--'what was my county?' Luckily
my county was a wide one,--Yorkshire; and any of its inhabitants whom the
fair interrogators might have questioned about me could only have
answered, I was not in their part of it.

"Well, Paul, I grew so bold by success that the devil one day put it into
my head to go to a great dinner-party at the Duke of Dashwell's.  I went,
dined,--nothing happened; I came away, and the next morning I read in the
papers,--

"'Mysterious affair--person lately going about--first houses--most
fashionable parties--nobody knows--Duke of Dashwell's yesterday.  Duke
not like to make disturbance--as royalty present."

"The journal dropped from my hands.  At that moment the girl of the house
gave me a note from Lady Margaret,--alluded to the paragraph; wondered
who was 'The Stranger;' hoped to see me that night at Lord A-----'s, to
whose party I said I had been asked; speak then more fully on those
matters I had touched on!--in short, dear Paul, a tender epistle!  All
great men are fatalists,--I am one now; fate made me a madman.  In the
very face of this ominous paragraph I mustered up courage, and went that
night to Lord A-----'s.  The fact is, my affairs were in confusion,--I
was greatly in debt.  I knew it was necessary to finish my conquest over
Lady Margaret as soon as possible; and Lord A-----'s seemed the best
place for the purpose.  Nay, I thought delay so dangerous, after the
cursed paragraph, that a day might unmask me, and it would be better
therefore not to lose an hour in finishing the play of 'The Stranger'
with the farce of 'The Honey Moon.'  Behold me then at Lord A-----'s,
leading off Lady Margaret to the dance.  Behold me whispering the
sweetest of things in her ear.  Imagine her approving my suit, and gently
chiding me for talking of Gretna Green.  Conceive all this, my dear
fellow, and just at the height of my triumph, dilate the eyes of your
imagination, and behold the stately form of Lord A-----, my noble host,
marching up to me, while a voice that, though low and quiet as an evening
breeze, made my heart sink into my shoes, said, 'I believe, sir, you have
received no invitation from Lady A-----?'

"Not a word could I utter, Paul,--not a word.  Had it been the highroad
instead of a ballroom, I could have talked loudly enough; but I was under
a spell.  'Ehem!'  I faltered at last,--'e-h-e-m!  Some  mis-take,
I--I--'  There I stopped.

"'Sir,' said the earl, regarding me with a grave sternness, 'you had
better withdraw.'

"'Bless me!  what's all this?' cried Lady Margaret, dropping my palsied
arm, and gazing on me as if she expected me to talk like a hero.

"'Oh,' said I, 'eh-e-m, eh-e-m,--I will exp--lain to-morrow,--ehem,
e-h-e-m.'  I made to the door; all the eyes in the room seemed turned
into burning-glasses, and blistered the very skin on my face.  I heard a
gentle shriek, as I left the apartment,--Lady Margaret fainting, I
suppose!  There ended my courtship and my adventures in 'the best
society.'

"I felt melancholy at the ill-success of my scheme.  You must allow it
was a magnificent project.  What moral courage!  I admire myself when I
think of it.  Without an introduction, without knowing a soul, to become,
all by my own resolution, free of the finest houses in London, dancing
with earls' daughters, and all but carrying off an earl's daughter myself
as my wife.  If I had, the friends must have done something for me; and
Lady Margaret Tomlinson might perhaps have introduced the youthful genius
of her Augustus to parliament or the ministry.  Oh, what a fall was
there! Yet, faith, ha, ha, ha!  I could not help laughing, despite of my
chagrin, when I remembered that for three months I had imposed on these
'delicate exclusives,' and been literally invited by many of them, who
would not have asked the younger sons of their own cousins, merely
because I lived in a good street, avowed myself an only child, and talked
of my property in Yorkshire!  Ha, ha! how bitter the mercenary dupes must
have felt when the discovery was made!  What a pill for the good matrons
who had coupled my image with that of some filial Mary or Jane,--ha, ha,
ha!  The triumph was almost worth the mortification.  However, as I said
before, I fell melancholy on it, especially as my duns became menacing.
So I went to consult with my cousin the bookseller.  He recommended me to
compose for the journals, and obtained me an offer.  I went to work very
patiently for a short time, and contracted some agreeable friendships
with gentlemen whom I met at an ordinary in St. James's.  Still, my duns,
though I paid them by driblets, were the plague of my life.  I confessed
as much to one of my new friends.  'Come to Bath with me,' quoth he, 'for
a week, and you shall return as rich as a Jew.' I accepted the offer, and
went to Bath in my friend's chariot.  He took the name of Lord
Dunshunner, an Irish peer who had never been out of Tipperary, and was
not therefore likely to be known at Bath.  He took also a house for a
year; filled it with wines, books, and a sideboard of plate.  As he
talked vaguely of setting up his younger brother to stand for the town at
the next parliament, he bought these goods of the townspeople, in order
to encourage their trade.  I managed secretly to transport them to London
and sell them; and as we disposed of them fifty per cent under cost
price, our customers, the pawnbrokers, were not very inquisitive.  We
lived a jolly life at Bath for a couple of months, and departed one
night, leaving our housekeeper to answer all interrogatories.  We had
taken the precaution to wear disguises, stuffed ourselves out, and
changed the hues of our hair.  My noble friend was an adept in these
transformations; and though the police did not sleep on the business,
they never stumbled on us.  I am especially glad we were not discovered,
for I liked Bath excessively; and I intend to return there some of these
days, and retire from the world--on an heiress!

"Well, Paul, shortly after this adventure I made your acquaintance.  I
continued ostensibly my literary profession, but only as a mask for the
labours I did not profess.  A circumstance obliged me to leave London
rather precipitately.  Lord Dunshunner joined me in Edinburgh.  D---it,
instead of doing anything there, we were done!  The veriest urchin that
ever crept through the High Street is more than a match for the most
scientific of Englishmen.  With us it is art; with the Scotch it is
nature.  They pick your pockets without using their fingers for it; and
they prevent reprisal by having nothing for you to pick.

"We left Edinburgh with very long faces, and at Carlisle we found it
necessary to separate.  For my part, I went as a valet to a nobleman who
had just lost his last servant at Carlisle by a fever; my friend gave me
the best of characters!  My new master was a very clever man.  He
astonished people at dinner by the impromptus he prepared at breakfast;
in a word, he was a wit.  He soon saw, for he was learned himself, that I
had received a classical education, and he employed me in the
confidential capacity of finding quotations for him.  I classed these
alphabetically and under three heads,--'Parliamentary, Literary,
Dining-out.'  These were again subdivided into 'Fine,' 'Learned,' and
'Jocular;' so that my master knew at once where to refer for genius,
wisdom, and wit.  He was delighted with my management of his intellects.
In compliment to him, I paid more attention to politics than I had done
before; for he was a 'great Whig,' and uncommonly liberal in
everything--but money!  Hence, Paul, the origin of my political
principles; and I thank Heaven there is not now a rogue in England who is
a better--that is to say, more of a moderate-Whig than your humble
servant!  I continued with him nearly a year.  He discharged me for a
fault worthy of my genius: other servants may lose the watch or the coat
of their master; I went at nobler game, and lost him--his private
character!"

"How do you mean?"

"Why, I was enamoured of a lady who would not have looked at me as Mr.
Tomlinson; so I took my master's clothes and occasionally his carriage,
and made love to my nymph as Lord.  Her vanity made her indiscreet.  The
Tory papers got hold of it; and my master, in a change of ministers, was
declared by George the Third to be 'too gay for a Chancellor of the
Exchequer.'  An old gentleman who had had fifteen children by a wife like
a Gorgon, was chosen instead of my master; and although the new minister
was a fool in his public capacity, the moral public were perfectly
content with him, because of his private virtues!

"My master was furious, made the strictest inquiry, found me out, and
turned me out too!

"A Whig not in place has an excuse for disliking the Constitution. My
distress almost made me a republican; but, true to my creed, I must
confess that I would only have levelled upwards.  I especially
disaffected the inequality of riches; I looked moodily on every carriage
that passed; I even frowned like a second Catiline at the steam of a
gentle man's kitchen!  My last situation had not been lucrative; I had
neglected my perquisites, in my ardour for politics.  My master, too,
refused to give me a character: who would take me without one?

"I was asking myself this melancholy question one morning, when I
suddenly encountered one of the fine friends I had picked up at my old
haunt, the ordinary, in St. James's.  His name was Pepper."

"Pepper!" cried Paul.

Without heeding the exclamation, Tomlinson continued:--"We went to a
tavern and drank a bottle together.  Wine made me communicative; it also
opened my comrade's heart.  He asked me to take a ride with him that
night towards Hounslow.  I did so, and found a purse."

"How fortunate!  Where?"

"In a gentleman's pocket.  I was so pleased with my luck that I went the
same road twice a week, in order to see if I could pick up any more
purses.  Fate favoured me, and I lived for a long time the life of the
blessed.  Oh, Paul, you know not--you know not what a glorious life is
that of a highwayman; but you shall taste it one of these days,--you
shall, on my honour.

"I now lived with a club of honest fellows.  We called ourselves 'The
Exclusives,'--for we were mighty reserved in our associates, and only
those who did business on a grand scale were admitted into our set.  For
my part, with all my love for my profession, I liked ingenuity still
better than force, and preferred what the vulgar call swindling, even to
the highroad.  On an expedition of this sort, I rode once into a country
town, and saw a crowd assembled in one corner; I joined it, and my
feelings!--beheld my poor friend Viscount Dunshunner just about to be
hanged!  I rode off as fast as I could,--I thought I saw Jack Ketch at my
heels.  My horse threw me at a hedge, and I broke my collar-bone.  In the
confinement that ensued gloomy ideas floated before me.  I did not like
to be hanged; so I reasoned against my errors, and repented.  I recovered
slowly, returned to town, and repaired to my cousin the bookseller.  To
say truth, I had played him a little trick: collected some debts of his
by a mistake,--very natural in the confusion incident on my distresses.
However, he was extremely unkind about it; and the mistake, natural as it
was, had cost me his acquaintance.

"I went now to him with the penitential aspect of the prodigal son; and,
faith, he would have not made a bad representation of the fatted calf
about to be killed on my return,--so corpulent looked he, and so
dejected!  'Graceless reprobate!' he began, 'your poor father is dead!' I
was exceedingly shocked; but--never fear, Paul, I am not about to be
pathetic.  My father had divided his fortune among all his children; my
share was L500.  The possession of this soon made my penitence seem much
more sincere in the eyes of my good cousin; and after a very pathetic
scene, he took me once more into favour.  I now consulted with him as to
the best method of laying out my capital and recovering my character.  We
could not devise any scheme at the first conference; but the second time
I saw him, my cousin said with a cheerful countenance: 'Cheer up,
Augustus, I have got thee a situation.  Mr. Asgrave the banker will take
thee as a clerk.  He is a most worthy man; and having a vast deal of
learning, he will respect thee for thy acquirements.'  The same day I was
introduced to Mr. Asgrave, who was a little man with a fine, bald,
benevolent head; and after a long conversation which he was pleased to
hold with me, I became one of his quill-drivers.  I don't know how it
was, but by little and little I rose in my master's good graces.  I
propitiated him, I fancy, by disposing of my L500 according to his
advice; he laid it out for me, on what he said was famous security, on a
landed estate.  Mr. Asgrave was of social habits,--he had a capital house
and excellent wines.  As he was not very particular in his company, nor
ambitious of visiting the great, he often suffered me to make one of his
table, and was pleased to hold long arguments with me about the ancients.
I soon found out that my master was a great moral philosopher; and being
myself in weak health, sated with the ordinary pursuits of the world, in
which my experience had forestalled my years, and naturally of a
contemplative temperament, I turned my attention to the moral studies
which so fascinated my employer.  I read through nine shelves full of
metaphysicians, and knew exactly the points in which those illustrious
thinkers quarrelled with each other, to the great advance of the science.
My master and I used to hold many a long discussion about the nature of
good and evil; as, by help of his benevolent forehead and a clear dogged
voice, he always seemed to our audience to be the wiser and better man of
the two, he was very well pleased with our disputes.  This gentleman had
an only daughter,--an awful shrew, with a face like a hatchet but
philosophers overcome personal defects; and thinking only of the good her
wealth might enable me to do to my fellow-creatures, I secretly made love
to her.  You will say that was playing my master but a scurvy trick for
his kindness.  Not at all; my master himself had convinced me that there
was no such virtue as gratitude.  It was an error of vulgar moralists.  I
yielded to his arguments, and at length privately espoused his daughter.
The day after this took place, he summoned me to his study.  'So,
Augustus,' said he, very mildly, 'you have married my daughter: nay,
never look confused; I saw a long time ago that you were resolved to do
so, and I was very glad of it.'

"I attempted to falter out something like thanks.  'Never interrupt me!'
said he.  'I had two reasons for being glad,--first, because my daughter
was the plague of my life, and I wanted some one to take her off my
hands; secondly, because I required your assistance on a particular
point, and I could not venture to ask it of any one but my son-in-law. In
fine, I wish to take you into partnership!'

"'Partnership!' cried I, falling on my knees.  'Noble, generous man!'

"'Stay a bit,' continued my father-in-law.  'What funds do you think
requisite for carrying on a bank?  You look puzzled!  Not a shilling! You
will put in just as much as I do.  You will put in rather more; for you
once put in L500, which has been spent long ago.  I don't put in a
shilling of my own.  I live on my clients, and I very willingly offer you
half of them!'

"Imagine, dear Paul, my astonishment, my dismay!  I saw myself married to
a hideous shrew,--son-in-law to a penniless scoundrel, and cheated out of
my whole fortune!  Compare this view of the question with that which had
blazed on me when I contemplated being son-in-law to the rich Mr.
Asgrave.  I stormed at first.  Mr. Asgrave took up Bacon 'On the
Advancement of Learning,' and made no reply till I was cooled by
explosion.  You will perceive that when passion subsided, I necessarily
saw that nothing was left for me but adopting my father-in-law's
proposal.  Thus, by the fatality which attended me at the very time I
meant to reform, I was forced into scoundrelism, and I was driven into
defrauding a vast number of persons by the accident of being son-in-law
to a great moralist.  As Mr. Asgrave was an indolent man, who passed his
mornings in speculations on virtue, I was made the active partner.  I
spent the day at the counting-house; and when I came home for recreation,
my wife scratched my eyes out."

"But were you never recognized as 'the stranger' or 'the adventurer' in
your new capacity?"

"No; for of course I assumed, in all my changes, both aliases and
disguises.  And, to tell you the truth, my marriage so altered me that,
what with a snuff-coloured coat and a brown scratch wig, with a pen in my
right ear, I looked the very picture of staid respectability.  My face
grew an inch longer every day.  Nothing is so respectable as a long face;
and a subdued expression of countenance is the surest sign of commercial
prosperity.  Well, we went on splendidly enough for about a year.
Meanwhile I was wonderfully improved in philosophy.  You have no idea how
a scolding wife sublimes and rarefies one's intellect.  Thunder clears
the air, you know!  At length, unhappily for my fame (for I contemplated
a magnificent moral history of man, which, had she lived a year longer, I
should have completed), my wife died in child-bed.  My father-in-law and
I were talking over the event, and finding fault with civilization for
the enervating habits by which women die of their children instead of
bringing them forth without being even conscious of the circumstance,
when a bit of paper, sealed awry, was given to my partner.  He looked
over it, finished the discussion, and then told me our bank had stopped
payment.  'Now, Augustus,' said he, lighting his pipe with the bit of
paper, 'you see the good of having nothing to lose.'

"We did not pay quite sixpence in the pound; but my partner was thought
so unfortunate that the British public raised a subscription for him, and
he retired on an annuity, greatly respected and very much compassionated.
As I had not been so well known as a moralist, and had not the
prepossessing advantage of a bald, benevolent head, nothing was done for
me, and I was turned once more on the wide world, to moralize on the
vicissitudes of fortune.  My cousin the bookseller was no more, and his
son cut me.  I took a garret in Warwick Court, and with a few books, my
only consolation, I endeavoured to nerve my mind to the future.  It was
at this time, Paul, that my studies really availed me.  I meditated much,
and I became a true philosopher, namely, a practical one.  My actions
were henceforth regulated by principle; and at some time or other, I will
convince you that the road of true morals never avoids the pockets of
your neighbour.  So soon as my mind had made the grand discovery which
Mr. Asgrave had made before me, that one should live according to a
system,--for if you do wrong, it is then your system that errs, not
you,--I took to the road, without any of those stings of conscience which
had hitherto annoyed me in such adventures.  I formed one of a capital
knot of 'Free Agents,' whom I will introduce to you some day or other,
and I soon rose to distinction among them.  But about six weeks ago, not
less than formerly preferring byways to highways, I attempted to possess
myself of a carriage, and sell it at discount.  I was acquitted on the
felony, but sent hither by Justice Burnflat on the misdemeanour.  Thus
far, my young friend, hath as yet proceeded the life of Augustus
Tomlinson."  The history of this gentleman made a deep impression on
Paul.  The impression was strengthened by the conversations subsequently
holden with Augustus.  That worthy was a dangerous and subtle persuader.
He had really read a good deal of history, and something of morals; and
he had an ingenious way of defending his rascally practices by syllogisms
from the latter, and examples from the former.  These theories he
clenched, as it were, by a reference to the existing politics of the day.
Cheaters of the public, on false pretences, he was pleased to term
"moderate Whigs;" bullying demanders of your purse were "high Tories;"
and thieving in gangs was "the effect of the spirit of party."  There was
this difference between Augustus Tomlinson and Long Ned,--Ned was the
acting knave, Augustus the reasoning one; and we may see therefore, by a
little reflection, that Tomlinson was a far more perilous companion than
Pepper,--for showy theories are always more seductive to the young and
clever than suasive examples, and the vanity of the youthful makes them
better pleased by being convinced of a thing than by being enticed to it.

A day or two after the narrative of Mr. Tomlinson, Paul was again visited
by Mrs. Lobkins,--for the regulations against frequent visitors were not
then so strictly enforced as we understand them to be now; and the good
dame came to deplore the ill-success of her interview with Justice
Burnflat.

We spare the tender-hearted reader a detail of the affecting interview
that ensued.  Indeed, it was but a repetition of the one we have before
narrated.  We shall only say, as a proof of Paul's tenderness of heart,
that when he took leave of the good matron, and bade "God bless her," his
voice faltered, and the tears stood in his eyes,--just as they were wont
to do in the eyes of George the Third, when that excellent monarch was
pleased graciously to encore "God save the King!"

"I'll be hanged," soliloquized our hero, as he slowly bent his course
towards the subtle Augustus,--"I'll be hanged (humph! the denunciation is
prophetic), if I don't feel as grateful to the old lady for her care of
me as if she had never ill-used me.  As for my parents, I believe I have
little to be grateful for or proud of in that quarter.  My poor mother,
by all accounts, seems scarcely to have had even the brute virtue of
maternal tenderness; and in all human likelihood I shall never know
whether I had one father or fifty.  But what matters it?  I rather like
the better to be independent; and, after all, what do nine tenths of us
ever get from our parents but an ugly name, and advice which, if we
follow, we are wretched, and if we neglect, we are disinherited?"

Comforting himself with these thoughts, which perhaps took their
philosophical complexion from the conversations he had lately held with
Augustus, and which broke off into the muttered air of--

"Why should we quarrel for riches?"

Paul repaired to his customary avocations.

In the third week of our hero's captivity Tomlinson communicated to him a
plan of escape that had occurred to his sagacious brain.  In the yard
appropriated to the amusements of the gentlemen "misdemeaning," there was
a water-pipe that, skirting the wall, passed over the door through which
every morning the pious captives passed in their way to the chapel.  By
this Tomlinson proposed to escape; for to the pipe which reached from the
door to the wall, in a slanting and easy direction, there was a sort of
skirting-board; and a dexterous and nimble man might readily, by the help
of this board, convey himself along the pipe, until the progress of that
useful conductor (which was happily very brief) was stopped by the summit
of the wall, where it found a sequel in another pipe, that descended to
the ground on the opposite side of the wall.  Now, on this opposite side
was the garden of the prison; in this garden was a watchman, and this
watchman was the hobgoblin of Tomlinson's scheme,--"For suppose us safe
in the garden," said he, "what shall we do with this confounded fellow?"

"But that is not all," added Paul; "for even were there no watchman,
there is a terrible wall, which I noted especially last week, when we
were set to work in the garden, and which has no pipe, save a
perpendicular one, that a man must have the legs of a fly to be able to
climb!"

"Nonsense!" returned Tomlinson; "I will show you how to climb the
stubbornest wall in Christendom, if one has but the coast clear.  It is
the watchman, the watchman, we must--"

"What?" asked Paul, observing his comrade did not conclude the sentence.

It was some time before the sage Augustus replied; he then said in a
musing tone,--

"I have been thinking, Paul, whether it would be consistent with virtue,
and that strict code of morals by which all my actions are regulated,
to--slay the watchman!"

"Good heavens!" cried Paul, horror-stricken.

"And I have decided," continued Augustus, solemnly, without regard to the
exclamation, "that the action would be perfectly justifiable!"

"Villain!" exclaimed Paul, recoiling to the other end of the stone
box--for it was night--in which they were cooped.

"But," pursued Augustus, who seemed soliloquizing, and whose voice,
sounding calm and thoughtful, like Young's in the famous monologue in
"Hamlet," denoted that he heeded not the uncourteous interruption,--"but
opinion does not always influence conduct; and although it may be
virtuous to murder the watchman, I have not the heart to do it.  I trust
in my future history I shall not by discerning moralists be too severely
censured for a weakness for which my physical temperament is alone to
blame!"

Despite the turn of the soliloquy, it was a long time before Paul could
be reconciled to further conversation with Augustus; and it was only from
the belief that the moralist had leaned to the jesting vein that he at
length resumed the consultation.

The conspirators did not, however, bring their scheme that night to any
ultimate decision.  The next day Augustus, Paul, and some others of the
company were set to work in the garden; and Paul then observed that his
friend, wheeling a barrow close by the spot where the watchman stood,
overturned its contents.  The watchman was good-natured enough to assist
him in refilling the barrow; and Tomlinson profited so well by the
occasion that that night he informed Paul that they would have nothing to
dread from the watchman's vigilance.  "He has promised," said Augustus,
"for certain consi-de-ra-tions, to allow me to knock him down; he has
also promised to be so much hurt as not to be able to move until we are
over the wall.  Our main difficulty now, then, is the first
step,--namely, to climb the pipe unperceived!"

"As to that," said Paul, who developed, through the whole of the scheme,
organs of sagacity, boldness, and invention which charmed his friend, and
certainly promised well for his future career,--"as to that, I think we
may manage the first ascent with less danger than you imagine.  The
mornings of late have been very foggy; they are almost dark at the hour
we go to chapel.  Let you and I close the file: the pipe passes just
above the door; our hands, as we have tried, can reach it; and a spring
of no great agility will enable us to raise ourselves up to a footing on
the pipe and the skirting-board.

"The climbing then is easy; and what with the dense fog and our own
quickness, I think we shall have little difficulty in gaining the garden.
The only precautions we need use are, to wait for a very dark morning,
and to be sure that we are the last of the file, so that no one behind
may give the alarm--"

"Or attempt to follow our example, and spoil the pie by a superfluous
plum!" added Augustus.  "You counsel admirably; and one of these days, if
you are not hung in the mean while, will, I venture to auger, be a great
logician."

The next morning was clear and frosty; but the day after was, to use
Tomlinson's simile, "as dark as if all the negroes of Africa had been
stewed down into air."  "You might have cut the fog with a knife," as the
proverb says.  Paul and Augustus could not even see how significantly
each looked at the other.

It was a remarkable trait of the daring temperament of the former, that,
young as he was, it was fixed that he should lead the attempt.  At the
hour, then, for chapel the prisoners passed as usual through the door.
When it came to Paul's turn he drew himself by his hands to the pipe, and
then creeping along its sinuous course, gained the wall before he had
even fetched his breath.  Rather more clumsily, Augustus followed his
friend's example.  Once his foot slipped, and he was all but over.  He
extended his hands involuntarily, and caught Paul by the leg.  Happily
our hero had then gained the wall, to which he was clinging; and for once
in a way, one rogue raised himself without throwing over another.  Behold
Tomlinson and Paul now seated for an instant on the wall to recover
breath; the latter then,--the descent to the ground was not very
great,--letting his body down by his hands, dropped into the garden.

"Hurt?" asked the prudent Augustus, in a hoarse whisper, before he
descended from his "bad eminence," being even willing--

                   "To bear those ills he had,
                    Than fly to others that he knew not of"

"No!" without taking every previous precaution in his power, was the
answer in the same voice, and Augustus dropped.

So soon as this latter worthy had recovered the shock of his fall, he
lost not a moment in running to the other end of the garden.  Paul
followed.  By the way Tomlinson stopped at a heap of rubbish, and picked
up an immense stone.  When they came to the part of the wall they had
agreed to scale, they found the watchman,--about whom they needed not, by
the by, to have concerned themselves; for had it not been arranged that
he was to have met them, the deep fog would have effectually prevented
him from seeing them.  This faithful guardian Augustus knocked down, not
with a stone, but with ten guineas; he then drew forth from his dress a
thickish cord, which he procured some days before from the turnkey, and
fastening the stone firmly to one end, threw that end over the wall.  Now
the wall had (as walls of great strength mostly have) an overhanging sort
of battlement on either side; and the stone, when flung over and drawn to
the tether of the cord to which it was attached, necessarily hitched
against this projection; and thus the cord was as it were fastened to the
wall, and Tomlinson was enabled by it to draw himself up to the top of
the barrier.  He performed this feat with gymnastic address, like one who
had often practised it; albeit the discreet adventurer had not mentioned
in his narrative to Paul any previous occasion for the practice.  As soon
as he had gained the top of the wall, he threw down the cord to his
companion, and, in consideration of Paul's inexperience in that manner of
climbing, gave the fastening of the rope an additional security by
holding it himself.  With slowness and labour Paul hoisted himself up;
and then, by transferring the stone to the other side of the wall, where
it made of course a similar hitch, our two adventurers were enabled
successively to slide down, and consummate their escape from the House of
Correction.

"Follow me now!" said Augustus, as he took to his heels; and Paul pursued
him through a labyrinth of alleys and lanes, through which he shot and
dodged with a variable and shifting celerity that, had not Paul kept
close upon him, would very soon, combined with the fog, have snatched him
from the eyes of his young ally.  Happily the immaturity of the morning,
the obscurity of the streets passed through, and above all, the extreme
darkness of the atmosphere, prevented that detection and arrest which
their prisoner's garb would otherwise have insured them.  At length they
found themselves in the fields; and skulking along hedges, and diligently
avoiding the highroad, they continued to fly onward, until they had
advanced several miles into "the bowels of the land."  At that time "the
bowels" of Augustus Tomlinson began to remind him of their demands; and
he accordingly suggested the desirability of their seizing the first
peasant they encountered, and causing him to exchange clothes with one of
the fugitives, who would thus be enabled to enter a public-house and
provide for their mutual necessities.  Paul agreed to this proposition,
and accordingly they watched their opportunity and caught a ploughman.
Augustus stripped him of his frock, hat, and worsted stockings; and Paul,
hardened by necessity and companionship, helped to tie the poor ploughman
to a tree.  They then continued their progress for about an hour, and, as
the shades of evening fell around them, they discovered a public-house.
Augustus entered, and returned in a few minutes laden with bread and
cheese, and a bottle of beer.  Prison fare cures a man of daintiness, and
the two fugitives dined on these homely viands with considerable
complacency.  They then resumed their journey, and at length, wearied
with exertion, they arrived at a lonely haystack, where they resolved to
repose for an hour or two.




CHAPTER X.

          Unlike the ribald, whose licentious jest
          Pollutes his banquet, and insults his guest,
          From wealth and grandeur easy to descend,
          Thou joy'st to lose the master in the friend.
          We round thy board the cheerful menials see, Gay--
          with the smile of bland equality;
          No social care the gracious lord disdains;
          Love prompts to love, and reverence reverence gains.

          Translation of LUCAN to Paso,
          Prefixed to the Twelfth Paper of "The Rambler."

Coyly shone down the bashful stars upon our adventurers, as, after a
short nap behind the haystack, they stretched themselves, and looking at
each other, burst into an involuntary and hilarious laugh at the
prosperous termination of their exploit.

Hitherto they had been too occupied, first by their flight, then by
hunger, then by fatigue, for self-gratulation; now they rubbed their
hands, and joked like runaway schoolboys at their escape.

By degrees their thoughts turned from the past to the future; and "Tell
me, my dear fellow," said Augustus, "what you intend to do.  I trust I
have long ago convinced you that it is no sin 'to serve our friends' and
to 'be true to our party;' and therefore, I suppose, you will decide upon
taking to the road."

"It is very odd," answered Paul, "that I should have any scruples left
after your lectures on the subject; but I own to you frankly that,
somehow or other, I have doubts whether thieving be really the honestest
profession I could follow."

"Listen to me, Paul," answered Augustus; and his reply is not unworthy of
notice.  "All crime and all excellence depend upon a good choice of
words.  I see you look puzzled; I will explain.  If you take money from
the public, and say you have robbed, you have indubitably committed a
great crime; but if you do the same, and say you have been relieving the
necessities of the poor, you have done an excellent action.  If, in
afterwards dividing this money with your companions, you say you have
been sharing booty, you have committed an offence against the laws of
your country; but if you observe that you have been sharing with your
friends the gains of your industry, you have been performing one of the
noblest actions of humanity.  To knock a man on the head is neither
virtuous nor guilty, but it depends upon the language applied to the
action to make it murder or glory.  Why not say, then, that you have
testified the courage of a hero, rather than the atrocity of a ruffian?
This is perfectly clear, is it not?"

     [We observe in a paragraph from an American paper, copied without
     comment into the "Morning Chronicle," a singular proof of the truth
     of Tomlinson's philosophy!  "Mr. Rowland Stephenson," so runs the
     extract, "the celebrated English banker, has just purchased a
     considerable tract of land," etc.  Most philosophical of
     paragraphists!  "Celebrated English banker!"--that sentence is a
     better illustration of verbal fallacies than all Ben tham's
     treatises put together.  "Celebrated!"  O Mercury, what a dexterous
     epithet!]

"It seems so," answered Paul.

"It is so self-evident that it is the way all governments are carried on.
Wherefore, my good Paul, we only do what all other legislators do.  We
are never rogues so long as we call ourselves honest fellows, and we
never commit a crime so long as we can term it a virtue.  What say you
now?"

Paul smiled, and was silent a few moments before he replied: "There is
very little doubt but that you are wrong; yet if you are, so are all the
rest of the world.  It is of no use to be the only white sheep of the
flock.  Wherefore, my dear Tomlinson, I will in future be an excellent
citizen, relieve the necessities of the poor, and share the gains of my
industry with my friends."

"Bravo!" cried Tomlinson.  "And now that that is settled, the sooner you
are inaugurated the better.  Since the starlight has shone forth, I see
that I am in a place I ought to be very well acquainted with; or, if you
like to be suspicious, you may believe that I have brought you purposely
in this direction.  But first let me ask if you feel any great desire to
pass the night by this haystack, or whether you would like a song and the
punchbowl almost as much as the open air, with the chance of being eaten
up in a pinch of hay by some strolling cow."

"You may conceive my choice," answered Paul.

"Well, then, there is an excellent fellow near here, who keeps a
public-house, and is a firm ally and generous patron of the lads of the
cross. At certain periods they hold weekly meetings at his house: this is
one of the nights.  What say you?  Shall I introduce you to the club?"

"I shall be very glad if they will admit me," returned Paul, whom many
and conflicting thoughts rendered laconic.

"Oh!  no fear of that, under my auspices.  To tell you the truth, though
we are a tolerant set, we welcome every new proselyte with enthusiasm.
But are you tired?"

"A little; the house is not far, you say?"

"About a mile off," answered Tomlinson.  "Lean on me."

Our wanderers now, leaving the haystack, struck across part of Finchley
Common; for the abode of the worthy publican was felicitously situated,
and the scene in which his guests celebrated their festivities was close
by that on which they often performed their exploits.

As they proceeded, Paul questioned his friend touching the name and
character of "mine host;" and the all-knowing Augustus Tomlinson answered
him, Quaker-like, by a question,--

"Have you never heard of Gentleman George?"

"What!  the noted head of a flash public-house in the country?  To be
sure I have, often; my poor nurse, Dame Lobkins, used to say he was the
best-spoken man in the trade!"

"Ay, so he is still.  In his youth, George was a very handsome fellow,
but a little too fond of his lass and his bottle to please his father,--a
very staid old gentleman, who walked about on Sundays in a bob-wig and a
gold-headed cane, and was a much better farmer on week-days than he was
head of a public-house.  George used to be a remarkably smart-dressed
fellow, and so he is to this day.  He has a great deal of wit, is a very
good whist-player, has a capital cellar, and is so fond of seeing his
friends drunk, that he bought some time ago a large pewter measure in
which six men can stand upright.  The girls, or rather the old women, to
which last he used to be much more civil of the two, always liked him;
they say nothing is so fine as his fine speeches, and they give him the
title of 'Gentleman George.'  He is a nice, kind-hearted man in many
things.  Pray Heaven we shall have no cause to miss him when he departs!
But, to tell you the truth, he takes more than his share of our common
purse."

"What! is he avaricious?"

"Quite the reverse; but he's so cursedly fond of building, he invests all
his money (and wants us to invest all ours) in houses; and there's one
confounded dog of a bricklayer who runs him up terrible bills,--a fellow
called 'Cunning Nat,' who is equally adroit in spoiling ground and
improving ground rent."

"What do you mean?"

"Ah! thereby hangs a tale.  But we are near the place now; you will see a
curious set."

As Tomlinson said this, the pair approached a house standing alone, and
seemingly without any other abode in the vicinity.  It was of curious and
grotesque shape, painted white, with a Gothic chimney, a Chinese
sign-post (on which was depicted a gentleman fishing, with the words "The
Jolly Angler" written beneath), and a porch that would have been Grecian
if it had not been Dutch.  It stood in a little field, with a hedge
behind it, and the common in front.  Augustus stopped at the door; and
while he paused, bursts of laughter rang cheerily within.

"Ah, the merry boys!" he muttered; "I long to be with them;" and then
with his clenched fist he knocked four times on the door.  There was a
sudden silence which lasted about a minute, and was broken by a voice
within, asking who was there.  Tomlinson answered by some cabalistic
word; the door was opened, and a little boy presented himself.

"Well, my lad," said Augustus, "and how is your master?  Stout and
hearty, if I may judge by his voice."

"Ay, Master Tommy, ay, he's boosing away at a fine rate, in the
back-parlour, with Mr. Pepper and Fighting Attie, and half-a-score more
of them.  He'll be woundy glad to see you, I'll be bound."

"Show this gentleman into the bar," rejoined Augustus, "while I go and
pay my respects to honest Geordie."

The boy made a sort of a bow, and leading our hero into the bar,
consigned him to the care of Sal, a buxom barmaid, who reflected credit
on the taste of the landlord, and who received Paul with marked
distinction and a gill of brandy.

Paul had not long to play the amiable, before Tomlinson rejoined him with
the information that Gentleman George would be most happy to see him in
the back-parlour, and that he would there find an old friend in the
person of Mr. Pepper.

"What! is he here?" cried Paul.  "The sorry knave, to let me be caged in
his stead!"

"Gently, gently; no misapplication of terms!" said Augustus.  "That was
not knavery; that was prudence, the greatest of all virtues, and the
rarest.  But come along, and Pepper shall explain to-morrow."

Threading a gallery or passage, Augustus preceded our hero, opened a
door, and introduced him into a long low apartment, where sat, round a
table spread with pipes and liquor, some ten or a dozen men, while at the
top of the table, in an armchair, presided Gentleman George.  That
dignitary was a portly and comely gentleman, with a knowing look, and a
Welsh wig, worn, as the "Morning Chronicle" says of his Majesty's hat,
"in a degage manner, on one side."  Being afflicted with the gout, his
left foot reclined on a stool; and the attitude developed, despite of a
lamb's-wool stocking, the remains of an exceedingly good leg.

As Gentleman George was a person of majestic dignity among the Knights of
the Cross, we trust we shall not be thought irreverent in applying a few
of the words by which the aforesaid "Morning Chronicle" depicted his
Majesty on the day he laid the first stone of his father's monument to
the description of Gentleman George.

"He had on a handsome blue coat and a white waistcoat;" moreover, "he
laughed most good-humouredly," as, turning to Augustus Tomlinson, he
saluted him with,--

"So this is the youngster you present to us?  Welcome to the Jolly
Angler!  Give us thy hand, young sir; I shall be happy to blow a cloud
with thee."

"With all due submission," said Mr. Tomlinson, "I think it may first be
as well to introduce my pupil and friend to his future companions."

"You speak like a leary cove," cried Gentleman George, still squeezing
our hero's hand; and turning round in his elbow-chair, he pointed to each
member, as he severally introduced his guests to Paul.

"Here," said he,--"here's a fine chap at my right hand" (the person thus
designated was a thin military-looking figure, in a shabby riding-frock,
and with a commanding, bold, aquiline countenance, a little the worse for
wear),--"here's a fine chap for you!  Fighting Attie we calls him; he's a
devil on the road.  'Halt,--deliver,--must and shall,--can't and sha'
n't,--do as I bid you, or go to the devil!'  That's all Fighting Attie's
palaver; and, 'Sdeath, it has a wonderful way of coming to the point!  A
famous cull is my friend Attie,--an old soldier,--has seen the world, and
knows what is what; has lots of gumption, and devil a bit of blarney.
Howsomever, the highflyers does n't like him; and when he takes people's
money, he need not be quite so cross about it.  Attie, let me introduce a
new pal to you."  Paul made his bow.

"Stand at ease, man!" quoth the veteran, without taking the pipe from his
mouth.

Gentleman George then continued; and after pointing out four or five of
the company (among whom our hero discovered, to his surprise, his old
friends Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert and Mr. William Howard Russell), came, at
length, to one with a very red face and a lusty frame of body.  "That
gentleman," said he, "is Scarlet Jem; a dangerous fellow for a press,
though he says he likes robbing alone now, for a general press is not
half such a good thing as it used to be formerly.  You have no idea what
a hand at disguising himself Scarlet Jem is.  He has an old wig which he
generally does business in; and you would not go for to know him again
when he conceals himself under the wig.  Oh, he's a precious rogue, is
Scarlet Jem!  As for the cove on t' other side," continued the host of
the Jolly Angler, pointing to Long Ned, "all I can say of him, good, bad,
or indifferent, is that he has an unkimmon fine head of hair; and now,
youngster, as you knows him, s'pose you goes and sits by him, and he'll
introduce you to the rest; for, split my wig!" (Gentleman George was a
bit of a swearer) "if I be n't tired; and so here's to your health; and
if so be as your name's Paul, may you always rob Peter [a portmanteau] in
order to pay Paul!"

This witticism of mine host's being exceedingly well received, Paul went,
amidst the general laughter, to take possession of the vacant seat beside
Long Ned.  That tall gentleman, who had hitherto been cloud-compelling
(as Homer calls Jupiter) in profound silence, now turned to Paul with the
warmest cordiality, declared himself overjoyed to meet his old friend
once more, and congratulated him alike on his escape from Bridewell and
his admission to the councils of Gentleman George.  But Paul, mindful of
that exertion of "prudence" on the part of Mr. Pepper by which he had
been left to his fate and the mercy of Justice Burnflat, received his
advances very sullenly.  This coolness so incensed Ned, who was naturally
choleric, that he turned his back on our hero, and being of an
aristocratic spirit, muttered something about "upstart, and vulgar
clyfakers being admitted to the company of swell tobymen."  This murmur
called all Paul's blood into his cheek; for though he had been punished
as a clyfaker (or pickpocket), nobody knew better than Long Ned whether
or not he was innocent; and a reproach from him came therefore with
double injustice and severity.  In his wrath he seized Mr. Pepper by the
ear, and telling him he was a shabby scoundrel, challenged him to fight.

So pleasing an invitation not being announced sotto voce, but in a tone
suited to the importance of the proposition, every one around heard it;
and before Long Ned could answer, the full voice of Gentleman George
thundered forth,--

"Keep the peace there, you youngster!  What! are you just admitted into
our merry-makings, and must you be wrangling already?  Harkye, gemmen, I
have been plagued enough with your quarrels before now; and the first
cove as breaks the present quiet of the Jolly Angler shall be turned out
neck and crop,--sha' n't he, Attie?"

"Right about, march!" said the hero.

"Ay, that's the word, Attie," said Gentleman George.  "And now, Mr.
Pepper, if there be any ill blood 'twixt you and the lad there, wash it
away in a bumper of bingo, and let's hear no more whatsomever about it."

"I'm willing," cried Long Ned, with the deferential air of a courtier,
and holding out his hand to Paul.  Our hero, being somewhat abashed by
the novelty of his situation and the rebuke of Gentleman George,
accepted, though with some reluctance, the proffered courtesy.

Order being thus restored, the conversation of the convivialists began to
assume a most fascinating bias.  They talked with infinite gout of the
sums they had levied on the public, and the peculations they had
committed for what one called the good of the community, and another, the
established order,--meaning themselves.  It was easy to see in what
school the discerning Augustus Tomlinson had learned the value of words.

There was something edifying in hearing the rascals!  So nice was their
language, and so honest their enthusiasm for their own interests, you
might have imagined you were listening to a coterie of cabinet ministers
conferring on taxes or debating on perquisites.

"Long may the Commons flourish!" cried punning Georgie, filling his
glass; "it is by the commons we're fed, and may they never know
cultivation!"

"Three times three!" shouted Long Ned; and the toast was drunk as Mr.
Pepper proposed.

"A little moderate cultivation of the commons, to speak frankly," said
Augustus Tomlinson, modestly, "might not be amiss; for it would decoy
people into the belief that they might travel safely; and, after all, a
hedge or a barley-field is as good for us as a barren heath, where we
have no shelter if once pursued!"

"You talks nonsense, you spooney!" cried a robber of note, called
Bagshot; who, being aged and having been a lawyer's footboy, was
sometimes denominated "Old Bags."  "You talks nonsense; these innowating
ploughs are the ruin of us.  Every blade of corn in a common is an
encroachment on the constitution and rights of the gemmen highwaymen. I'm
old, and may n't live to see these things; but, mark my words, a time
will come when a man may go from Lunnun to Johnny Groat's without losing
a penny by one of us; when Hounslow will be safe, and Finchley secure. My
eyes, what a sad thing for us that'll be!"

The venerable old man became suddenly silent, and the tears started to
his eyes.  Gentleman George had a great horror of blue devils, and
particularly disliked all disagreeable subjects.

"Thunder and oons, Old Bags!" quoth mine host of the Jolly Angler, "this
will never do; we're all met here to be merry, and not to listen to your
mullancolly taratarantarums.  I says, Ned Pepper, s'pose you tips us a
song, and I'll beat time with my knuckles."

Long Ned, taking the pipe from his mouth, attempted, like Walter Scott's
Lady Heron, one or two pretty excuses; these being drowned by a universal
shout, the handsome purloiner gave the following song, to the tune of
"Time has not thinned my flowing hair."

                           LONG NED'S SONG.

                    Oh, if my hands adhere to cash,
                    My gloves at least are clean,
                    And rarely have the gentry flash
                    In sprucer clothes been seen.

                    Sweet Public, since your coffers must
                    Afford our wants relief,
                    Oh!  soothes it not to yield the dust
                    To such a charming thief?

"'And John may laugh at mine,'--excellent!" cried Gentleman George,
lighting his pipe, and winking at Attie; "I hears as how you be a famous
fellow with the lasses."

Ned smiled and answered, "No man should boast; but--" Pepper paused
significantly, and then glancing at Attie, said, "Talking of lasses, it
is my turn to knock down a gentleman for a song, and I knock down
Fighting Attie."

"I never sing," said the warrior.

"Treason, treason!" cried Pepper.  "It is the law, and you must obey the
law; so begin."

"It is true, Attie," said Gentleman George.

There was no appeal from the honest publican's fiat; so, in a quick and
laconic manner, it being Attie's favourite dogma that the least said is
the soonest mended, the warrior sung as follows:--

                           FIGHTING ATTIE'S SONG.

                    Air: "He was famed for deeds of arms."

                    I never robbed a single coach
                    But with a lover's air;
                    And though you might my course reproach,
                    You never could my hair.

                    Rise at six, dine at two,
                    Rob your man without ado,
                    Such my maxims; if you doubt
                    Their wisdom, to the right-about!

( Signing to a sallow gentleman on the same side of the table to send up
the brandy bowl.)

                    Pass round the bingo,--of a gun,
                    You musty, dusky, husky son!
                    John Bull, who loves a harmless joke,
                    Is apt at me to grin;
                    But why be cross with laughing folk,
                    Unless they laugh and win?
                    John Bull has money in his box;
                    And though his wit's divine,
                    Yet let me laugh at Johnny's locks,
                    And John may laugh at mine

     [Much of whatever amusement might be occasioned by the not (we
     trust) ill-natured travesties of certain eminent characters in this
     part of our work when first published, like all political allusions,
     loses point and becomes obscure as the applications cease to be
     familiar.  It is already necessary, perhaps, to say that Fighting
     Attie herein typifies or illustrates the Duke of Wellington's abrupt
     dismissal of Mr. Huskisson.]

               THE SALLOW GENTLEMAN (in a hoarse voice).

                  Attie, the bingo's now with me;
                  I can't resign it yet, d' ye see!

                       ATTIE (seizing the bowl).

                  Resign, resign it,--cease your dust!
    (Wresting it away and fiercely regarding the sallow gentleman.)
                  You have resigned it, and you must.

                             CHORUS.

                  You have resigned it, and you must.

While the chorus, laughing at the discomfited tippler, yelled forth the
emphatic words of the heroic Attie, that personage emptied the brandy at
a draught, resumed his pipe, and in as few words as possible called on
Bagshot for a song.  The excellent old highwayman, with great diffidence,
obeyed the request, cleared his throat, and struck off with a ditty
somewhat to the tune of "The Old Woman."

                               OLD BAGS'S SONG.

               Are the days then gone, when on Hounslow Heath
               We flashed our nags,
               When the stoutest bosoms quailed beneath
               The voice of Bags?
               Ne'er was my work half undone, lest I should be nabbed
               Slow was old Bags, but he never ceased
               Till the whole was grabbed.

               CHORUS.  Till the whole was grabbed.

               When the slow coach paused, and the gemmen stormed,
               I bore the brunt;
               And the only sound which my grave lips formed
               Was "blunt,"--still "blunt"!

               Oh, those jovial days are ne'er forgot!
               But the tape lags--
               When I be's dead, you'll drink one pot
               To poor old Bags!

               CHORUS.  To poor old Bags!

"Ay, that we will, my dear Bagshot," cried Gentleman George,
affectionately; but observing a tear in the fine old fellow's eye, he
added: "Cheer up!  What, ho!  cheer up!  Times will improve, and
Providence may yet send us one good year, when you shall be as well off
as ever.  You shakes your poll.  Well, don't be humdurgeoned, but knock
down a gemman."

Dashing away the drop of sensibility, the veteran knocked down Gentleman
George himself.

"Oh, dang it!" said George, with an air of dignity, "I ought to skip,
since I finds the lush; but howsomever here goes."

                          GENTLEMAN GEORGE'S SONG.

                    Air: "Old King Cole."

                    I be's the cove, the merry old cove,
                    Of whose max all the rufflers sing;
                    And a lushing cove, I thinks, by Jove,
                    Is as great as a sober king!

                    CHORUS. Is as great as a sober king!

                    Whatever the noise as is made by the boys
                    At the bar as they lush away,
                    The devil a noise my peace alloys
                    As long as the rascals pay!

                    CHORUS.  As long as the rascals pay!

                    What if I sticks my stones and my bricks
                    With mortar I takes from the snobbish?
                    All who can feel for the public weal
                    Likes the public-house to be bobbish.

                    CHORUS.  Likes the public-house to be bobbish.

"There, gemmen!" said the publican, stopping short, "that's the pith of
the matter, and split my wig but I'm short of breath now.  So send round
the brandy, Augustus; you sly dog, you keeps it all to yourself."

By this time the whole conclave were more than half-seas over, or, as
Augustus Tomlinson expressed it, "their more austere qualities were
relaxed by a pleasing and innocent indulgence."  Paul's eyes reeled, and
his tongue ran loose.  By degrees the room swam round, the faces of his
comrades altered, the countenance of Old Bags assumed an awful and
menacing air.  He thought Long Ned insulted him, and that Old Bags took
the part of the assailant, doubled his fist, and threatened to put the
plaintiff's nob into chancery if he disturbed the peace of the meeting.
Various other imaginary evils beset him.  He thought he had robbed a
mail-coach in company with Pepper; that Tomlinson informed against him,
and that Gentleman George ordered him to be hanged; in short, he laboured
under a temporary delirium, occasioned by a sudden reverse of
fortune,--from water to brandy; and the last thing of which he retained
any recollection, before he sank under the table, in company with Long
Ned, Scarlet Jem, and Old Bags, was the bearing his part in the burden of
what appeared to him a chorus of last dying speeches and confessions, but
what in reality was a song made in honour of Gentleman George, and sung
by his grateful guests as a finale of the festivities.  It ran thus:--

                    THE ROBBER'S GRAND TOAST.

          A tumbler of blue ruin, fill, fill for me!
          Red tape those as likes it may drain;
          But whatever the lush, it a bumper must be,
          If we ne'er drinks a bumper again!
          Now--now in the crib, where a ruffler may lie,
          Without fear that the traps should distress him,
          With a drop in the mouth, and a drop in the eye,
          Here's to Gentleman George,--God bless him!
          God bless him, God bless him!
          Here's to Gentleman George,--God bless him!

          'Mong the pals of the prince I have heard it's the go,
          Before they have tippled enough,
          To smarten their punch with the best curagoa,
          More conish to render the stuff.
          I boast not such lush; but whoever his glass
          Does not like, I'll be hanged if I press him!
          Upstanding, my kiddies,--round, round let it pass!
          Here's to Gentleman George,--God bless him!
          God bless him, God bless him!
          Here's to Gentleman George,-God bless him!

          See, see, the fine fellow grows weak on his stumps;
          Assist him, ye rascals, to stand!
          Why, ye stir not a peg!  Are you all in the dumps?
          Fighting Attie, go, lend him a hand!

(The robbers crowd around Gentleman George, each, under pretence of
supporting him, pulling him first one way and then another.)

          Come, lean upon me,--at your service I am!
          Get away from his elbow, you whelp!  him
          You'll only upset,--them 'ere fellows but sham!
          Here's to Gentleman George,--God help him!
          God help him, God help him!
          Here's to Gentleman George, God help him!




CHAPTER XI.

               I boast no song in magic wonders rife;
               But yet, O Nature! is there nought to prize,
               Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life?
               And dwells in daylight truth's salubrious skies
               No form with which the soul may sympathize?
               Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild
               The parted ringlet shone in simplest guise,
               An inmate in the home of Albert smiled,
               Or blessed his noonday walk,--she was his only child.

                                   Gertrude of Wyoming.

O time, thou hast played strange tricks with us; and we bless the stars
that made us a novelist, and permit us now to retaliate.  Leaving Paul to
the instructions of Augustus Tomlinson and the festivities of the Jolly
Angler, and suffering him, by slow but sure degrees, to acquire the
graces and the reputation of the accomplished and perfect appropriator of
other men's possessions, we shall pass over the lapse of years with the
same heedless rapidity with which they have glided over us, and summon
our reader to a very different scene from those which would be likely to
greet his eyes, were he following the adventures of our new Telemachus.
Nor wilt thou, dear reader, whom we make the umpire between ourself and
those who never read,--the critics; thou who hast, in the true spirit of
gentle breeding, gone with us among places where the novelty of the scene
has, we fear, scarcely atoned for the coarseness, not giving thyself the
airs of a dainty abigail,--not prating, lacquey-like, on the low company
thou has met,--nor wilt thou, dear and friendly reader, have cause to
dread that we shall weary thy patience by a "damnable iteration" of the
same localities.  Pausing for a moment to glance over the divisions of
our story, which lies before us like a map, we feel that we may promise
in future to conduct thee among aspects of society more familiar to thy
habits; where events flow to their allotted gulf through landscapes of
more pleasing variety and among tribes of a more luxurious civilization.

Upon the banks of one of fair England's fairest rivers, and about fifty
miles distant from London, still stands an old-fashioned abode, which we
shall here term Warlock Manorhouse.  It is a building of brick, varied by
stone copings, and covered in great part with ivy and jasmine.  Around it
lie the ruins of the elder part of the fabric; and these are sufficiently
numerous in extent and important in appearance to testify that the
mansion was once not without pretensions to the magnificent.  These
remains of power, some of which bear date as far back as the reign of
Henry the Third, are sanctioned by the character of the country
immediately in the vicinity of the old manor-house.  A vast tract of
waste land, interspersed with groves of antique pollards, and here and
there irregular and sinuous ridges of green mound, betoken to the
experienced eye the evidence of a dismantled chase or park, which must
originally have been of no common dimensions.  On one side of the house
the lawn slopes towards the river, divided from a terrace, which forms
the most important embellishment of the pleasure-grounds, by that fence
to which has been given the ingenious and significant name of "ha-ha!" A
few scattered trees of giant growth are the sole obstacles that break the
view of the river, which has often seemed to us, at that particular
passage of its course, to glide with unusual calmness and serenity. On
the opposite side of the stream there is a range of steep hills,
celebrated for nothing more romantic than their property of imparting to
the flocks that browse upon that short and seemingly stinted herbage a
flavour peculiarly grateful to the lovers of that pastoral animal which
changes its name into mutton after its decease.  Upon these hills the
vestige of human habitation is not visible; and at times, when no boat
defaces the lonely smoothness of the river, and the evening has stilled
the sounds of labour and of life, we know few scenes so utterly tranquil,
so steeped in quiet, as that which is presented by the old,
quaint-fashioned house and its antique grounds,--the smooth lawn, the
silent, and (to speak truly, though disparagingly) the somewhat sluggish
river, together with the large hills (to which we know, from simple
though metaphysical causes, how entire an idea of quiet and immovability
peculiarly attaches itself), and the white flocks,--those most peaceful
of God's creatures,--that in fleecy clusters stud the ascent.

In Warlock House, at the time we refer to, lived a gentleman of the name
of Brandon.  He was a widower, and had attained his fiftieth year without
casting much regret on the past or feeling much anxiety for the future.
In a word, Joseph Brandon was one of those careless, quiescent,
indifferent men, by whom a thought upon any subject is never recurred to
without a very urgent necessity.  He was good-natured, inoffensive, and
weak; and if he was not an incomparable citizen, he was at least an
excellent vegetable.  He was of a family of high antiquity, and formerly
of considerable note.  For the last four or five generations, however,
the proprietors of Warlock House, gradually losing something alike from
their acres and their consequence, had left to their descendants no
higher rank than that of a small country squire.  One had been a
Jacobite, and had drunk out half-a-dozen farms in honour of Charley over
the water; Charley over the water was no very dangerous person, but
Charley over the wine was rather more ruinous.  The next Brandon had been
a fox-hunter, and fox-hunters live as largely as patriotic politicians.
Pausanias tells us that the same people; who were the most notorious for
their love of wine were also the most notorious for their negligence of
affairs.  Times are not much altered since Pausanias wrote, and the
remark holds as good with the English as it did with the Phigalei.  After
this Brandon came one who, though he did not scorn the sportsman, rather
assumed the fine gentleman.  He married an heiress, who of course
assisted to ruin him; wishing no assistance in so pleasing an occupation,
he overturned her (perhaps not on purpose), in a new sort of carriage
which he was learning to drive, and the good lady was killed on the spot.
She left the fine gentleman two sons,--Joseph Brandon, the present
thane,--and a brother some years younger.  The elder, being of a fitting
age, was sent to school, and somewhat escaped the contagion of the
paternal mansion.  But the younger Brandon, having only reached his fifth
year at the time of his mother's decease, was retained at home.  Whether
he was handsome or clever or impertinent, or like his father about the
eyes (that greatest of all merits), we know not; but the widower became
so fond of him that it was at a late period and with great reluctance
that he finally intrusted him to the providence of a school.

Among harlots and gamblers and lords and sharpers, and gentlemen of the
guards, together with their frequent accompaniments,--guards of the
gentlemen, namely, bailiffs,--William Brandon passed the first stage of
his boyhood.  He was about thirteen when he was sent to school; and being
a boy of remarkable talents, he recovered lost time so well that when at
the age of nineteen he adjourned to the University, he had scarcely
resided there a single term before he had borne off two of the highest
prizes awarded to academical merit.  From the University he departed on
the "grand tour," at that time thought so necessary to complete the
gentleman; he went in company with a young nobleman, whose friendship he
had won at the University, stayed abroad more than two years, and on his
return he settled down to the profession of the law.

Meanwhile his father died, and his fortune, as a younger brother, being
literally next to nothing, and the family estate (for his brother was not
unwilling to assist him) being terribly involved, it was believed that he
struggled for some years with very embarrassed and penurious
circumstances.  During this interval of his life, however, he was absent
from London, and by his brother supposed to have returned to the
Continent; at length, it seems, he profited by a renewal of his
friendship with the young nobleman who had accompanied him abroad,
reappeared in town, and obtained through his noble friend one or two
legal appointments of reputable emolument.  Soon afterwards he got a
brief on some cause where a major had been raising a corps to his brother
officer, with the better consent of the brother-officer's wife than of
the brother officer himself.  Brandon's abilities here, for the first
time in his profession, found an adequate vent; his reputation seemed
made at once, he rose rapidly in his profession, and, at the time we now
speak of, he was sailing down the full tide of fame and wealth, the envy
and the oracle of all young Templars and barristers, who, having been
starved themselves for ten years, began now to calculate on the
possibility of starving their clients.  At an early period in his career
he had, through the good offices of the nobleman we have mentioned,
obtained a seat in the House of Commons; and though his eloquence was of
an order much better suited to the bar than the senate, he had
nevertheless acquired a very considerable reputation in the latter, and
was looked upon by many as likely to win to the same brilliant fortunes
as the courtly Mansfield,--a great man, whose political principles and
urbane address Brandon was supposed especially to affect as his own
model.  Of unblemished integrity in public life,--for, as he supported
all things that exist with the most unbending rigidity, he could not be
accused of inconsistency,--William Brandon was (as we have said in a
former place of unhappy memory to our hero) esteemed in private life the
most honourable, the most moral, even the most austere of men; and his
grave and stern repute on this score, joined to the dazzle of his
eloquence and forensic powers, had baffled in great measure the rancour
of party hostility, and obtained for him a character for virtues almost
as high and as enviable as that which he had acquired for abilities.

While William was thus treading a noted and an honourable career, his
elder brother, who had married into a clergyman's family, and soon lost
his consort, had with his only child, a daughter named Lucy, resided in
his paternal mansion in undisturbed obscurity.  The discreditable
character and habits of the preceding lords of Warlock, which had sunk
their respectability in the county as well as curtailed their property,
had rendered the surrounding gentry little anxious to cultivate the
intimacy of the present proprietor; and the heavy mind and retired
manners of Joseph Brandon were not calculated to counterbalance the
faults of his forefathers, nor to reinstate the name of Brandon in its
ancient popularity and esteem.  Though dull and little cultivated, the
squire was not without his "proper pride;" he attempted not to intrude
himself where he was unwelcome, avoided county meetings and county balls,
smoked his pipe with the parson, and not unoften with the surgeon and the
solicitor, and suffered his daughter Lucy to educate herself with the
help of the parson's wife, and to ripen (for Nature was more favourable
to her than Art) into the very prettiest girl that the whole county--we
long to say the whole country--at that time could boast of.  Never did
glass give back a more lovely image than that of Lucy Brandon at the age
of nineteen.  Her auburn hair fell in the richest luxuriance over a brow
never ruffled, and a cheek where the blood never slept; with every
instant the colour varied, and at every variation that smooth, pure;
virgin cheek seemed still more lovely than before.  She had the most
beautiful laugh that one who loved music could imagine,--silvery, low,
and yet so full of joy!  All her movements, as the old parson said,
seemed to keep time to that laugh, for mirth made a great part of her
innocent and childish temper; and yet the mirth was feminine, never loud,
nor like that of young ladies who had received the last finish at
Highgate seminaries.  Everything joyous affected her, and at once,--air,
flowers, sunshine, butterflies.  Unlike heroines in general, she very
seldom cried, and she saw nothing charming in having the vapours.  But
she never looked so beautiful as in sleep; and as the light breath came
from her parted lips, and the ivory lids closed over those eyes which
only in sleep were silent,--and her attitude in her sleep took that
ineffable grace belonging solely to childhood, or the fresh youth into
which childhood merges,--she was just what you might imagine a sleeping
Margaret, before that most simple and gentle of all a poet's visions of
womanhood had met with Faust, or her slumbers been ruffled with a dream
of love.

We cannot say much for Lucy's intellectual acquirements; she could,
thanks to the parson's wife, spell indifferently well, and write a
tolerable hand; she made preserves, and sometimes riddles,--it was more
difficult to question the excellence of the former than to answer the
queries of the latter.  She worked to the admiration of all who knew her,
and we beg leave to say that we deem that "an excellent thing in woman."
She made caps for herself and gowns for the poor, and now and then she
accomplished the more literary labour of a stray novel that had wandered
down to the Manorhouse, or an abridgment of ancient history, in which was
omitted everything but the proper names.  To these attainments she added
a certain modicum of skill upon the spinet, and the power of singing old
songs with the richest and sweetest voice that ever made one's eyes
moisten or one's heart beat.

Her moral qualities were more fully developed than her mental.  She was
the kindest of human beings; the very dog that had never seen her before
knew that truth at the first glance, and lost no time in making her
acquaintance.  The goodness of her heart reposed upon her face like
sunshine, and the old wife at the lodge said poetically and truly of the
effect it produced, that "one felt warm when one looked on her."  If we
could abstract from the description a certain chilling transparency, the
following exquisite verses of a forgotten poet might express the purity
and lustre of her countenance:--

         "Her face was like the milky way i' the sky,
          A meeting of gentle lights without a name."

She was surrounded by pets of all kinds, ugly and handsome,--from Ralph
the raven to Beauty the pheasant, and from Bob, the sheep-dog without a
tail, to Beau, the Blenheim with blue ribbons round his neck; all things
loved her, and she loved all things.  It seemed doubtful at that time
whether she would ever have sufficient steadiness and strength of
character.  Her beauty and her character appeared so essentially
womanlike--soft yet lively, buoyant yet caressing--that you could
scarcely place in her that moral dependence that you might in a character
less amiable but less yieldingly feminine.  Time, however, and
circumstance, which alter and harden, were to decide whether the inward
nature did not possess some latent and yet undiscovered properties.  Such
was Lucy Brandon in the year ----; and in that year, on a beautiful
autumnal evening, we first introduce her personally to our readers.

She was sitting on a garden-seat by the river side, with her father, who
was deliberately conning the evening paper of a former week, and gravely
seasoning the ancient news with the inspirations of that weed which so
bitterly excited the royal indignation of our British Solomon.  It
happens, unfortunately for us,--for outward peculiarities are scarcely
worthy the dignity to which comedy, whether in the drama or the
narrative, aspires,--that Squire Brandon possessed so few distinguishing
traits of mind that he leaves his delineator little whereby to designate
him, save a confused and parenthetical habit of speech, by which he very
often appeared to those who did not profit by long experience or close
observation, to say exactly, and somewhat ludicrously, that which he did
not mean to convey.

"I say, Lucy," observed Mr. Brandon, but without lifting his eyes from
the paper,--"I say, corn has fallen; think of that, girl, think of that!
These times, in my opinion (ay, and in the opinion of wiser heads than
mine, though I do not mean to say that I have not some experience in
these matters, which is more than can be said of all our neighbours), are
very curious and even dangerous."

"Indeed, Papa!" answered Lucy.

"And I say, Lucy, dear," resumed the squire, after a short pause, "there
has been (and very strange it is, too, when one considers the crowded
neighbourhood--Bless me! what times these are!) a shocking murder
committed upon (the tobacco stopper,--there it is)--think, you know,
girl,--just by Epping!--an old gentleman!"

"Dear, how shocking!  By whom?"

"Ay, that's the question!  The coroner's inquest has (what a blessing it
is to live in a civilized country, where a man does not die without
knowing the why and the wherefore!) sat on the body, and declared (it is
very strange, but they don't seem to have made much discovery; for why?
we knew as much before) that the body was found (it was found on the
floor, Lucy) murdered; murderer or murderers (in the bureau, which was
broken open, they found the money left quite untouched) unknown!"

Here there was again a slight pause; and passing to another side of the
paper, Mr. Brandon resumed, in a quicker tone,--"Ha!  well, now this is
odd!  But he's a deuced clever fellow, Lucy!  That brother of mine has
(and in a very honourable manner, too, which I am sure is highly
creditable to the family, though he has not taken too much notice of me
lately,--a circumstance which, considering I am his elder brother, I am a
little angry at) distinguished himself in a speech, remarkable, the paper
says, for its great legal (I wonder, by the by, whether William could get
me that agistment-money! 't is a heavy thing to lose; but going to law,
as my poor father used to say, is like fishing for gudgeons [not a bad
little fish; we can have some for supper] with, guineas) knowledge, as
well as its splendid and overpowering (I do love Will for keeping up the
family honour; I am sure it is more than I have done, heigh-ho!),
eloquence!"

"And on what subject has he been speaking, Papa?"

"Oh, a very fine subject; what you call a (it is astonishing that in this
country there should be such a wish for taking away people's characters,
which, for my part, I don't see is a bit more entertaining than what you
are always doing,--playing with those stupid birds) libel!"

"But is not my uncle William coming down to see us?  He promised to do
so, and it made you quite happy--, Papa, for two days.  I hope he will
not disappoint you; and I am sure that it is not his fault if he ever
seems to neglect you.  He spoke of you to me, when I saw him, in the
kindest and most affectionate manner.  I do think, my dear father, that
he loves you very much."

"Ahem!" said the squire, evidently flattered, and yet not convinced.  "My
brother Will is a very acute fellow, and I make no--my dear little
girl--question, but that (when you have seen as much of the world as I
have, you will grow suspicious) he thought that any good word said of me
to my daughter would (you see, Lucy, I am as clear-sighted as my
neighbours, though I don't give myself all their airs; which I very well
might do, considering my great-great-great-grandfather, Hugo Brandon, had
a hand in detecting the gunpowder plot) he told to me again!"

"Nay, but I am quite sure my uncle never spoke of you to me with that
intention."

"Possibly, my dear child; but when (the evenings are much shorter than
they were!) did you talk with your uncle about me?

"Oh, when staying with Mrs. Warner, in London; to be sure, it is six
years ago, but I remember it perfectly.  I recollect, in particular, that
he spoke of you very handsomely to Lord Mauleverer, who dined with him
one evening when I was there, and when my uncle was so kind as to take me
to the play.  I was afterwards quite sorry that he was so good-natured,
as he lost (you remember I told you the story) a very valuable watch."

"Ay, ay, I remember all about that, and so (how long friendship lasts
with some people!) Lord Mauleverer dined with William!  What a fine thing
it is for a man (it is what I never did, indeed; I like being what they
call 'Cock of the Walk'--let me see, now I think of it, Pillum comes
to-night to play a hit at backgammon) to make friends with a great man
early in (yet Will did not do it very early, poor fellow!  He struggled
first with a great deal of sorrow--hardship, that is) life!  It is many
years now since Will has been hand-and-glove with my ('t is a bit of a
puppy) Lord Mauleverer.  What did you think of his lordship?"

"Of Lord Mauleverer?  Indeed I scarcely observed him; but he seemed a
handsome man, and was very polite.  Mrs. Warner said he had been a very
wicked person when he was young, but he seems good-natured enough now,
Papa."

"By the by," said the squire, "his lordship has just been made (this new
ministry seems very unlike the old, which rather puzzles me; for I think
it my duty, d'ye see, Lucy, always to vote for his Majesty's government,
especially seeing that old Hugo Brandon had a hand in detecting the gun
powder plot; and it is a little odd-at least, at first-to think that good
now which one has always before been thinking abominable) Lord Lieutenant
of the county."

"Lord Mauleverer our Lord Lieutenant?"

"Yes, child; and since his lordship is such a friend of my brother, I
should think, considering especially what an old family in the county we
are,--not that I wish to intrude myself where I am not thought as fine as
the rest,--that he would be more attentive to us than Lord -------- was;
but that, my dear Lucy, puts me in mind of Pillum; and so, perhaps, you
would like to walk to the parson's, as it is a fine evening.  John shall
come for you at nine o'clock with (the moon is not up then) the lantern."

Leaning on his daughter's willing arm, the good old man then rose and
walked homeward; and so soon as she had wheeled round his easy-chair,
placed the backgammon board on the table, and wished the old gentleman an
easy victory over his expected antagonist, the apothecary, Lucy tied down
her bonnet, and took her way to the rectory.

When she arrived at the clerical mansion and entered the drawing-room,
she was surprised to find the parson's wife, a good, homely, lethargic
old lady, run up to her, seemingly in a state of great nervous agitation
and crying,--

"Oh, my dear Miss Brandon! which way did you come?  Did you meet nobody
by the road?  Oh, I am so frightened!  Such an accident to poor dear Dr.
Slopperton!  Stopped in the king's highway, robbed of some tithe-money he
had just received from Farmer Slowforth!  If it had not been for that
dear angel, good young man, God only knows whether I might not have been
a disconsolate widow by this time!"

While the affectionate matron was thus running on, Lucy's eye glancing
round the room discovered in an armchair the round and oily little person
of Dr. Slopperton, with a countenance from which all the carnation hues,
save in one circular excrescence on the nasal member, that was left, like
the last rose of summer, blooming alone, were faded into an aspect of
miserable pallor.  The little man tried to conjure up a smile while his
wife was narrating his misfortune, and to mutter forth some syllable of
unconcern; but he looked, for all his bravado, so exceedingly scared that
Lucy would, despite herself, have laughed outright, had not her eye
rested upon the figure of a young man who had been seated beside the
reverend gentleman, but who had risen at Lucy's entrance, and who now
stood gazing upon her intently, but with an air of great respect.
Blushing deeply and involuntarily, she turned her eyes hastily away, and
approaching the good doctor, made her inquiries into the present state of
his nerves, in a graver tone than she had a minute before imagined it
possible that she should have been enabled to command.

"Ah!  my good young lady," said the doctor, squeezing her hand, "I--may,
I may say the church--for am I not its minister? was in imminent
danger--but this excellent gentleman prevented the sacrilege, at least in
great measure.  I only lost some of my dues,--my rightful dues,--for
which I console myself with thinking that the infamous and abandoned
villain will suffer hereafter."

"There cannot be the least doubt of that," said the young man.  "Had he
only robbed the mail-coach, or broken into a gentleman's house, the
offence might have been expiable; but to rob a clergyman, and a rector
too!--Oh, the sacrilegious dog!"

"Your warmth does you honour, sir," said the doctor, beginning now to
recover; "and I am very proud to have made the acquaintance of a
gentleman of such truly religious opinions."

"Ah!" cried the stranger, "my foible, sir,--if I may so speak,--is a sort
of enthusiastic fervour for the Protestant Establishment.  Nay, sir, I
never come across the very nave of the church without feeling an
indescribable emotion--a kind of sympathy, as it were--with--with--you
understand me, sir--I fear I express myself ill."

"Not at all, not at all!" exclaimed the doctor: "such sentiments are
uncommon in one so young."

"Sir, I learned them early in life from a friend and preceptor of mine,
Mr. MacGrawler, and I trust they may continue with me to my dying day."

Here the doctor's servant entered with (we borrow a phrase from the novel
of ----------) "the tea-equipage;" and Mrs. Slopperton, betaking herself
to its superintendence, inquired with more composure than hitherto had
belonged to her demeanour, what sort of a looking creature the ruffian
was.

"I will tell you, my dear, I will tell you, Miss Lucy, all about it. I
was walking home from Mr. Slowforth's, with his money in my pocket,
thinking, my love, of buying you that topaz cross you wished to have."

"Dear, good man!" cried Mrs. Slopperton; "what a fiend it must have been
to rob so excellent a creature!"

"And," resumed the doctor, "it also occurred to me that the Madeira was
nearly out,--the Madeira, I mean, with the red seal; and I was thinking
it might not be amiss to devote part of the money to buy six dozen more;
and the remainder, my love, which would be about one pound eighteen, I
thought I would divide--'for he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the
Lord!'--among the thirty poor families on the common; that is, if they
behaved well, and the apples in the back garden were not feloniously
abstracted!"

"Excellent, charitable man!" ejaculated Mrs. Slopperton.  "While I was
thus meditating, I lifted my eyes, and saw before me two men,--one of
prodigious height, and with a great profusion of hair about his
shoulders; the other was smaller, and wore his hat slouched over his
face: it was a very large hat.  My attention was arrested by the
singularity of the tall person's hair, and while I was smiling at its
luxuriance, I heard him say to his companion, 'Well, Augustus, as you are
such a moral dog, he is in your line, not mine; so I leave him to you.'
Little did I think those words related to me.  No sooner were they
uttered than the tall rascal leaped over a gate and disappeared; the
other fellow, then marching up to me, very smoothly asked me the way to
the church, and while I was explaining to him to turn first to the right
and then to the left, and so on,--for the best way is, you know,
exceedingly crooked,--the hypocritical scoundrel seized me by the collar,
and cried out, 'Your money or your life!'  I do assure you that I never
trembled so much,--not, my dear Miss Lucy, so much for my own sake, as
for the sake of the thirty poor families on the common, whose wants it
had been my intention to relieve.  I gave up the money, finding my
prayers and expostulations were in vain; and the dog then, brandishing
over my head an enormous bludgeon, said--what abominable language!--'I
think, doctor, I shall put an end to an existence derogatory to your self
and useless to others.'  At that moment the young gentleman beside me
sprang over the very gate by which the tall ruffian had disappeared, and
cried, 'Hold, villain!'  On seeing my deliverer, the coward started back,
and plunged into a neighbouring wood.  The good young gentleman pursued
him for a few minutes, but then returning to my aid, conducted me home;
and as we used to say at school,--

                  "' Te rediisse incolumem gaudeo,'--

which, being interpreted, means (sir, excuse a pun, I am sure so great a
friend to the Church understands Latin) that I am very glad to get back
safe to my tea.  He! he!  And now, Miss Lucy, you must thank that young
gentleman for having saved the life of your pastoral teacher, which act
will no doubt be remembered at the Great Day!"

As Lucy, looking towards the stranger, said something in compliment, she
observed a vague, and as it were covert smile upon his countenance, which
immediately and as if by sympathy conjured one to her own.  The hero of
the adventure, however, in a very grave tone replied to her compliment,
at the same time bowing profoundly,--

"Mention it not, madam!  I were unworthy of the name of a Briton and a
man, could I pass the highway without relieving the distress or
lightening the burden of a fellow-creature.  And," continued the
stranger, after a momentary pause, colouring while he spoke, and
concluding in the high-flown gallantry of the day, "methinks it were
sufficient reward, had I saved the whole church instead of one of its
most valuable members, to receive the thanks of a lady whom I might
reasonably take for one of those celestial beings to whom we have been
piously taught that the Church is especially the care!"

Though there might have been something really ridiculous in this
overstrained compliment, coupled as it was with the preservation of Dr.
Slopperton, yet, coming from the mouth of one whom Lucy thought the very
handsomest person she had ever seen, it appeared to her anything but
absurd; and for a very long time afterwards her heart thrilled with
pleasure when she remembered that the cheek of the speaker had glowed,
and his voice had trembled as he spoke it.

The conversation now, turning from robbers in particular, dwelt upon
robberies in general.  It was edifying to hear the honest indignation
with which the stranger spoke of the lawless depredators with whom the
country, in that day of Macheaths, was infested.

"A pack of infamous rascals!" said he, in a glow, "who attempt to justify
their misdeeds by the example of honest men, and who say that they do no
more than is done by lawyers and doctors, soldiers, clergymen, and
ministers of State.  Pitiful delusion, or rather shameless hypocrisy!"

"It all comes of educating the poor," said the doctor.  "The moment they
pretend to judge the conduct of their betters, there's an end of all
order!  They see nothing sacred in the laws, though we hang the dogs ever
so fast; and the very peers of the land, spiritual and temporal, cease to
be venerable in their eyes."

"Talking of peers," said Mrs. Slopperton, "I hear that Lord Mauleverer is
to pass by this road to-night on his way to Mauleverer Park.  Do you know
his lordship, Miss Lucy: He is very intimate with your uncle."

"I have only seen him once," answered Lucy.

"Are you sure that his lordship will come this road?" asked the stranger,
carelessly.  "I heard something of it this morning, but did not know it
was settled."

"Oh, quite so!" rejoined Mrs. Slopperton.  "His lordship's gentleman
wrote for post-horses to meet his lordship at Wyburn, about three miles
on the other side of the village, at ten o'clock to-night.  His lordship
is very impatient of delay."

"Pray," said the doctor, who had not much heeded this turn in the
conversation, and was now "on hospitable cares intent,"--"pray, sir, if
not impertinent, are you visiting or lodging in the neighbourhood; or
will you take a bed with us?"

"You are extremely kind, my dear sir, but I fear I must soon wish you
good-evening.  I have to look after a little property I have some miles
hence, which, indeed, brought me down into this part of the world."

"Property!--in what direction, sir, if I may ask?" quoth the doctor; "I
know the country for miles."

"Do you, indeed?  Where's my property, you say?  Why, it is rather
difficult to describe it, and it is, after all, a mere trifle; it is only
some common-land near the highroad, and I came down to try the experiment
of hedging and draining."

"'T is a good plan, if one has capital, and does not require a speedy
return."

"Yes; but one likes a good interest for the loss of principal, and a
speedy return is always desirable,--although, alas!  it is often attended
with risk!"

"I hope, sir," said the doctor, "if you must leave us so soon, that your
property will often bring you into our neighbourhood."

"You overpower me with so much unexpected goodness," answered the
stranger.  "To tell you the truth, nothing can give me greater pleasure
than to meet those again who have once obliged me."

"Whom you have obliged, rather!" cried Mrs. Slopperton; and then added,
in a loud whisper to Lucy, "How modest!  but it is always so with true
courage!"

"I assure you, madam," returned the benevolent stranger, "that I never
think twice of the little favours I render my fellow-men; my only hope is
that they may be as forgetful as myself."

Charmed with so much unaffected goodness of disposition, the doctor and
Mrs. Slopperton now set up a sort of duet in praise of their guest: after
enduring their commendations and compliments for some minutes with much
grimace of disavowal and diffidence, the stranger's modesty seemed at
last to take pain at the excess of their gratitude; and accordingly,
pointing to the clock, which was within a few minutes to nine, he said,--

"I fear, my respected host and my admired hostess, that I must now leave
you; I have far to go."

"But are you yourself not afraid of the highwaymen?" cried Mrs.
Slopperton, interrupting him.

"The highwaymen!" said the stranger, smiling; "no; I do not fear them;
besides, I have little about me worth robbing."

"Do you superintend your property yourself?" said the doctor, who farmed
his own glebe and who, unwilling to part with so charming a guest, seized
him now by the button.

"Superintend it myself! why, not exactly.  There is a bailiff, whose
views of things don't agree with mine, and who now and then gives me a
good deal of trouble."

"Then why don't you discharge him altogether?"

"Ah! I wish I could; but 't is a necessary evil.  We landed proprietors,
my dear sir, must always be plagued with some thing of the sort.  For my
part, I have found those cursed bailiffs would take away, if they could,
all the little property one has been trying to accumulate.  But,"
abruptly changing his manner into one of great softness, "could I not
proffer my services and my companionship to this young lady?  Would she
allow me to conduct her home, and indeed stamp this day upon my memory as
one of the few delightful ones I have ever known?"

"Thank you, dear sir," said Mrs. Slopperton, answering at once for Lucy;
"it is very considerate of you.--And I am sure, my love, I could not
think of letting you go home alone with old John, after such an adventure
to the poor dear doctor."

Lucy began an excuse which the good lady would not hear.  But as the
servant whom Mr. Brandon was to send with a lantern to attend his
daughter home had not arrived, and as Mrs. Slopperton, despite her
prepossessions in favour of her husband's deliverer, did not for a moment
contemplate his accompanying, without any other attendance, her young
friend across the fields at that unseasonable hour, the stranger was
forced, for the present, to re-assume his seat.  An open harpsichord at
one end of the room gave him an opportunity to make some remark upon
music; and this introducing an eulogium on Lucy's voice from Mrs.
Slopperton, necessarily ended in a request to Miss Brandon to indulge the
stranger with a song.  Never had Lucy, who was not a shy girl,--she was
too innocent to be bashful,--felt nervous hitherto in singing before a
stranger; but now she hesitated and faltered, and went through a whole
series of little natural affectations before she complied with the
request.  She chose a song composed somewhat after the old English
school, which at that time was reviving into fashion.  The song, though
conveying a sort of conceit, was not, perhaps, altogether without
tenderness; it was a favourite with Lucy, she scarcely knew why, and ran
thus:--

                              LUCY'S SONG.

                    Why sleep, ye gentle flowers, ah, why,
                    When tender eve is falling,
                    And starlight drinks the happy sigh
                    Of winds to fairies calling?
                    Calling with low and plaining note,
                    Most like a ringdove chiding,
                    Or flute faint-heard from distant boat
                    O'er smoothest waters gliding.
                    Lo, round you steals the wooing breeze;
                    Lo, on you falls the dew!
                    O sweets, awake, for scarcely these
                    Can charm while wanting you!
                    Wake ye not yet, while fast below
                    The silver time is fleeing?
                    O heart of mine, those flowers but show
                    Thine own contented being.
                    The twilight but preserves the bloom,
                    The sun can but decay
                    The warmth that brings the rich perfume
                    But steals the life away.
                    O heart, enjoy thy present calm,
                    Rest peaceful in the shade,
                    And dread the sun that gives the balm
                    To bid the blossom fade.

When Lucy ended, the stranger's praise was less loud than either the
doctor's or his lady's; but how far more sweet it was!  And for the first
time in her life Lucy made the discovery that eyes can praise as well as
lips.  For our part, we have often thought that that discovery is an
epoch in life.

It was now that Mrs. Slopperton declared her thorough conviction that the
stranger himself could sing.  He had that about him, she said, which made
her sure of it.

"Indeed, dear madam," said he, with his usual undefinable, half-frank,
half-latent smile, "my voice is but so-so, and any memory so indifferent
that even in the easiest passages I soon come to a stand.  My best notes
are in the falsetto; and as for my execution--But we won't talk of that."

"Nay, nay; you are so modest," said Mrs. Slopperton.  "I am sure you
could oblige us if you would."

"Your command," said the stranger, moving to the harpsichord, "is
all-sufficient; and since you, madam," turning to Lucy, "have chosen a
song after the old school, may I find pardon if I do the same?  My
selection is, to be sure, from a lawless song-book, and is supposed to be
a ballad by Robin Hood, or at least one of his merry men,--a very
different sort of outlaws from the knaves who attacked you, sir!"

With this preface the stranger sung to a wild yet jovial air, with a
tolerable voice, the following effusion:

               THE LOVE OF OUR PROFESSION; OR THE ROBBER'S LIFE.

               On the stream of the world, the robber's life
               Is borne on the blithest wave;
               Now it bounds into light in a gladsome strife,
               Now it laughs in its hiding cave.

               At his maiden's lattice he stays the rein;
               How still is his courser proud
               (But still as a wind when it hangs o'er the main
               In the breast of the boding cloud),

               With the champed bit and the archd crest,
               And the eye of a listening deer,
               Like valour, fretful most in rest,
               Least chafed when in career.

               Fit slave to a lord whom all else refuse
               To save at his desperate need;
               By my troth!  I think one whom the world pursues
               Hath a right to a gallant steed.

               "Away, my beloved, I hear their feet!
               I blow thee a kiss, my fair,
               And I promise to bring thee, when next we meet,
               A braid for thy bonny hair.

               Hurrah!  for the booty!--my steed, hurrah!
               Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we;
               And the coy moon smiles on our merry way,
               Like my own love,--timidly."

               The parson he rides with a jingling pouch,
               How it blabs of the rifled poor!
               The courtier he lolls in his gilded coach,
               --How it smacks of a sinecure!

               The lawyer revolves in his whirling chaise
               Sweet thoughts of a mischief done;
               And the lady that knoweth the card she plays
               Is counting her guineas won!

               "He, lady!--What, holla, ye sinless men!
               My claim ye can scarce refuse;
               For when honest folk live on their neighbours, then
               They encroach on the robber's dues!"

               The lady changed cheek like a bashful maid,
               The lawyer talked wondrous fair,
               The parson blasphemed, and the courtier prayed,
               And the robber bore off his share.

               "Hurrah! for the revel! my steed, hurrah!
               Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we!
               It is ever a virtue, when others pay,

               To ruffle it merrily!"

               Oh, there never was life like the robber's,
               --so Jolly and bold and free!
               And its end-why, a cheer from the crowd below,
               And a leap from a leafless tree!

This very moral lay being ended, Mrs. Slopperton declared it was
excellent; though she confessed she thought the sentiments rather loose.
Perhaps the gentleman might be induced to favour them with a song of a
more refined and modern turn,--something sentimental, in short.  Glancing
towards Lucy, the stranger answered that he only knew one song of the
kind Mrs. Slopperton specified, and it was so short that he could
scarcely weary her patience by granting her request.

At this moment the river, which was easily descried from the windows of
the room, glimmered in the starlight; and directing his looks towards the
water, as if the scene had suggested to him the verses he sung, he gave
the following stanzas in a very low, sweet tone, and with a far purer
taste, than, perhaps, would have suited the preceding and ruder song.

                              THE WISH.

               As sleeps the dreaming Eve below,
               Its holiest star keeps ward above,
               And yonder wave begins to glow,
               Like friendship bright'ning into Love!

               Ah, would thy bosom were that stream,
               Ne'er wooed save by the virgin air!--
               Ah, would that I were that star, whose beam
               Looks down and finds its image there!

Scarcely was the song ended, before the arrival of Miss Brandon's servant
was announced; and her destined escort, starting up, gallantly assisted
her with her cloak and her hood,--happy, no doubt, to escape in some
measure the overwhelming compliments of his entertainers.

"But," said the doctor, as he shook hands with his deliverer, "by what
name shall I remember and" (lifting his reverend eyes) "pray for the
gentleman to whom I am so much indebted?"

"You are very kind," said the stranger; "my name is Clifford.  Madam,"
turning to Lucy, "may I offer my hand down the stairs?"

Lucy accepted the courtesy; and the stranger was half-way down the
staircase, when the doctor, stretching out his little neck, exclaimed,--

"Good-evening, sir!  I do hope we shall meet again."

"Fear not!" said Mr. Clifford, laughing gayly; "I am too great a
traveller to make that hope a matter of impossibility.  Take care,
madam,--one step more."

The night was calm and tolerably clear, though the moon had not yet
risen, as Lucy and her companion passed through the fields, with the
servant preceding them at a little distance with the lantern.

After a pause of some length, Clifford said, with a little hesitation,
"Is Miss Brandon related to the celebrated barrister of her name?"

"He is my uncle," said Lucy; "do you know him?"

"Only your uncle?" said Clifford, with vivacity, and evading Lucy's
question.  "I feared--hem! hem!--that is, I thought he might have been a
nearer relation."  There was another, but a shorter pause, when Clifford
resumed, in a low voice: "Will Miss Brandon think me very presumptuous if
I say that a countenance like hers, once seen, can never be forgotten;
and I believe, some years since, I had the honour to see her in London,
at the theatre?  It was but a momentary and distant glance that I was
then enabled to gain; and yet," he added significantly, "it sufficed!"

"I was only once at the theatre while in London, some years ago," said
Lucy, a little embarrassed; "and indeed an unpleasant occurrence which
happened to my uncle, with whom I was, is sufficient to make me remember
it."

"Ha! and what was it?"

"Why, in going out of the play-house his watch was stolen by some
dexterous pickpocket."

"Was the rogue caught?" asked the stranger.

"Yes; and was sent the next day to Bridewell.  My uncle said he was
extremely young, and yet quite hardened.  I remember that I was foolish
enough, when I heard of his sentence, to beg very hard that my uncle
would intercede for him; but in vain."

"Did you, indeed, intercede for him?" said the stranger, in so earnest a
tone that Lucy coloured for the twentieth time that night, without seeing
any necessity for the blush.  Clifford continued, in a gayer tone: "Well,
it is surprising how rogues hang together.  I should not be greatly
surprised if the person who despoiled your uncle were one of the same
gang as the rascal who so terrified your worthy friend the doctor.  But
is this handsome old place your home?"

"This is my home," answered Lucy; "but it is an old-fashioned, strange
place; and few people, to whom it was not endeared by associations, would
think it handsome."

"Pardon me!" said Lucy's companion, stopping, and surveying with a look
of great interest the quaint pile, which now stood close before them; its
dark bricks, gable-ends, and ivied walls, tinged by the starry light of
the skies, and contrasted by the river, which rolled in silence below.
The shutters to the large oriel window of the room in which the squire
usually sat were still unclosed, and the steady and warm light of the
apartment shone forth, casting a glow even to the smooth waters of the
river; at the same moment, too, the friendly bark of the house-dog was
heard, as in welcome; and was followed by the note of the great bell,
announcing the hour for the last meal of the old-fashioned and hospitable
family.

"There is a pleasure in this," said the stranger, unconsciously, and with
a half-sigh; "I wish I had a home!"

"And have you not a home?" said Lucy, with naivety.  "As much as a
bachelor can have, perhaps," answered Clifford, recovering without an
effort his gayety and self-possession.  "But you know we wanderers are
not allowed the same boast as the more fortunate Benedicts; we send our
hearts in search of a home, and we lose the one without gaining the
other.  But I keep you in the cold, and we are now at your door."

"You will come in, of course!" said Miss Brandon, "and partake of our
evening cheer."

The stranger hesitated for an instant, and then said in a quick tone,--

"No!  many, many thanks; it is already late.  Will Miss Brandon accept my
gratitude for her condescension in permitting the attendance of one
unknown to her?"  As he thus spoke, Clifford bowed profoundly over the
hand of his beautiful charge; and Lucy, wishing him good-night, hastened
with a light step to her father's side.

Meanwhile Clifford, after lingering a minute, when the door was closed on
him, turned abruptly away; and muttering to himself, repaired with rapid
steps to whatever object he had then in view.




CHAPTER XII.

                              Up rouse ye then,
                              My merry, merry men!
                                            --JOANNA BAILLIE.

When the moon rose that night, there was one spot upon which she palely
broke, about ten miles distant from Warlock, which the forewarned
traveller would not have been eager to pass, but which might not have
afforded a bad study to such artists as have caught from the savage
painter of the Apennines a love for the wild and the adventurous.  Dark
trees, scattered far and wide over a broken but verdant sward, made the
background; the moon shimmered through the boughs as she came slowly
forth from her pavilion of cloud, and poured a broader beam on two
figures just advanced beyond the trees.  More plainly brought into light
by her rays than his companion, here a horseman, clad in a short cloak
that barely covered the crupper of his steed, was looking to the priming
of a large pistol which he had just taken from his holster.  A slouched
hat and a mask of black crape conspired with the action to throw a
natural suspicion on the intentions of the rider.  His horse, a beautiful
dark gray, stood quite motionless, with arched neck, and its short ears
quickly moving to and fro, demonstrative of that sagacious and
anticipative attention which characterizes the noblest of all tamed
animals; you would not have perceived the impatience of the steed, but
for the white foam that gathered round the bit, and for an occasional and
unfrequent toss of the head.  Behind this horseman, and partially thrown
into the dark shadow of the trees, another man, similarly clad, was
busied in tightening the girths of a horse, of great strength and size.
As he did so, he hummed, with no unmusical murmur, the air of a popular
drinking-song.

"'Sdeath, Ned!" said his comrade, who had for some time been plunged in a
silent revery,--"'Sdeath!  why can you not stifle your love for the fine
arts at a moment like this?  That hum of thine grows louder every moment;
at last I expect it will burst out into a full roar.  Recollect we are
not at Gentleman George's now!"

"The more's the pity, Augustus," answered Ned.  "Soho, Little John;
woaho, sir!  A nice long night like this is made on purpose for drinking.
Will you, sir? keep still then!"

"Man never is, but always to be blest," said the moralizing Tomlinson;
"you see you sigh for other scenes even when you have a fine night and
the chance of a God-send before you."

"Ay, the night is fine enough," said Ned, who was rather a grumbler, as,
having finished his groom-like operation, he now slowly mounted.
"D---it, Oliver! [The moon] looks out as broadly as if he were going to
blab. For my part, I love a dark night, with a star here and there
winking at us, as much as to say, 'I see you, my boys, but I won't say a
word about it,' and a small, pattering, drizzling, mizzling rain, that
prevents Little John's hoofs being heard, and covers one's retreat, as it
were. Besides, when one is a little wet, it is always necessary to drink
the more, to keep the cold from one's stomach when one gets home."

"Or in other words," said Augustus, who loved a maxim from his very
heart, "light wet cherishes heavy wet!"

"Good!" said Ned, yawning.  "Hang it, I wish the captain would come.  Do
you know what o'clock it is?  Not far short of eleven, I suppose?"

"About that!  Hist, is that a carriage?  No, it is only a sudden rise in
the wind."

"Very self-sufficient in Mr. Wind to allow himself to be raised without
our help!" said Ned; "by the way, we are of course to go back to the Red
Cave?"

"So Captain Lovett says.  Tell me, Ned, what do you think of the new
tenant Lovett has put into the cave?"

"Oh, I have strange doubts there," answered Ned, shaking the hairy
honours of his head.  "I don't half like it; consider the cave is our
stronghold, and ought only to be known--"

"To men of tried virtue," interrupted Tomlinson.  "I agree with you; I
must try and get Lovett to discard his singular protege, as the French
say."

"'Gad, Augustus, how came you by so much learning?  You know all the
poets by heart, to say nothing of Latin and French."

"Oh, hang it, I was brought up, like the captain, to a literary way of
life."

"That's what makes you so thick with him, I suppose.  He writes (and
sings too) a tolerable song, and is certainly a deuced clever fellow.
What a rise in the world he has made!  Do you recollect what a poor sort
of way he was in when you introduced him at Gentleman George's? and now
he's the Captain Crank of the gang."

"The gang!  the company, you mean.  Gang, indeed!  One would think you
were speaking of a knot of pickpockets.  Yes, Lovett is a clever fellow;
and, thanks to me, a very decent philosopher!" It is impossible to convey
to our reader the grave air of importance with which Tomlinson made his
concluding laudation.  "Yes," said he, after a pause, "he has a bold,
plain way of viewing things, and, like Voltaire, he becomes a philosopher
by being a Man of Sense!  Hist! see my horse's ears!  Some one is coming,
though I don't hear him!  Keep watch!"

The robbers grew silent; the sound of distant hoofs was indistinctly
heard, and, as it came nearer, there was a crash of boughs, as if a hedge
had been ridden through.  Presently the moon gleamed picturesquely on the
figure of a horseman, approaching through the copse in the rear of the
robbers.

Now he was half seen among the sinuosities of his forest path; now in
full sight, now altogether hid; then his horse neighed impatiently; now
he again came in sight, and in a moment more he had joined the pair! The
new-corner was of a tall and sinewy frame, and in the first bloom of
manhood.  A frock of dark green, edged with a narrow silver lace, and
buttoned from the throat to the middle, gave due effect to an upright
mien, a broad chest, and a slender but rounded waist, that stood in no
need of the compression of the tailor.  A short riding-cloak, clasped
across the throat with a silver buckle, hung picturesquely over one
shoulder, while his lower limbs were cased in military boots, which,
though they rose above the knee, were evidently neither heavy nor
embarrassing to the vigorous sinews of the horseman.  The caparisons of
the steed--the bit, the bridle, the saddle, the holster--were according
to the most approved fashion of the day; and the steed itself was in the
highest condition, and of remarkable beauty.  The horseman's air was
erect and bold; a small but coal-black mustachio heightened the resolute
expression of his short, curved lip; and from beneath the large hat which
overhung his brow his long locks escaped, and waved darkly in the keen
night air.  Altogether, horseman and horse exhibited a gallant and even a
chivalrous appearance, which the hour and the scene heightened to a
dramatic and romantic effect.

"Ha! Lovett."

"How are you, my merry men?" were the salutations exchanged.

"What news?" said Ned.

"Brave news!  look to it.  My lord and his carriage will be by in ten
minutes at most."

"Have you got anything more out of the parson I frightened so
gloriously?" asked Augustus.

"No; more of that hereafter.  Now for our new prey."

"Are you sure our noble friend will be so soon at hand?" said Tomlinson,
patting his steed, that now pawed in excited hilarity.

"Sure!  I saw him change horses; I was in the stable-yard at the time. He
got out for half an hour, to eat, I fancy.  Be sure that I played him a
trick in the mean while."

"What for?" asked Ned.

"Self and servant."

"The post-boys?"

"Ay, I forgot them.  Never mind, you, must frighten them."

"Forwards!" cried Ned; and his horse sprang from his armed heel.

"One moment," said Lovett; "I must put on my mask.  Soho, Robin, soho!
Now for it,--forwards!"

As the trees rapidly disappeared behind them, the riders entered, at a
hand gallop, on a broad tract of waste land interspersed with dikes and
occasionally fences of hurdles, over which their horses bounded like
quadrupeds well accustomed to such exploits.

Certainly at that moment, what with the fresh air, the fitful moonlight
now breaking broadly out, now lost in a rolling cloud, the exciting
exercise, and that racy and dancing stir of the blood, which all action,
whether evil or noble in its nature, raises in our veins; what with all
this, we cannot but allow the fascination of that lawless life,--a
fascination so great that one of the most noted gentlemen highwaymen of
the day, one too who had received an excellent education and mixed in no
inferior society, is reported to have said, when the rope was about his
neck, and the good Ordinary was exhorting him to repent of his ill-spent
life, "Ill-spent, you dog!  'Gad!" (smacking his lips) "it was
delicious!"

"Fie! fie!  Mr. -------, raise your thoughts to Heaven!"

"But a canter across the common--oh!" muttered the criminal; and his soul
cantered off to eternity.

So briskly leaped the heart of the leader of the three that, as they now
came in view of the main road, and the distant wheel of a carriage
whirred on the ear, he threw up his right hand with a joyous gesture, and
burst into a boyish exclamation of hilarity and delight.

"Whist, captain!" said Ned, checking his own spirits with a mock air of
gravity, "let us conduct ourselves like gentlemen; it is only your low
fellows who get into such confoundedly high spirits; men of the world
like us should do everything as if their hearts were broken."

"Melancholy ever cronies with Sublimity, and Courage is sublime," said
Augustus, with the pomp of a maxim-maker.

     [A maxim which would have pleased Madame de Stael, who thought that
     philosophy consisted in fine sentiments.  In the "Life of Lord
     Byron," just published by Mr. Moore, the distinguished biographer
     makes a similar assertion to that of the sage Augustus: "When did
     ever a sublime thought spring up in the soul that melancholy was not
     to be found, however latent, in its neighbourhood?" Now, with due
     deference to Mr. Moore, this is a very sickly piece of nonsense,
     that has not even an atom of truth to stand on.  "God said, Let
     there be light, and there was light!"--we should like to know where
     lies the melancholy of that sublime sentence.  "Truth," says Plato,
     "is the body of God, and light is his shadow."  In the name of
     common-sense, in what possible corner in the vicinity of that lofty
     image lurks the jaundiced face of this eternal bete noir of Mr.
     Moore's?  Again, in that sublimest passage in the sublimest of the
     Latin poets (Lucretius), which bursts forth in honour of Epicurus,
     is there anything that speaks to us of sadness?  On the contrary, in
     the three passages we have referred to, especially in the two first
     quoted, there is something splendidly luminous and cheering.  Joy is
     often a great source of the sublime; the suddenness of its ventings
     would alone suffice to make it so.  What can be more sublime than
     the triumphant Psalms of David, intoxicated as they are with an
     almost delirium of transport?  Even in the gloomiest passages of the
     poets, where we recognize sublimity, we do not often find
     melancholy.  We are stricken by terror, appalled by awe, but seldom
     softened into sadness.  In fact, melancholy rather belongs to
     another class of feelings than those excited by a sublime passage or
     those which engender its composition.  On one hand, in the loftiest
     flights of Homer, Milton, and Shakspeare, we will challenge a critic
     to discover this "green sickness" which Mr. Moore would convert
     into the magnificence of the plague.  On the other hand, where is
     the evidence that melancholy made the habitual temperaments of those
     divine men?  Of Homer we know nothing; of Shakspeare and Milton, we
     have reason to believe the ordinary temperament was constitutionally
     cheerful.  The latter boasts of it.  A thousand instances, in
     contradiction to an assertion it were not worth while to contradict,
     were it not so generally popular, so highly sanctioned, and so
     eminently pernicious to everything that is manly and noble in
     literature, rush to our memory.  But we think we have already quoted
     enough to disprove the sentence, which the illustrious biographer
     has himself disproved in more than twenty passages, which, if he is
     pleased to forget, we thank Heaven posterity never will.  Now we are
     on the subject of this Life, so excellent in many respects, we
     cannot but observe that we think the whole scope of its philosophy
     utterly unworthy of the accomplished mind of the writer; the
     philosophy consists of an unpardonable distorting of general truths,
     to suit the peculiarities of an individual, noble indeed, but
     proverbially morbid and eccentric.  A striking instance of this
     occurs in the laboured assertion that poets make but sorry domestic
     characters.  What!  because Lord Byron is said to have been a bad
     husband, was (to go no further back for examples)--was Walter Scott
     a bad husband, or was Campbell, or is Mr. Moore himself?  why, in
     the name of justice, should it be insinuated that Milton was a bad
     husband, when, as far as any one can judge of the matter, it was
     Mrs. Milton who was the bad wife?  And why, oh! why should we be
     told by Mr. Moore,--a man who, to judge by Captain Rock and the
     Epicurean, wants neither learning nor diligence,--why are we to be
     told, with peculiar emphasis, that Lord Bacon never married, when
     Lord Bacon not only married, but his marriage was so advantageous as
     to be an absolute epoch in his career?  Really, really, one begins
     to believe that there is not such a thing as a fact in the world!]

"Now for the hedge!" cried Lovett, unheeding his comrades; and his horse
sprang into the road.

The three men now were drawn up quite still and motionless by the side of
the hedge.  The broad road lay before them, curving out of sight on
either side; the ground was hardening under an early tendency to frost,
and the clear ring of approaching hoofs sounded on the ear of the
robbers, ominous, haply, of the chinks of "more attractive metal" about,
if Hope told no flattering tale, to be their own.

Presently the long-expected vehicle made its appearance at the turn of
the road, and it rolled rapidly on behind four fleet post-horses.

"You, Ned, with your large steed, stop the horses; you, Augustus, bully
the post-boys; leave me to do the rest," said the captain.

"As agreed," returned Ned, laconically.  "Now, look at me!" and the horse
of the vain highwayman sprang from its shelter.  So instantaneous were
the operations of these experienced tacticians, that Lovett's orders were
almost executed in a briefer time than it had cost him to give them.

The carriage being stopped, and the post-boys white and trembling, with
two pistols (levelled by Augustus and Pepper) cocked at their heads,
Lovett, dismounting, threw open the door of the carriage, and in a very
civil tone and with a very bland address accosted the inmate.

"Do not be alarmed, my lord, you are perfectly safe; we only require your
watch and purse."

"Really," answered a voice still softer than that of the robber, while a
marked and somewhat French countenance, crowned with a fur cap, peered
forth at the arrester,--"Really, sir, your request is so modest that I
were worse than cruel to refuse you.  My purse is not very full, and you
may as well have it as one of my rascally duns; but my watch I have a
love for, and--"

"I understand you, my lord," interrupted the highwayman.  "What do you
value your watch at?"

"Humph! to you it may be worth some twenty guineas."

"Allow me to see it!"

"Your curiosity is extremely gratifying," returned the nobleman, as with
great reluctance he drew forth a gold repeater, set, as was sometimes the
fashion of that day, in precious stones.  The highwayman looked slightly
at the bauble.

"Your lordship," said he, with great gravity, "was too modest in your
calculation; your taste reflects greater credit on you.  Allow me to
assure you that your watch is worth fifty guinea's to us, at the least.
To show you that I think so most sincerely, I will either keep it, and we
will say no more on the matter; or I will return it to you upon your word
of honour that you will give me a check for fifty guineas payable, by
your real bankers, to 'bearer for self.'  Take your choice; it is quite
immaterial to me!"

"Upon my honour, sir," said the traveller, with some surprise struggling
to his features, "your coolness and self-possession are quite admirable.
I see you know the world."

"Your lordship flatters me!" returned Lovett, bowing.  "How do you
decide?"

"Why, is it possible to write drafts without ink, pen, or paper?"

Lovett drew back, and while he was searching in his pockets for writing
implements, which he always carried about him, the traveller seized the
opportunity, and suddenly snatching a pistol from the pocket of the
carriage, levelled it full at the head of the robber.  The traveller was
an excellent and practised shot,--he was almost within arm's length of
his intended victim,--his pistols were the envy of all his Irish friends.
He pulled the trigger,--the powder flashed in the pan; and the
highwayman, not even changing countenance, drew forth a small ink-bottle,
and placing a steel pen in it, handed it to the nobleman, saying, with
incomparable sang froid: "Would you like, my lord, to try the other
pistol?  If so, oblige me by a quick aim, as you must see the necessity
of despatch.  If not, here is the back of a letter, on which you can
write the draft."

The traveller was not a man apt to become embarrassed in anything save
his circumstances; but he certainly felt a little discomposed and
confused as he took the paper, and uttering some broken words, wrote the
check.  The highwayman glanced over it, saw it was written according to
form, and then with a bow of cool respect, returned the watch, and shut
the door of the carriage.

Meanwhile the servant had been shivering in front, boxed up in that
solitary convenience termed, not euphoniously, a dickey.  Him the robber
now briefly accosted.

"What have you got about you belonging to your master?"

"Only his pills, your honour! which I forgot to put in the--"

"Pills!--throw them down to me!" The valet tremblingly extricated from
his side-pocket a little box, which he threw down and Lovett caught in
his hand.

He opened the box, counted the pills,--"One, two, four, twelve,--aha!" He
reopened the carriage door.  "Are these your pills, my lord?"

The wondering peer, who had begun to resettle himself in the corner of
his carriage, answered that they were.

"My lord, I see you are in a high state of fever; you were a little
delirious just now when you snapped a pistol in your friend's face.
Permit me to recommend you a prescription,--swallow off all these pills!"

"My God!" cried the traveller, startled into earnestness; "what do you
mean?--twelve of those pills would kill a man!"

"Hear him!" said the robber, appealing to his comrades, who roared with
laughter.  "What, my lord, would you rebel against your doctor?  Fie,
fie! be persuaded."

And with a soothing gesture he stretched the pill-box towards the
recoiling nose of the traveller.  But though a man who could as well as
any one make the best of a bad condition, the traveller was especially
careful of his health; and so obstinate was he where that was concerned,
that he would rather have submitted to the effectual operation of a
bullet than incurred the chance operation of an extra pill.  He
therefore, with great indignation, as the box was still extended towards
him, snatched it from the hand of the robber, and flinging it across the
road, said with dignity,--

"Do your worst, rascals!  But if you leave me alive, you shall repent the
outrage you have offered to one of his Majesty's household!"  Then, as if
becoming sensible of the ridicule of affecting too much in his present
situation, he added in an altered tone: "And now, for Heaven's sake, shut
the door; and if you must kill somebody, there's my servant on the
box,--he's paid for it."

This speech made the robbers laugh more than ever; and Lovett, who liked
a joke even better than a purse, immediately closed the carriage door,
saying,--

"Adieu, my lord; and let me give you a piece of advice: whenever you get
out at a country inn, and stay half an hour while your horses are
changing, take your pistols with you, or you may chance to have the
charge drawn."

With this admonition the robber withdrew; and seeing that the valet held
out to him a long green purse, he said, gently shaking his head,--

"Rogues should not prey on each other, my good fellow.  You rob your
master; so do we.  Let each keep what he has got."

Long Ned and Tomlinson then backing their horses, the carriage was freed;
and away started the post-boys at a pace which seemed to show less regard
for life than the robbers themselves had evinced.

Meanwhile the captain remounted his steed, and the three confederates,
bounding in gallant style over the hedge through which they had
previously gained the road, galloped off in the same direction they had
come; the moon ever and anon bringing into light their flying figures,
and the sound of many a joyous peal of laughter ringing through the
distance along the frosty air.




CHAPTER XIII

          What is here?--

          Gold?

          Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair.

                                         Timon of Athens.

          Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly drest,
          Fresh as a bridegroom.

                                         Henry the Fourth.

          I do not know the man I should avoid
          So soon as that spare Cassius!
          He reads much.  He is a great observer; and he looks
          Quite through the deeds of men.
          Often he smiles; but smiles in such a sort,
          As if he mocked himself or scorned his spirit,
          That could be moved to smile at anything.

                                         Julius Caesar.

The next day, late at noon, as Lucy was sitting with her father, not as
usual engaged either in work or in reading, but seemingly quite idle,
with her pretty foot upon the squire's gouty stool, and eyes fixed on the
carpet, while her hands (never were hands so soft and so small as Lucy's,
though they may have been eclipsed in whiteness) were lightly clasped
together and reposed listlessly on her knees,--the surgeon of the village
abruptly entered with a face full of news and horror.  Old Squire Brandon
was one of those persons who always hear news, whatever it may be, later
than any of their neighbours; and it was not till all the gossips of the
neighbourhood had picked the bone of the matter quite bare, that he was
now informed, through the medium of Mr. Pillum, that Lord Mauleverer had
on the preceding night been stopped by three highwaymen in his road to
his country-seat, and robbed to a considerable amount.

The fame of the worthy Dr. Slopperton's maladventure having long ere this
been spread far and wide, the whole neighbourhood was naturally thrown
into great consternation.  Magistrates were sent to, large dogs borrowed,
blunderbusses cleaned, and a subscription made throughout the parish for
the raising of a patrol.  There seemed little doubt but that the
offenders in either case were members of the same horde; and Mr. Pillum,
in his own mind, was perfectly convinced that they meant to encroach upon
his trade, and destroy all the surrounding householders who were worth
the trouble.

The next week passed in the most diligent endeavours, on the part of the
neighbouring magistrates and yeomanry, to detect and seize the robbers;
but their labours were utterly fruitless; and one justice of peace, who
had been particularly active, was himself entirely "cleaned out" by an
old gentleman who, under the name of Mr. Bagshot,--rather an ominous
cognomen,--offered to conduct the unsuspicious magistrate to the very
spot where the miscreants might be seized.  No sooner, however, had he
drawn the poor justice away from his comrades into a lonely part of the
road than he stripped him to his shirt.  He did not even leave his
worship his flannel drawers, though the weather was as bitter as the
dog-days of 1829.

"It is not my way," said the hoary ruffian, when the justice petitioned
at least for the latter article of attire,--"'t is not my way.  I be 's
slow about my work, but I does it thoroughly; so off with your rags, old
un."

This was, however, the only additional instance of aggression in the
vicinity of Warlock Manor-house; and by degrees, as the autumn declined,
and no further enormities were perpetrated, people began to look out for
a new topic of conversation.  This was afforded them by a piece of
unexpected good fortune to Lucy Brandon:

Mrs. Warner--an old lady to whom she was slightly related, and with whom
she had been residing during her brief and only visit to London--died
suddenly, and in her will declared Lucy to be her sole heiress.  The
property, which was in the Funds, and which amounted to L60,000, was to
be enjoyed by Miss Brandon immediately on her attaining her twenty-first
year; meanwhile the executors to the will were to pay to the young
heiress the annual sum of L600.  The joy which this news created in
Warlock Manor-house may easily be conceived.  The squire projected
improvements here, and repairs there; and Lucy, poor girl, who had no
idea of money for herself, beyond the purchase of a new pony, or a gown
from London, seconded with affectionate pleasure all her father's
suggestions, and delighted herself with the reflection that those fine
plans, which were to make the Brandons greater than the Brandons ever
were before, were to be realized by her own, own money!  It was at this
identical time that the surrounding gentry made a simultaneous and grand
discovery,--namely, of the astonishing merits and great good-sense of Mr.
Joseph Brandon.  It was a pity, they observed, that he was of so reserved
and shy a turn,--it was not becoming in a gentleman of so ancient a
family; but why should they not endeavour to draw him from his retirement
into those more public scenes which he was doubtless well calculated to
adorn?

Accordingly, as soon as the first month of mourning had expired, several
coaches, chariots, chaises, and horses which had never been seen at
Warlock Manor-house before, arrived there one after the other in the most
friendly manner imaginable.  Their owners admired everything,--the house
was such a fine relic of old times!--for their parts they liked an oak
staircase!--and those nice old windows!--and what a beautiful
peacock!--and, Heaven save the mark! that magnificent chestnut-tree was
worth a forest!  Mr. Brandon was requested to make one of the county
hunt, not that he any longer hunted himself, but that his name would give
such consequence to the thing!  Miss Lucy must come to pass a week with
her dear friends the Honourable Misses Sansterre!  Augustus, their
brother, had such a sweet lady's horse!  In short, the customary change
which takes place in people's characters after the acquisition of a
fortune took place in the characters of Mr. and Miss Brandon; and when
people become suddenly amiable, it is no wonder that they should suddenly
gain a vast accession of friends.

But Lucy, though she had seen so little of the world, was not quite
blind; and the squire, though rather obtuse, was not quite a fool. If
they were not rude to their new visitors, they were by no means
overpowered with gratitude at their condescension.  Mr. Brandon declined
subscribing to the hunt, and Miss Lucy laughed in the face of the
Honourable Augustus Sansterre.  Among their new guests, however, was one
who to great knowledge of the world joined an extreme and even brilliant
polish of manners, which at least prevented deceit from being
disagreeable, if not wholly from being unseen this was the new lieutenant
of the county, Lord Mauleverer.

Though possessed of an immense property in that district, Lord Mauleverer
had hitherto resided but little on his estates.  He was one of those gay
lords who are now somewhat uncommon in this country after mature manhood
is attained, who live an easy and rakish life, rather among their
parasites than their equals, and who yet, by aid of an agreeable manner,
natural talents, and a certain graceful and light cultivation of mind
(not the less pleasant for its being universally coloured with
worldliness, and an amusing rather than offensive regard for self), never
lose their legitimate station in society; who are oracles in dress,
equipages, cookery, and beauty, and, having no character of their own,
are able to fix by a single word a character upon any one else.  Thus,
while Mauleverer rather lived the dissolute life of a young nobleman, who
prefers the company of agreeable demireps to that of wearisome duchesses,
than maintained the decorous state befitting a mature age, and an immense
interest in the country, he was quite as popular at court, where he held
a situation in the household, as he was in the green-room, where he
enchanted every actress on the right side of forty.  A word from him in
the legitimate quarters of power went further than an harangue from
another; and even the prudes--at least, all those who had
daughters--confessed that his lordship was a very interesting character.
Like Brandon, his familiar friend, he had risen in the world (from the
Irish baron to the English earl) without having ever changed his
politics, which were ultra-Tory; and we need not observe that he was
deemed, like Brandon, a model of public integrity.  He was possessed of
two places under government, six votes in the House of Commons, and eight
livings in the Church; and we must add, in justice to his loyal and
religious principles, that there was not in the three kingdoms a firmer
friend to the existing establishments.

Whenever a nobleman does not marry, people try to take away his
character.  Lord Mauleverer had never married.  The Whigs had been very
bitter on the subject; they even alluded to it in the House of
Commons,--that chaste assembly, where the never-failing subject of
reproach against Mr. Pitt was the not being of an amorous temperament;
but they had not hitherto prevailed against the stout earl's celibacy.
It is true that if he was devoid of a wife, he had secured to himself
plenty of substitutes; his profession was that of a man of gallantry; and
though he avoided the daughters, it was only to make love to the mothers.
But his lordship had now attained a certain age, and it was at last
circulated among his friends that he intended to look out for a Lady
Mauleverer.

"Spare your caresses," said his toady-in-chief to a certain duchess, who
had three portionless daughters; "Mauleverer has sworn that he will not
choose among your order.  You know his high politics, and you will not
wonder at his declaring himself averse in matrimony as in morals to a
community of goods."

The announcement of the earl's matrimonial design and the circulation of
this anecdote set all the clergymen's daughters in England on a blaze of
expectation; and when Mauleverer came to shire, upon obtaining the honour
of the lieutenancy, to visit his estates and court the friendship of his
neighbours, there was not an old-young lady of forty, who worked in
broad-stitch and had never been to London above a week at a time, who did
not deem herself exactly the sort of person sure to fascinate his
lordship.

It was late in the afternoon when the travelling-chariot of this
distinguished person, preceded by two outriders, in the earl's undress
livery of dark green, stopped at the hall door of Warlock House.  The
squire was at home, actually and metaphorically; for he never dreamed of
denying himself to any one, gentle or simple.  The door of the carriage
being opened, there descended a small slight man, richly dressed (for
lace and silk vestments were not then quite discarded, though gradually
growing less the mode), and of an air prepossessing and distinguished
rather than dignified.  His years--for his countenance, though handsome,
was deeply marked, and evinced the tokens of dissipation--seemed more
numerous than they really were; and though not actually past middle age,
Lord Mauleverer might fairly have received the unpleasing epithet of
elderly.  However, his step was firm, his gait upright, and his figure
was considerably more youthful than his physiognomy.  The first
compliments of the day having passed, and Lord Mauleverer having
expressed his concern that his long and frequent absence from the county
had hitherto prevented his making the acquaintance of Mr. Brandon, the
brother of one of his oldest and most esteemed friends, conversation
became on both sides rather an effort.  Mr. Brandon first introduced the
subject of the weather, and the turnips; inquired whether his lordship
was not very fond (for his part he used to be, but lately the rheumatism
had disabled him; he hoped his lordship was not subject to that
complaint) of shooting!

Catching only the last words,--for, besides the awful complexity of the
squire's sentences, Mauleverer was slightly affected by the aristocratic
complaint of deafness,--the earl answered, with a smile,--

"The complaint of shooting!  Very good indeed, Mr. Brandon; it is seldom
that I have heard so witty a phrase.  No, I am not in the least troubled
with that epidemic.  It is a disorder very prevalent in this county."

"My lord!" said the squire, rather puzzled; and then, observing that
Mauleverer did not continue, he thought it expedient to start another
subject.

"I was exceedingly grieved to hear that your lordship, in travelling to
Mauleverer Park (that is a very ugly road across the waste land; the
roads in this country are in general pretty good,--for my own part, when
I was a magistrate I was very strict in that respect), was robbed.  You
have not yet, I believe, detected (for my part, though I do not profess
to be much of a politician, I do think that in affairs of robbery there
is a great deal of remissness in the ministers) the villains!"

"Our friend is disaffected!" thought the lord-lieutenant, imagining that
the last opprobrious term was applied to the respectable personages
specified in the parenthesis.  Bowing with a polished smile to the
squire, Mauleverer replied aloud, that he was extremely sorry that their
conduct (meaning the ministers) did not meet with Mr. Brandon's
approbation.

"Well," thought the squire, "that is playing the courtier with a
vengeance!--Meet with my approbation!" said he, warmly; "how could your
lordship think me (for though I am none of your saints, I am, I hope, a
good Christian; an excellent one, judging from your words, your lordship
must be!) so partial to crime!"

"I partial to crime!" returned Mauleverer, thinking he had stumbled
unawares on some outrageous democrat, yet smiling as softly as usual;
"you judge me harshly, Mr. Brandon!  You must do me more justice, and you
can only do that by knowing me better."

Whatever unlucky answer the squire might otherwise have made was cut off
by the entrance of Lucy; and the earl, secretly delighted at the
interruption, rose to render her his homage, and to remind her of the
introduction he had formerly been so happy as to obtain to her through
the friendship of Mr. William Brandon,--a "friendship," said the gallant
nobleman, "to which I have often before been indebted, but which was
never more agreeably exerted on my behalf."

Upon this Lucy, who though she had been so painfully bashful during her
meeting with Mr. Clifford, felt no overpowering diffidence in the
presence of so much greater a person, replied laughingly, and the earl
rejoined by a second compliment.  Conversation was now no longer an
effort; and Mauleverer, the most consummate of epicures, whom even
royalty trembled to ask without preparation, on being invited by the
unconscious squire to partake of the family dinner, eagerly accepted the
invitation.  It was long since the knightly walls of Warlock had been
honoured by the presence of a guest so courtly.  The good squire heaped
his plate with a profusion of boiled beef; and while the poor earl was
contemplating in dismay the Alps upon Alps which he was expected to
devour, the gray-headed butler, anxious to serve him with alacrity,
whipped away the overloaded plate, and presently returned it, yet more
astoundingly surcharged with an additional world of a composition of
stony colour and sudorific aspect, which, after examining in mute
attention for some moments, and carefully removing as well as he was able
to the extreme edge of his plate, the earl discovered to be suet pudding.

"You eat nothing, my lord," cried the squire; "let me give you--this is
more underdone;" holding between blade and fork in middle air abhorrent
fragment of scarlet, shaking its gory locks,--"another slice."

Swift at the word dropped upon Mauleverer's plate the harpy finger and
ruthless thumb of the gray-headed butler.  "Not a morsel more," cried the
earl, struggling with the murderous domestic.  "My dear sir, excuse me; I
assure you I have never ate such a dinner before,--never!"

"Nay, now!" quoth the squire, expostulating, "you really (and this air is
so keen that your lordship should indulge your appetite, if you follow
the physician's advice) eat nothing!"

Again Mauleverer was at fault.

"The physicians are right, Mr. Brandon," said he, "very right, and I am
forced to live abstemiously; indeed I do not know whether, if I were to
exceed at your hospitable table, and attack all that you would bestow
upon me, I should ever recover it.  You would have to seek a new
lieutenant for your charming county, and on the tomb of the last
Mauleverer the hypocritical and unrelated heir would inscribe, 'Died of
the visitation of Beef, John, Earl, etc.'"

Plain as the meaning of this speech might have seemed to others, the
squire only laughed at the effeminate appetite of the speaker, and
inclined to think him an excellent fellow for jesting so good-humouredly
on his own physical infirmity.  But Lucy had the tact of her sex, and,
taking pity on the earl's calamitous situation, though she certainly
never guessed at its extent, entered with so much grace and ease into the
conversation which he sought to establish between them, that Mauleverer's
gentleman, who had hitherto been pushed aside by the zeal of the
gray-headed butler, found an opportunity, when the squire was laughing
and the butler staring, to steal away the overburdened plate unsuspected
and unseen.

In spite, however, of these evils of board and lodgement, Mauleverer was
exceedingly well pleased with his visit; nor did he terminate it till the
shades of night had begun to close, and the distance from his own
residence conspired with experience to remind him that it was possible
for a highwayman's audacity to attack the equipage even of Lord
Mauleverer.  He then reluctantly re-entered his carriage, and, bidding
the postilions drive as fast as possible, wrapped himself in his
roquelaire, and divided his thoughts between Lucy Brandon and the homard
au gratin with which he proposed to console him self immediately on his
return home.  However, Fate, which mocks our most cherished hopes,
ordained that on arriving at Mauleverer Park the owner should be suddenly
afflicted with a loss of appetite, a coldness in the limbs, a pain in the
chest, and various other ungracious symptoms of portending malady.  Lord
Mauleverer went straight to bed; he remained there for some days, and
when he recovered his physicians ordered him to Bath.  The Whig
Methodists, who hated him, ascribed his illness to Providence; and his
lordship was firmly of opinion that it should be ascribed to the beef and
pudding.  However this be, there was an end, for the present, to the
hopes of young ladies of forty, and to the intended festivities at
Mauleverer Park.

"Good heavens!" said the earl, as his carriage wheels turned from his
gates, "what a loss to country tradesmen may be occasioned by a piece of
underdone beef, especially if it be boiled!"

About a fortnight had elapsed since Mauleverer's meteoric visit to
Warlock House, when the squire received from his brother the following
epistle:--

     MY DEAR JOSEPH,--You know my numerous avocations, and, amid the
     press of business which surrounds me, will, I am sure, forgive me
     for being a very negligent and remiss correspondent.  Nevertheless,
     I assure you, no one can more sincerely sympathize in that good
     fortune which has befallen my charming niece, and of which your last
     letter informed me, than I do.  Pray give my best love to her, and
     tell her how complacently I look forward to the brilliant sensation
     she will create, when her beauty is enthroned upon that rank which,
     I am quite sure, it will one day or other command.

     You are not aware, perhaps, my dear Joseph, that I have for some
     time been in a very weak and declining state of health.  The old
     nervous complaint in my face has of late attacked me grievously, and
     the anguish is sometimes so great that I am scarcely able to bear
     it.  I believe the great demand which my profession makes upon a
     frame of body never strong, and now beginning prematurely to feel
     the infirmities of time, is the real cause of my maladies.  At last,
     however, I must absolutely punish my pocket, and indulge my
     inclinations by a short respite from toil.  The doctors--sworn
     friends, you know, to the lawyers, since they make common cause
     against mankind--have peremptorily ordered me to lie by, and to try
     a short course of air, exercise, social amusements, and the waters
     of Bath.  Fortunately this is vacation time, and I can afford to
     lose a few weeks of emolument, in order, perhaps, to secure many
     years of life.  I purpose, then, early next week, repairing to that
     melancholy reservoir of the gay, where persons dance out of life and
     are fiddled across the Styx.  In a word, I shall make one of the
     adventurers after health who seek the goddess at King Bladud's pump-
     room.  Will you and dear Lucy join me there?  I ask it of your
     friendship, and I am quite sure that neither of you will shrink
     aghast at the proposal of solacing your invalid relation.  At the
     same time that I am recovering health, my pretty niece will be
     avenging Pluto, by consigning to his dominions many a better and
     younger hero in my stead.  And it will be a double pleasure to me to
     see all the hearts, etc.--I break off, for what can I say on that
     subject which the little coquette does not anticipate?  It is high
     time that Lucy should see the world; and though there are many--at
     Bath, above all places, to whom the heiress will be an object of
     interested attentions, yet there are also many in that crowded city
     by no means undeserving her notice.  What say you, dear Joseph?  But
     I know already: you will not refuse to keep company with me in my
     little holiday; and Lucy's eyes are already sparkling at the idea of
     new bonnets, Milsom Street, a thousand adorers, and the pump-room.

     Ever, dear Joseph, yours affectionately,

                                   WILLIAM BRANDON.

     P. S.  I find that my friend Lord Mauleverer is at Bath; I own that
     is an additional reason to take me thither; by a letter from him,
     received the other day, I see that he has paid you a visit, and he
     now raves about his host and the heiress.  Ah, Miss Lucy, Miss Lucy!
     are you going to conquer him whom all London has, for years more
     than I care to tell (yet not many, for Mauleverer is still young),
     assailed in vain?  Answer me!

This letter created a considerable excitement in Warlock House.  The old
squire was extremely fond of his brother, and grieved to the heart to
find that he spoke so discouragingly of his health.  Nor did the squire
for a moment hesitate at accepting the proposal to join his distinguished
relative at Bath.  Lucy also--who had for her uncle, possibly from his
profuse yet not indelicate flattery, a very great regard and interest,
though she had seen but little of him--urged the squire to lose no time
in arranging matters for their departure, so as to precede the barrister,
and prepare everything for his arrival.  The father and daughter being
thus agreed, there was little occasion for delay; an answer to the
invalid's letter was sent by return of post, and on the fourth day from
their receipt of the said epistle, the good old squire, his daughter, a
country girl by way of abigail, the gray-headed butler, and two or three
live pets, of the size and habits most convenient for travelling, were on
their way to a city which at that time was gayer at least, if somewhat
less splendid, than the metropolis.

On the second day of their arrival at Bath, Brandon (as in future, to
avoid confusion, we shall call the younger brother, giving to the elder
his patriarchal title of squire) joined them.

He was a man seemingly rather fond of parade, though at heart he
disrelished and despised it.  He came to their lodging, which had not
been selected in the very best part of the town, in a carriage and six,
but attended only by one favourite servant.

They found him in better looks and better spirits than they had
anticipated.  Few persons, when he liked it, could be more agreeable than
William Brandon; but at times there mixed with his conversation a bitter
sarcasm, probably a habit acquired in his profession, or an occasional
tinge of morose and haughty sadness, possibly the consequence of his
ill-health.  Yet his disorder, which was somewhat approaching to that
painful affliction the tic douloureux, though of fits more rare in
occurrence than those of that complaint ordinarily are, never seemed even
for an instant to operate upon his mood, whatever that might be.  That
disease worked unseen; not a muscle of his face appeared to quiver; the
smile never vanished from his mouth, the blandness of his voice never
grew faint as with pain, and, in the midst of intense torture, his
resolute and stern mind conquered every external indication; nor could
the most observant stranger have noted the moment when the fit attacked
or released him.  There was something inscrutable about the man.  You
felt that you took his character upon trust, and not on your own
knowledge. The acquaintance of years would have left you equally dark as
to his vices or his virtues.  He varied often, yet in each variation he
was equally undiscoverable.  Was he performing a series of parts, or was
it the ordinary changes of a man's true temperament that you beheld in
him? Commonly smooth, quiet, attentive, flattering in social intercourse,
he was known in the senate and courts of law for a cold asperity, and a
caustic venom,--scarcely rivalled even in those arenas of contention.  It
seemed as if the bitterer feelings he checked in private life, he
delighted to indulge in public.  Yet even there he gave not way to
momentary petulance or gushing passion; all seemed with him systematic
sarcasm or habitual sternness.  He outraged no form of ceremonial or of
society.  He stung, without appearing conscious of the sting; and his
antagonist writhed not more beneath the torture of his satire than the
crushing contempt of his self-command.  Cool, ready, armed and defended
on all points, sound in knowledge, unfailing in observation, equally
consummate in sophistry when needed by himself, and instantaneous in
detecting sophistry in another; scorning no art, however painful;
begrudging no labour, however weighty; minute in detail, yet not the less
comprehending the whole subject in a grasp,--such was the legal and
public character William Brandon had established, and such was the fame
he joined to the unsullied purity of his moral reputation.  But to his
friends he seemed only the agreeable, clever, lively, and, if we may use
the phrase innocently, the worldly man,--never affecting a superior
sanctity, or an over-anxiety to forms, except upon great occasions; and
rendering his austerity of manners the more admired, because he made it
seem so unaccompanied by hypocrisy.

"Well," said Brandon, as he sat after dinner alone with his relations,
and had seen the eyes of his brother close in diurnal slumber, "tell me,
Miss Lucy, what you think of Lord Mauleverer; do you find him agreeable?"

"Very; too much so, indeed!"

"Too much so!  That is an uncommon fault, Lucy, unless you mean to
insinuate that you find him too agreeable for your peace of mind."

"Oh, no!  there is little fear of that.  All that I meant to express was
that he seems to make it the sole business of his life to be agreeable,
and that one imagines he had gained that end by the loss of certain
qualities which one would have liked better."

"Umph! and what are they?"

"Truth, sincerity, independence, and honesty of mind."

"My dear Lucy, it has been the professional study of my life to discover
a man's character, especially so far as truth is concerned, in as short a
time as possible; but you excel me in intuition, if you can tell whether
there be sincerity in a courtier's character at the first interview you
have with him."

"Nevertheless, I am sure of my opinion," said Lucy, laughing; "and I will
tell you one instance I observed among a hundred.  Lord Mauleverer is
rather deaf, and he imagined, in conversation, that my father said one
thing--it was upon a very trifling subject, the speech of some member of
parliament [the lawyer smiled],--when in reality he meant to say another.
Lord Mauleverer, in the warmest manner in the world, chimed in with him,
appeared thoroughly of his opinion, applauded his sentiments, and wished
the whole country of his mind.  Suddenly my father spoke; Lord Mauleverer
bent down his ear, and found that the sentiments he had so lauded were
exactly those my father the least favoured.  No sooner did he make this
discovery than he wheeled round again,--dexterously and gracefully, I
allow; condemned all that he had before extolled, and extolled all that
he had before abused!"

"And is that all, Lucy?" said Brandon, with a keener sneer on his lip
than the occasion warranted.  "Why, that is what every one does; only
some more gravely than others.  Mauleverer in society, I at the bar, the
minister in parliament, friend to friend, lover to mistress, mistress to
lover,--half of us are employed in saying white is black, and the other
half in swearing that black is white.  There is only one difference, my
pretty niece, between the clever man and the fool: the fool says what is
false while the colours stare in his face and give him the lie; but the
clever man takes as it were a brush and literally turns the black into
white and the white into black before he makes the assertion, which is
then true.  The fool changes, and is a liar; the clever man makes the
colours change, and is a genius.  But this is not for your young years
yet, Lucy."

"But I can't see the necessity of seeming to agree with people," said
Lucy, simply; "surely they would be just as well pleased if you differed
from them civilly and with respect?"

"No, Lucy," said Brandon, still sneering; "to be liked, it is not
necessary to be anything but compliant.  Lie, cheat, make every word a
snare, and every act a forgery; but never contradict.  Agree with people,
and they make a couch for you in their hearts.  You know the story of
Dante and the buffoon.  Both were entertained at the court of the vain
pedant, who called himself Prince Scaliger,--the former poorly, the
latter sumptuously.  'How comes it,' said the buffoon to the poet, 'that
I am so rich and you so poor?'  'I shall be as rich as you,' was the
stinging and true reply, 'whenever I can find a patron as like myself as
Prince Scaliger is like you!'"

"Yet my birds," said Lucy, caressing the goldfinch, which nestled to her
bosom, "are not like me, and I love them.  Nay, I often think I could
love those better who differ from me the most.  I feel it so in
books,--when, for instance, I read a novel or a play; and you, uncle, I
like almost in proportion to my perceiving in myself nothing in common
with you."

"Yes," said Brandon, "you have in common with me a love for old stories
of Sir Hugo and Sir Rupert, and all the other 'Sirs' of our mouldered and
bygone race.  So you shall sing me the ballad about Sir John de Brandon,
and the dragon he slew in the Holy Land.  We will adjourn to the
drawing-room, not to disturb your father."

Lucy agreed, took her uncle's arm, repaired to the drawing-room, and
seating herself at the harpsichord, sang to an inspiriting yet somewhat
rude air the family ballad her uncle had demanded.

It would have been amusing to note in the rigid face of the hardened and
habitual man of peace and parchments a certain enthusiasm which ever and
anon crossed his cheek, as the verses of the ballad rested on some
allusion to the knightly House of Brandon and its old renown.  It was an
early prejudice, breaking out despite of himself,--a flash of character,
stricken from the hard fossil in which it was imbedded.  One would have
supposed that the silliest of all prides (for the pride of money, though
meaner, is less senseless), family pride, was the last weakness which at
that time the callous and astute lawyer would have confessed, even to
himself.

"Lucy," said Brandon, as the song ceased, and he gazed on his beautiful
niece with a certain pride in his aspect, "I long to witness your first
appearance in the world.  This lodging, my dear, is not fit--But pardon
me! what I was about to say is this: your father and yourself are here at
my invitation, and in my house you must dwell; you are my guests, not
mine host and hostess.  I have therefore already directed my servant to
secure me a house and provide the necessary establishment; and I make no
doubt, as he is a quick fellow, that within three days all will be ready.
You must then be the magnet of my abode, Lucy; and meanwhile you must
explain this to my brother, and--for you know his jealous
hospitality--obtain his acquiescence."

"But--" began Lucy.

"But me no buts," said Brandon, quickly, but with an affectionate tone of
wilfulness; "and now, as I feel very much fatigued with my journey, you
must allow me to seek my own room."

"I will conduct you to it myself," said Lucy, for she was anxious to show
her father's brother the care and forethought which she had lavished on
her arrangements for his comfort.  Brandon followed her into an apartment
which his eye knew at a glance had been subjected to that female
superintendence which makes such uses from what men reject as
insignificant; and he thanked her with more than his usual amenity, for
the grace which had presided over, and the kindness which had dictated
her preparations.  As soon as he was left alone, he wheeled his armchair
near the clear, bright fire, and resting his face upon his hand, in the
attitude of a man who prepares himself as it were for the indulgence of
meditation, he muttered,--

"Yes!  these women are, first, what Nature makes them, and that is good;
next, what use make them, and that is evil!  Now, could I persuade myself
that we ought to be nice as to the use we put these poor puppets to, I
should shrink from enforcing the destiny which I have marked for this
girl.  But that is a pitiful consideration, and he is but a silly player
who loses his money for the sake of preserving his counters.  So the
young lady must go as another score to the fortunes of William Brandon.
After all, who suffers?  Not she.  She will have wealth, rank, honour. I
shall suffer, to yield so pretty and pure a gem to the coronet of--Faugh!
How I despise that dog; but how I could hate, crush, mangle him, could I
believe that he despised me!  Could he do so?  Umph!  No, I have resolved
myself that is impossible.  Well, let me hope that matrimonial point will
be settled; and now let me consider what next step I shall take for
myself,--myself, ay, only myself!  With me perishes the last male of
Brandon; but the light shall not go out under a bushel."

As he said this, the soliloquist sunk into a more absorbed and silent
revery, from which he was disturbed by the entrance of his servant.
Brandon, who was never a dreamer save when alone, broke at once from his
reflections.

"You have obeyed my orders, Barlow?" said he.

"Yes, sir," answered the domestic.  "I have taken the best house yet
unoccupied; and when Mrs. Roberts [Brandon's housekeeper] arrives from
London, everything will, I trust, be exactly to your wishes."

"Good!  And you gave my note to Lord Mauleverer?"

"With my own hands, sir; his lordship will await you at home all
to-morrow."

"Very well! and now, Barlow, see that your room is within call [bells,
though known, were not common at that day], and give out that I am gone
to bed, and must not be disturbed.  What's the hour?"

"Just on the stroke of ten, sir."

"Place on that table my letter-case and the inkstand.  Look in, to help
me to undress, at half-past one; I shall go to bed at that hour.
And--stay--be sure, Barlow, that my brother believes me retired for the
night. He does not know my habits, and will vex himself if he thinks I
sit up so late in my present state of health."

Drawing the table with its writing appurtenances near to his master, the
servant left Brandon once more to his thoughts or his occupations.




CHAPTER XIV.

          Servant.  Get away, I say, wid dat nasty bell.

          Punch.  Do you call this a bell?  (patting it.)  It is an
          organ.

          Servant.  I say it is a bell,--a nasty bell!

          Punch.  I say it is an organ (striking him with it).  What do
          you say it is now?

          Servant.  An organ, Mr. Punch!

                              The Tragical Comedy of Punch and Judy.

The next morning, before Lucy and her father had left their apartments,
Brandon, who was a remarkably early riser, had disturbed the luxurious
Mauleverer in his first slumber.  Although the courtier possessed a villa
some miles from Bath, he preferred a lodging in the town, both as being
warmer than a rarely inhabited country-house, and as being to an indolent
man more immediately convenient for the gayeties and the waters of the
medicinal city.  As soon as the earl had rubbed his eyes, stretched
himself, and prepared himself for the untimeous colloquy, Brandon poured
forth his excuses for the hour he had chosen for a visit.  "Mention it
not, my dear Brandon," said the good-natured nobleman, with a sigh; "I am
glad at any hour to see you, and I am very sure that what you have to
communicate is always worth listening to."

"It was only upon public business, though of rather a more important
description than usual, that I ventured to disturb you," answered
Brandon, seating himself on a chair by the bedside.  "This morning, an
hour ago, I received by private express a letter from London, stating
that a new arrangement will positively be made in the Cabinet,--nay,
naming the very promotions and changes.  I confess that as my name
occurred, as also your own, in these nominations, I was anxious to have
the benefit of your necessarily accurate knowledge on the subject, as
well as of your advice."

"Really, Brandon," said Mauleverer, with a half-peevish smile, "any other
hour in the day would have done for 'the business of the nation,' as the
newspapers call that troublesome farce we go through; and I had imagined
you would not have broken my nightly slumbers except for something of
real importance,--the discovery of a new beauty or the invention of a new
dish."

"Neither the one nor the other could you have expected from me, my dear
lord," rejoined Brandon.  "You know the dry trifles in which a lawyer's
life wastes itself away; and beauties and dishes have no attraction for
us, except the former be damsels deserted, and the latter patents
invaded.  But my news, after all, is worth hearing, unless you have heard
it before."

"Not I! but I suppose I shall hear it in the course of the day.  Pray
Heaven I be not sent for to attend some plague of a council.  Begin!"

"In the first place Lord Duberly resolves to resign, unless this
negotiation for peace be made a Cabinet question."

"Pshaw!  let him resign.  I have opposed the peace so long that it is out
of the question.  Of course, Lord Wansted will not think of it, and he
may count on my boroughs.  A peace!--shameful, disgraceful, dastardly
proposition!"

"But, my dear lord, my letter says that this unexpected firmness on the
part of Lord Daberly has produced so great a sensation that, seeing the
impossibility of forming a durable Cabinet without him, the king has
consented to the negotiation, and Duberly stays in!"

"The devil!--what next?"

"Raffden and Sternhold go out in favour of Baldwin and Charlton, and in
the hope that you will lend your aid to--"

"I!" said Lord Mauleverer, very angrily,--"I lend my aid to Baldwin, the
Jacobin, and Charlton, the son of a brewer!"

"Very true!" continued Brandon.  "But in the hope that you might be
persuaded to regard the new arrangements with an indulgent eye, you are
talked of instead of the Duke of for the vacant garter and the office of
chamberlain."

"You don't mean it!" cried Mauleverer, starting from his bed.

"A few other (but, I hear, chiefly legal) promotions are to be made.
Among the rest, my learned brother, the democrat Sarsden, is to have a
silk gown; Cromwell is to be attorney-general; and, between ourselves,
they have offered me a judgeship."

"But the garter!" said Mauleverer, scarcely hearing the rest of the
lawyer's news,--"the whole object, aim, and ambition of my life.  How
truly kind in the king!  After all," continued the earl, laughing, and
throwing himself back, "opinions are variable, truth is not uniform.  The
times change, not we; and we must have peace instead of war!"

"Your maxims are indisputable, and the conclusion you come to is
excellent," said Brandon.

"Why, you and I, my dear fellow," said the earl, "who know men, and who
have lived all our lives in the world, must laugh behind the scenes at
the cant we wrap in tinsel, and send out to stalk across the stage.  We
know that our Coriolanus of Tory integrity is a corporal kept by a
prostitute, and the Brutus of Whig liberty is a lacquey turned out of
place for stealing the spoons; but we must not tell this to the world.
So, Brandon, you must write me a speech for the next session, and be sure
it has plenty of general maxims, and concludes with 'my bleeding
country!'"

The lawyer smiled.  "You consent then to the expulsion of Sternhold and
Raffden? for, after all, that is the question.  Our British vessel, as
the d---d metaphor-mongers call the State, carries the public good safe
in the hold like brandy; and it is only when fear, storm, or the devil
makes the rogues quarrel among themselves and break up the casks, that
one gets above a thimbleful at a time.  We should go on fighting with the
rest of the world forever, if the ministers had not taken to fight among
themselves."

"As for Sternhold," said the earl, "'t is a vulgar dog, and voted for
economical reform.  Besides, I don't know him; he may go to the devil,
for aught I care; but Raffden must be dealt handsomely with, or, despite
the garter, I will fall back among the Whigs, who, after all, give
tolerable dinners."

"But why, my lord, must Raffden be treated better than his brother
recusant?"

"Because he sent me, in the handsomest manner possible, a pipe of that
wonderful Madeira, which you know I consider the chief grace of my
cellars, and he gave up a canal navigation bill, which would have
enriched his whole county, when he knew that it would injure my property.
No, Brandon, curse public cant! we know what that is.  But we are
gentlemen, and our private friends must not be thrown overboard,--unless,
at least, we do it in the civilest manner we can."

"Fear not," said the lawyer; "you have only to say the word, and the
Cabinet can cook up an embassy to Owhyhee, and send Raffden there with a
stipend of five thousand a year."

"Ah! that's well thought of; or we might give him a grant of a hundred
thousand acres in one of the colonies, or let him buy crown land at a
discount of eighty per cent.  So that's settled."

"And now, my dear friend," said Brandon, "I will tell you frankly why I
come so early; I am required to give a hasty answer to the proposal I
have received, namely, of the judgeship.  Your opinion?"

"A judgeship! you a judge?  What!  forsake your brilliant career for so
petty a dignity?  You jest!"

"Not at all.  Listen.  You know how bitterly I have opposed this peace,
and what hot enemies I have made among the new friends of the
administration.  On the one hand, these enemies insist on sacrificing me;
and on the other, if I were to stay in the Lower House and speak for what
I have before opposed, I should forfeit the support of a great portion of
my own party.  Hated by one body, and mistrusted by the other, a seat in
the House of Commons ceases to be an object.  It is proposed that I
should retire on the dignity of a judge, with the positive and pledged
though secret promise of the first vacancy among the chiefs.  The place
of chief-justice or chief-baron is indeed the only fair remuneration for
my surrender of the gains of my profession, and the abandonment of my
parliamentary and legal career; the title, which will of course be
attached to it, might go (at least, by an exertion of interest) to the
eldest son of my niece,--in case she married a commoner,--or," added he,
after a pause, "her second son in case she married a peer."

"Ha, true!" said Mauleverer, quickly, and as if struck by some sudden
thought; "and your charming niece, Brandon, would be worthy of any
honour, either to her children or herself.  You do not know how struck I
was with her.  There is something so graceful in her simplicity; and in
her manner of smoothing down the little rugosities of Warlock House there
was so genuine and so easy a dignity that I declare I almost thought
myself young again, and capable of the self-cheat of believing myself in
love.  But, oh!  Brandon, imagine me at your brother's board,--me, for
whom ortolans are too substantial, and who feel, when I tread, the
slightest inequality in the carpets of Tournay,--imagine me, dear
Brandon, in a black wainscot room, hung round with your ancestors in
brown wigs with posies in their button-hole; an immense fire on one side,
and a thorough draught on the other; a huge circle of beef before me,
smoking like Vesuvius, and twice as large; a plateful (the plate was
pewter,--is there not a metal so called?) of this mingled flame and lava
sent under my very nostril, and upon pain of ill-breeding to be
despatched down my proper mouth; an old gentleman in fustian breeches and
worsted stockings, by way of a butler, filling me a can of ale, and your
worthy brother asking me if I would not prefer port; a lean footman in
livery,--such a livery, ye gods!--scarlet, blue, yellow, and green, a
rainbow ill made!--on the opposite side of the table, looking at the
'Lord' with eyes and mouth equally open, and large enough to swallow me;
and your excellent brother himself at the head of the table glowing
through the mists of the beef, like the rising sun in a signpost; and
then, Brandon, turning from this image, behold beside me the fair,
delicate, aristocratic, yet simple loveliness of your niece, and--But you
look angry; I have offended you?"

It was high time for Mauleverer to ask that question, for during the
whole of the earl's recital the dark face of his companion had literally
burned with rage; and here we may observe how generally selfishness,
which makes the man of the world, prevents its possessor, by a sort of
paradox, from being consummately so.  For Mauleverer, occupied by the
pleasure he felt at his own wit, and never having that magic sympathy
with others which creates the incessantly keen observer, had not for a
moment thought that he was offending to the quick the hidden pride of the
lawyer.  Nay, so little did he suspect Brandon's real weaknesses that he
thought him a philosopher who would have laughed alike at principles and
people, however near to him might be the latter, and however important
the former.  Mastering by a single effort, which restored his cheek to
its usual steady hue, the outward signs of his displeasure, Brandon
rejoined,--

"Offend me!  By no means, my dear lord.  I do not wonder at your painful
situation in an old country-gentleman's house, which has not for
centuries offered scenes fit for the presence of so distinguished a
guest,--never, I may say, since the time when Sir Charles de Brandon
entertained Elizabeth at Warlock, and your ancestor (you know my old
musty studies on those points of obscure antiquity), John Mauleverer, who
was a noted goldsmith of London, supplied the plate for the occasion."

"Fairly retorted," said Mauleverer, smiling; for though the earl had a
great contempt for low birth set on high places in other men, he was
utterly void of pride in his own family,--"fairly retorted!  But I never
meant anything else but a laugh at your brother's housekeeping,--a joke
surely permitted to a man whose own fastidiousness on these matters is so
standing a jest.  But, by heavens, Brandon! to turn from these subjects,
your niece is the prettiest girl I have seen for twenty years; and if she
would forget my being the descendant of John Mauleverer, the noted
goldsmith of London, she may be Lady Mauleverer as soon as she pleases."

"Nay, now, let us be serious, and talk of the judgeship," said Brandon,
affecting to treat the proposal as a joke.

"By the soul of Sir Charles de Brandon, I am serious!" cried the earl;
"and as a proof of it, I hope you will let me pay my respects to your
niece to-day,--not with my offer in my hand yet, for it must be a love
match on both sides."  And the earl, glancing towards an opposite glass,
which reflected his attenuated but comely features beneath his velvet
nightcap trimmed with Mechlin, laughed half-triumphantly as he spoke.

A sneer just passed the lips of Brandon, and as instantly vanished, while
Mauleverer continued,--

"And as for the judgeship, dear Brandon, I advise you to accept it,
though you know best; and I do think no man will stand a fairer chance of
the chief-justiceship,--or, though it be somewhat unusual for 'common'
lawyers, why not the woolsack itself?  As you say, the second son of your
niece might inherit the dignity of a peerage!"

"Well, I will consider of it favourably," said Brandon; and soon
afterwards he left the nobleman to renew his broken repose.

"I can't laugh at that man," said Mauleverer to himself, as he turned
round in his bed, "though he has much that I should laugh at in another;
and, faith, there is one little matter I might well scorn him for, if I
were not a philosopher.  'T is a pretty girl, his niece, and with proper
instructions might do one credit; besides, she has L60,000 ready money;
and, faith, I have not a shilling for my own pleasure, though I have--or
alas! had--fifty thousand a year for that of my establishment!  In all
probability she will be the lawyer's heiress, and he must have made at
least as much again as her portion; nor is he, poor devil, a very good
life.  Moreover, if he rise to the peerage?  and the second son--Well!
well! it will not be such a bad match for the goldsmith's descendant
either!"

With that thought, Lord Mauleverer fell asleep.  He rose about noon,
dressed himself with unusual pains, and was just going forth on a visit
to Miss Brandon, when he suddenly remembered that her uncle had not
mentioned her address or his own.  He referred to the lawyer's note of
the preceding evening; no direction was inscribed on it; and Mauleverer
was forced, with much chagrin, to forego for that day the pleasure he had
promised himself.

In truth, the wary lawyer, who, as we have said, despised show and
outward appearances as much as any man, was yet sensible of their effect
even in the eyes of a lover; and moreover, Lord Mauleverer was one whose
habits of life were calculated to arouse a certain degree of vigilance on
points of household pomp even in the most unobservant.  Brandon therefore
resolved that Lucy should not be visited by her admirer till the removal
to their new abode was effected; nor was it till the third day from that
on which Mauleverer had held with Brandon the interview we have recorded,
that the earl received a note from Brandon, seemingly turning only on
political matters, but inscribed with the address and direction in full
form.

Mauleverer answered it in person.  He found Lucy at home, and more
beautiful than ever; and from that day his mind was made up, as the
mammas say, and his visits became constant.




CHAPTER XV.

               There is a festival where knights and dames,
               And aught that wealth or lofty lineage claims,
               Appear.

               'T is he,--how came he thence?
               What doth he here?
                                               Lara.

There are two charming situations in life for a woman,--one, the first
freshness of heiressship and beauty; the other, youthful widowhood, with
a large jointure.  It was at least Lucy's fortune to enjoy the first.  No
sooner was she fairly launched into the gay world than she became the
object of universal idolatry.  Crowds followed her wherever she moved
nothing was talked of or dreamed of, toasted or betted on, but Lucy
Brandon; even her simplicity, and utter ignorance of the arts of fine
life, enhanced the eclat of her reputation.  Somehow or other, young
people of the gentler sex are rarely ill-bred, even in their
eccentricities; and there is often a great deal of grace in inexperience.
Her uncle, who accompanied her everywhere, himself no slight magnet of
attraction, viewed her success with a complacent triumph which he
suffered no one but her father or herself to detect.  To the smooth
coolness of his manner, nothing would have seemed more foreign than pride
at the notice gained by a beauty, or exultation at any favour won from
the caprices of fashion.  As for the good old squire, one would have
imagined him far more the invalid than his brother.  He was scarcely ever
seen; for though he went everywhere, he was one of those persons who sink
into a corner the moment they enter a room.  Whoever discovered him in
his retreat, held out their hands, and exclaimed, "God bless me!  you
here!  We have not seen you for this age!"  Now and then, if in a very
dark niche of the room a card-table had been placed, the worthy gentleman
toiled through an obscure rubber; but more frequently he sat with his
hands clasped and his mouth open, counting the number of candles in the
room, or calculating "when that stupid music would be over."

Lord Mauleverer, though a polished and courteous man, whose great object
was necessarily to ingratiate himself with the father of his intended
bride, had a horror of being bored, which surpassed all other feelings in
his mind.  He could not therefore persuade himself to submit to the
melancholy duty of listening to the squire's "linked speeches long drawn
out."  He always glided by the honest man's station, seemingly in an
exceeding hurry, with a "Ah, my dear sir, how do you do?  How delighted I
am to see you!  And your incomparable daughter?  Oh, there she is! Pardon
me, dear sir,--you see my attraction."

Lucy, indeed, who never forgot any one (except herself occasionally),
sought her father's retreat as often as she was able; but her engagements
were so incessant that she no sooner lost one partner than she was
claimed and carried off by another.  However, the squire bore his
solitude with tolerable cheerfulness, and always declared that "he was
very well amused; although balls and concerts were necessarily a little
dull to one who came from a fine old place like Warlock Manor-house, and
it was not the same thing that pleased young ladies (for, to them, that
fiddling and giggling till two o'clock in the morning might be a very
pretty way of killing time) and their papas!"

What considerably added to Lucy's celebrity was the marked notice and
admiration of a man so high in rank and ton as Lord Mauleverer.  That
personage, who still retained much of a youthful mind and temper, and who
was in his nature more careless than haughty, preserved little or no
state in his intercourse with the social revellers at Bath.  He cared not
whither he went, so that he was in the train of the young beauty; and the
most fastidious nobleman of the English court was seen in every second
and third rate set of a great watering-place,--the attendant, the flirt,
and often the ridicule of the daughter of an obscure and almost
insignificant country squire.  Despite the honour of so distinguished a
lover, and despite all the novelties of her situation, the pretty head of
Lucy Brandon was as yet, however, perfectly unturned; and as for her
heart, the only impression that it had ever received was made by that
wandering guest of the village rector, whom she had never again seen, but
who yet clung to her imagination, invested not only with all the graces
which in right of a singularly handsome person he possessed, but with
those to which he never could advance a claim,--more dangerous to her
peace, for the very circumstance of their origin in her fancy, not his
merits.

They had now been some little time at Bath, and Brandon's brief respite
was pretty nearly expired, when a public ball of uncommon and manifold
attraction was announced.  It was to be graced not only by the presence
of all the surrounding families, but also by that of royalty itself; it
being an acknowledged fact that people dance much better and eat much
more supper when any relation to a king is present.

"I must stay for this ball, Lucy," said Brandon, who, after spending the
day with Lord Mauleverer, returned home in a mood more than usually
cheerful,--"I must stay for this one ball, Lucy, and witness your
complete triumph, even though it will be necessary to leave you the very
next morning."

"So soon!" cried Lucy.

"So soon!" echoed the uncle, with a smile.  "How good you are to speak
thus to an old valetudinarian, whose company must have fatigued you to
death!  Nay, no pretty denials!  But the great object of my visit to this
place is accomplished: I have seen you, I have witnessed your debut in
the great world, with, I may say, more than a father's exultation, and I
go back to my dry pursuits with the satisfaction of thinking our old and
withered genealogical tree has put forth one blossom worthy of its
freshest day."

"Uncle!" said Lucy, reprovingly, and holding up her taper finger with an
arch smile, mingling with a blush, in which the woman's vanity spoke,
unknown to herself.

"And why that look, Lucy?" said Brandon.

"Because--because--well, no matter! you have been bred to that trade in
which, as you say yourself, men tell untruths for others till they lose
all truth for themselves.  But let us talk of you, not me; are you really
well enough to leave us?"

Simple and even cool as the words of Lucy's question, when written,
appear, in her mouth they took so tender, so anxious a tone, that
Brandon, who had no friend nor wife nor child, nor any one in his
household in whom interest in his health or welfare was a thing of
course, and who was consequently wholly unaccustomed to the accent of
kindness, felt himself of a sudden touched and stricken.

"Why, indeed, Lucy," said he, in a less artificial voice than that in
which he usually spoke, "I should like still to profit by your cares, and
forget my infirmities and pains in your society; but I cannot: the tide
of events, like that of nature, waits not our pleasure!"

"But we may take our own time for setting sail!" said Lucy.

"Ay, this comes of talking in metaphor," rejoined Brandon, smiling; "they
who begin it always get the worst of it.  In plain words, dear Lucy, I
can give no more time to my own ailments.  A lawyer cannot play truant in
term-time without--"

"Losing a few guineas!" said Lucy, interrupting him.

"Worse than that,--his practice and his name."

"Better those than health and peace of mind."

"Out on you, no!" said Brandon, quickly, and almost fiercely.  "We waste
all the greenness and pith of our life in striving to gain a
distinguished slavery; and when it is gained, we must not think that an
humble independence would have been better.  If we ever admit that
thought, what fools, what lavish fools, we have been!  No!" continued
Brandon, after a momentary pause, and in a tone milder and gayer, though
not less characteristic of the man's stubbornness of will, "after losing
all youth's enjoyments and manhood's leisure, in order that in age the
mind, the all-conquering mind, should break its way at last into the
applauding opinions of men, I should be an effeminate idler indeed, did I
suffer, so long as its jarring parts hold together, or so long as I have
the power to command its members, this weak body to frustrate the labour
of its better and nobler portion, and command that which it is ordained
to serve."

Lucy knew not while she listened, half in fear, half in admiration, to
her singular relation, that at the very moment he thus spoke, his disease
was preying upon him in one of its most relentless moods, without the
power of wringing from him a single outward token of his torture.  But
she wanted nothing to increase her pity and affection for a man who in
consequence, perhaps, of his ordinary surface of worldly and cold
properties of temperament never failed to leave an indelible impression
on all who had ever seen that temperament broken through by deeper though
often by more evil feelings.

"Shall you go to Lady--------'s rout?" asked Brandon, easily sliding back
into common topics.  "Lord Mauleverer requested me to ask you."

"That depends on you and my father."

"If on me, I answer yes," said Brandon.  "I like hearing Mauleverer,
especially among persons who do not understand him.  There is a refined
and subtle sarcasm running through the commonplaces of his conversation,
which cuts the good fools, like the invisible sword in the fable, that
lopped off heads without occasioning the owners any other sensation than
a pleasing and self-complacent titillation.  How immeasurably superior he
is in manner and address to all we meet here!  Does it not strike you?"

"Yes--no--I can't say that it does exactly," rejoined Lucy.

"Is that confusion tender?" thought Brandon.

"In a word," continued Lucy, "Lord Mauleverer is one whom I think
pleasing without fascination, and amusing without brilliancy.  He is
evidently accomplished in mind and graceful in manner, and withal the
most uninteresting person I ever met."

"Women have not often thought so," said Brandon.  "I cannot believe that
they can think otherwise."

A certain expression, partaking of scorn, played over Brandon's hard
features.  It was a noticeable trait in him, that while he was most
anxious to impress Lucy with a favourable opinion of Lord Mauleverer, he
was never quite able to mask a certain satisfaction at any jest at the
earl's expense, or any opinion derogatory to his general character for
pleasing the opposite sex; and this satisfaction was no sooner conceived
than it was immediately combated by the vexation he felt that Lucy did
not seem to share his own desire that she should become the wife of the
courtier.  There appeared as if in that respect there was a contest in
his mind between interest on one hand and private dislike or contempt on
the other.

"You judge women wrongly!" said Brandon.  "Ladies never know each other;
of all persons, Mauleverer is best calculated to win them, and experience
has proved my assertion.  The proudest lot I know for a woman would be
the thorough conquest of Lord Mauleverer; but it is impossible.  He may
be gallant, but he will never be subdued.  He defies the whole female
world, and with justice and impunity.  Enough of him.  Sing to me, dear
Lucy."

The time for the ball approached; and Lucy, who was a charming girl and
had nothing of the angel about her, was sufficiently fond of gayety,
dancing, music, and admiration to feel her heart beat high at the
expectation of the event.

At last the day itself came.  Brandon dined alone with Mauleverer, having
made the arrangement that he, with the earl, was to join his brother and
niece at the ball.  Mauleverer, who hated state, except on great
occasions, when no man displayed it with a better grace, never suffered
his servants to wait at dinner when he was alone or with one of his
peculiar friends.  The attendants remained without, and were summoned at
will by a bell laid beside the host.

The conversation was unrestrained.

"I am perfectly certain, Brandon," said Mauleverer, "that if you were to
live tolerably well, you would soon get the better of your nervous
complaints.  It is all poverty of blood, believe me.  Some more of the
fins, eh?--No!  Oh, hang your abstemiousness; it is d----d unfriendly to
eat so little!  Talking of fins and friends, Heaven defend me from ever
again forming an intimacy with a pedantic epicure, especially if he
puns!"

"Why, what has a pedant to do with fins?"

"I will tell you,--ah, this madeira--I suggested to Lord Dareville, who
affects the gourmand, what a capital thing a dish all fins (turbot's
fins) might be made.  'Capital!' said he, in a rapture; 'dine on it with
me to-morrow.'  'Volontiers!' said I.  The next day, after indulging in a
pleasing revery all the morning as to the manner in which Dareville's
cook, who is not without genius, would accomplish the grand idea, I
betook myself punctually to my engagement.  Would you believe it?  When
the cover was removed, the sacrilegious dog of an Amphitryon had put into
the dish Cicero's 'De Finibus.'  'There is a work all fins!' said he.
"Atrocious jest!" exclaimed Brandon, solemnly.

"Was it not?  Whenever the gastronomists set up a religious inquisition,
I trust they will roast every impious rascal who treats the divine
mystery with levity.  Pun upon cooking, indeed! A propos of Dareville, he
is to come into the administration."

"You astonish me!" said Brandon.  "I never heard that; I don't know him.
He has very little power; has he any talent?"

"Yes, a very great one,--acquired, though."

"What is it?"

"A pretty wife!"

"My lord!" exclaimed Brandon, abruptly, and half rising from his seat.

Mauleverer looked up hastily, and on seeing the expression of his
companion's face coloured deeply; there was a silence for some moments.

"Tell me," said Brandon, indifferently, helping himself to vegetables,
for he seldom touched meat; and a more amusing contrast can scarcely be
conceived than that between the earnest epicurism of Mauleverer and the
careless contempt of the sublime art manifested by his guest,--"tell me,
you who necessarily know everything, whether the government really is
settled,--whether you are to have the garter, and I (mark the
difference!) the judgeship."

"Why so, I imagine, it will be arranged; namely, if you will consent to
hang up the rogues instead of living by the fools!"

"One may unite both!" returned Brandon.  "But I believe, in general, it
is vice versa; for we live by the rogues, and it is only the fools we are
able to hang up.  You ask me if I will take the judgeship.  I would
not--no, I would rather cut my hand off," and the lawyer spoke with great
bitterness, "forsake my present career, despite all the obstacles that
now encumber it, did I think that this miserable body would suffer me for
two years longer to pursue it."

"You shock me!" said Mauleverer, a little affected, but nevertheless
applying the cayenne to his cucumber with his usual unerring nicety of
tact,--"you shock me; but you are considerably better than you were."

"It is not," continued Brandon, who was rather speaking to himself than
to his friend,--"it is not that I am unable to conquer the pain and to
master the recreant nerves; but I feel myself growing weaker and weaker
beneath the continual exertion of my remaining powers, and I shall die
before I have gained half my objects, if I do not leave the labours which
are literally tearing me to pieces."

"But," said Lord Mauleverer, who was the idlest of men, "the judgeship is
not an easy sinecure."

"No; but there is less demand on the mind in that station than in my
present one;" and Brandon paused before he continued.  "Candidly,
Mauleverer, you do not think they will deceive me,--you do not think they
mean to leave me to this political death without writing 'Resurgam' over
the hatchment?"

"They dare not!" said Mauleverer, quaffing his fourth glass of madeira.

"Well, I have decided on my change of life," said the lawyer, with a
slight sigh.

"So have I on my change of opinion," chimed in the earl.  "I will tell
you what opinions seem to me like."

"What?" said Brandon, abstractedly.

"Trees!" answered Mauleverer, quaintly.  "If they can be made serviceable
by standing, don't part with a stick; but when they are of that growth
that sells well, or whenever they shut out a fine prospect, cut them
down, and pack them off by all manner of means!--And now for the second
course."

"I wonder," said the earl, when our political worthies were again alone,
"whether there ever existed a minister who cared three straws for the
people; many care for their party, but as for the country--"

"It is all fiddlestick!" added the lawyer, with more significance than
grace.

"Right; it is all fiddlestick, as you tersely express it.  King,
Constitution, and Church, forever! which, being interpreted, means,
first, King or Crown influence, judgeships, and garters; secondly,
Constitution, or fees to the lawyer, places to the statesman, laws for
the rich, and Game Laws for the poor; thirdly, Church, or livings for our
younger sons, and starvings for their curates!"

"Ha, ha!" said Brandon, laughing sardonically; "we know human nature!"

"And how it may be gulled!" quoth the courtier.  "Here's a health to your
niece; and may it not be long before you hail her as your friend's
bride!"

"Bride, et cetera," said Brandon, with a sneer meant only for his own
satisfaction.  "But mark me, my dear lord, do not be too sure of her. She
is a singular girl, and of more independence than the generality of
women.  She will not think of your rank and station in estimating you;
she will think only of their owner; and pardon me if I suggest to you,
who know the sex so well, one plan that it may not be unadvisable for you
to pursue.  Don't let her fancy you entirely hers; rouse her jealousy,
pique her pride, let her think you unconquerable, and unless she is
unlike all women, she will want to conquer you."

The earl smiled.  "I must take my chance!" said he, with a confident
tone.

"The hoary coxcomb!" muttered Brandon, between his teeth; "now will his
folly spoil all."

"And that reminds me," continued Mauleverer, "that time wanes, and dinner
is not over; let us not hurry, but let us be silent, to enjoy the more.
These truffles in champagne,--do taste them; they would raise the dead."

The lawyer smiled, and accepted the kindness, though he left the delicacy
untouched; and Mauleverer, whose soul was in his plate, saw not the
heartless rejection.

Meanwhile the youthful beauty had already entered the theatre of
pleasure, and was now seated with the squire at the upper end of the
half-filled ball-room.

A gay lady of the fashion at that time, and of that half and half rank to
which belonged the aristocracy of Bath,--one of those curious persons we
meet with in the admirable novels of Miss Burney, as appertaining to the
order of fine ladies,--made the trio with our heiress and her father, and
pointed out to them by name the various characters that entered the
apartments.  She was still in the full tide of scandal, when an unusual
sensation was visible in the environs of the door; three strangers of
marked mien, gay dress, and an air which, though differing in each, was
in all alike remarkable for a sort of "dashing" assurance, made their
entree.  One was of uncommon height, and possessed of an exceedingly fine
head of hair; another was of a more quiet and unpretending aspect, but
nevertheless he wore upon his face a supercilious yet not ill-humoured
expression; the third was many years younger than his companions,
strikingly handsome in face and figure, altogether of a better taste in
dress, and possessing a manner that, though it had equal ease, was not
equally noticeable for impudence and swagger.

"Who can those be?" said Lucy's female friend, in a wondering tone.  "I
never saw them before,--they must be great people,--they have all the
airs of persons of quality!  Dear, how odd that I should not know them!"

While the good lady, who, like all good ladies of that stamp, thought
people of quality had airs, was thus lamenting her ignorance of the
new-comers, a general whisper of a similar import was already circulating
round the room, "Who are they?" and the universal answer was, "Can't
tell,--never saw them before!"

Our strangers seemed by no means displeased with the evident and
immediate impression they had made.  They stood in the most conspicuous
part of the room, enjoying among themselves a low conversation,
frequently broken by fits of laughter,--tokens, we need not add, of their
supereminently good breeding.  The handsome figure of the youngest
stranger, and the simple and seemingly unconscious grace of his attitudes
were not, however, unworthy of the admiration he excited; and even his
laughter, rude as it really was, displayed so dazzling a set of teeth,
and was accompanied by such brilliant eyes, that before he had been ten
minutes in the room there was scarcely a young lady under thirty-nine not
disposed to fall in love with him.

Apparently heedless of the various remarks which reached their ears, our
strangers, after they had from their station sufficiently surveyed the
beauties of the ball, strolled arm-in-arm through the rooms.  Having
sauntered through the ball and card rooms, they passed the door that led
to the entrance passage, and gazed, with other loiterers, upon the
new-comers ascending the stairs.  Here the two younger strangers renewed
their whispered conversation, while the eldest, who was also the tallest
one, carelessly leaning against the wall, employed himself for a few
moments in thrusting his fingers through his hair.  In finishing this
occupation, the peculiar state of his rules forced itself upon the
observation of our gentleman, who, after gazing for some moments on an
envious rent in the right ruffle, muttered some indistinct words, like
"the cock of that confounded pistol," and then tucked up the mutilated
ornament with a peculiarly nimble motion of the fingers of his left hand;
the next moment, diverted by a new care, the stranger applied his digital
members to the arranging and caressing of a remarkably splendid brooch,
set in the bosom of a shirt the rude texture of which formed a singular
contrast with the magnificence of the embellishment and the fineness of
the one ruffle suffered by our modern Hyperion to make its appearance
beneath his cinnamon-coloured coatsleeve.  These little personal
arrangements completed, and a dazzling snuff-box released from the
confinement of a side-pocket, tapped thrice, and lightened of two pinches
of its titillating luxury, the stranger now, with the guardian eye of
friendship, directed a searching glance to the dress of his friends.
There all appeared meet for his strictest scrutiny, save, indeed, that
the supercilious-looking stranger having just drawn forth his gloves, the
lining of his coat-pocket which was rather soiled into the bargain--had
not returned to its internal station; the tall stranger, seeing this
little inelegance, kindly thrust three fingers with a sudden and light
dive into his friend's pocket, and effectually repulsed the forwardness
of the intrusive lining.  The supercilious stranger no sooner felt the
touch than he started back, and whispered to his officious companion,--

"What! among friends, Ned!  Fie now; curb the nature of thee for one
night at least."

Before he of the flowing locks had time to answer, the master of the
ceremonies, who had for the last three minutes been eying the strangers
through his glass, stepped forward with a sliding bow; and the handsome
gentleman, taking upon himself the superiority and precedence over his
comrades, was the first to return the courtesy.  He did this with so good
a grace and so pleasing an expression of countenance that the censor of
bows was charmed at once, and with a second and more profound salutation
announced himself and his office.  "You would like to dance probably,
gentlemen?" he asked, glancing at each, but directing his words to the
one who had prepossessed him.

"You are very good," said the comely stranger; "and, for my part, I shall
be extremely indebted to you for the exercise of your powers in my
behalf.  Allow me to return with you to the ball-room, and I can there
point out to you the objects of my especial admiration."

The master of the ceremonies bowed as before, and he and his new
acquaintance strolled into the ball-room, followed by the two comrades of
the latter.

"Have you been long in Bath, sir?" inquired the monarch of the rooms.

"No, indeed! we only arrived this evening."

"From London?"

"No; we made a little tour across the country."

"Ah!  very pleasant, this fine weather."

"Yes; especially in the evenings."

"Oho! romantic!" thought the man of balls, as he rejoined aloud, "Why,
the nights are agreeable, and the moon is particularly favourable to us."

"Not always!" quoth the stranger.

"True, true, the night before last was dark; but, in general, surely the
moon has been very bright."

The stranger was about to answer, but checked himself, and simply bowed
his head as in assent.

"I wonder who they are!" thought the master of the ceremonies.  "Pray,
sir," said he, in a low tone, "is that gentle man, that tall gentleman,
any way related to Lord ----------?  I cannot but think I see a family
likeness."

"Not in the least related to his lordship," answered the stranger; "but
he is of a family that have made a noise in the world; though he, as well
as my other friend, is merely a commoner!" laying a stress on the last
word.

"Nothing, sir, can be more respectable than a commoner of family,"
returned the polite Mr. -------, with a bow.

"I agree with you, sir," answered the stranger, with another.  "But,
heavens!"--and the stranger started; for at that moment his eye caught
for the first time, at the far end of the room, the youthful and
brilliant countenance of Lucy Brandon,--"do I see rightly, or is that
Miss Brandon?"

"It is indeed that lovely young lady," said Mr. -------.  "I congratulate
you on knowing one so admired.  I suppose that you, being blessed with
her acquaintance, do not need the formality of my introduction?"

"Umph!" said the stranger, rather shortly and uncourteously.  "No!
Perhaps you had better present me!"

"By what name shall I have that honour, sir?" discreetly inquired the
nomenclator.

"Clifford!" answered the stranger; "Captain Clifford!"  Upon this the
prim master of the ceremonies, threading his path through the now
fast-filling room, approached towards Lucy to obey Mr. Clifford's
request. Meanwhile that gentleman, before he followed the steps of the
tutelary spirit of the place, paused and said to his friends, in a tone
careless yet not without command, "Hark ye, gentlemen; oblige me by being
as civil and silent as ye are able; and don't thrust yourselves upon me,
as you are accustomed to do, whenever you see no opportunity of indulging
me with that honour with the least show of propriety!"  So saying, and
waiting no reply, Mr. Clifford hastened after the master of the
ceremonies.

"Our friend grows mighty imperious!" said Long Ned, whom our readers have
already recognized in the tall stranger.

"'T is the way with your rising geniuses," answered the moralizing
Augustus Tomlinson.  "Suppose we go to the cardroom and get up a rubber!"

"Well thought of," said Ned, yawning,--a thing he was very apt to do in
society; "and I wish nothing worse to those who try our rubbers than that
they may be well cleaned by them."  Upon this witticism the Colossus of
Roads, glancing towards the glass, strutted off, arm-in-arm with his
companion, to the card-room.

During this short conversation the re-introduction of Mr. Clifford (the
stranger of the Rectory and deliverer of Dr. Slopperton) to Lucy Brandon
had been effected, and the hand of the heiress was already engaged,
according to the custom of that time, for the two ensuing dances.

It was about twenty minutes after the above presentation had taken place
that Lord Mauleverer and William Brandon entered the rooms; and the buzz
created by the appearance of the noted peer and the distinguished lawyer
had scarcely subsided, before the royal personage expected to grace the
"festive scene" (as the newspapers say of a great room with plenty of
miserable-looking people in it) arrived.  The most attractive persons in
Europe may be found among the royal family of England, and the great
personage then at Bath, in consequence of certain political intrigues,
wished, at that time especially, to make himself as popular as possible.
Having gone the round of the old ladies, and assured them, as the "Court
Journal" assures the old ladies at this day, that they were "morning
stars" and "swan-like wonders," the prince espied Brandon, and
immediately beckoned to him with a familiar gesture.  The smooth but
saturnine lawyer approached the royal presence with the manner that
peculiarly distinguished him, and which blended in no ungraceful mixture
a species of stiffness that passed with the crowd for native
independence, with a supple insinuation that was usually deemed the token
of latent benevolence of heart.  There was something, indeed, in
Brandon's address that always pleased the great; and they liked him the
better because, though he stood on no idle political points, mere
differences in the view taken of a hairbreadth,--such as a corn-law or a
Catholic bill, alteration in the Church or a reform in parliament,--yet
he invariably talked so like a man of honour (except when with
Mauleverer) that his urbanity seemed attachment to individuals, and his
concessions to power sacrifices of private opinion for the sake of
obliging his friends.

"I am very glad indeed," said the royal personage, "to see Mr. Brandon
looking so much better.  Never was the crown in greater want of his
services; and if rumour speak true, they will soon be required in another
department of his profession."

Brandon bowed, and answered,--

"So please your royal highness, they will always be at the command of a
king from whore I have experienced such kindness, in any capacity for
which his Majesty may deem them fitting."

"It is true, then!" said his royal highness, significantly.  "I
congratulate you!  The quiet dignity of the bench must seem to you a
great change after a career so busy and restless."

"I fear I shall feel it so at first, your royal highness," answered
Brandon, "for I like even the toil of my profession; and at this moment,
when I am in full practice, it more than ever--But" (checking himself at
once) "his Majesty's wishes, and my satisfaction in complying with them,
are more than sufficient to remove any momentary regret I might otherwise
have felt in quitting those toils which have now become to me a second
nature."

"It is possible," rejoined the prince, "that his Majesty took into
consideration the delicate state of health which, in common with the
whole public, I grieve to see the papers have attributed to one of the
most distinguished ornaments of the bar."

"So please your royal highness," answered Brandon, coolly, and with a
smile which the most piercing eye could not have believed the mask to the
agony then gnawing at his nerves, "it is the interest of my rivals to
exaggerate the little ailments of a weak constitution.  I thank
Providence that I am now entirely recovered; and at no time of my life
have I been less unable to discharge--so far as my native and mental,
incapacities will allow--the duties of any occupation, however arduous.
Nay, as the brute grows accustomed to the mill, so have I grown wedded to
business; and even the brief relaxation I have now allowed myself seems
to me rather irksome than pleasurable."

"I rejoice to hear you speak thus," answered his royal highness, warmly;
"and I trust for many years, and," added he, in a lower tone, "in the
highest chamber of the senate, that we may profit by your talents.  The
times are those in which many occasions occur that oblige all true
friends of the Constitution to quit minor employment for that great
constitutional one that concerns us all, the highest and the meanest;
and" (the royal voice sank still lower) "I feel justified in assuring you
that the office of chief-justice alone is not considered by his Majesty
as a sufficient reward for your generous sacrifice of present ambition to
the difficulties of government."

Brandon's proud heart swelled, and that moment the veriest pains of hell
would scarcely have been felt.

While the aspiring schemer was thus agreeably engaged, Mauleverer,
sliding through the crowd with that grace which charmed every one, old
and young, and addressing to all he knew some lively or affectionate
remark, made his way to the dancers, among whom he had just caught a
glimpse of Lucy.  "I wonder," he thought, "whom she is dancing with.  I
hope it is that ridiculous fellow, Mossop, who tells a good story against
himself; or that handsome ass, Belmont, who looks at his own legs,
instead of seeming to have eyes for no one but his partner.  Ah! if
Tarquin had but known women as well as I do, he would have had no reason
to be rough with Lucretia.  'T is a thousand pities that experience
comes, in women as in the world, just when it begins to be no longer of
use to us!"

As he made these moral reflections, Mauleverer gained the dancers, and
beheld Lucy listening, with downcast eyes and cheeks that evidently
blushed, to a young man whom Mauleverer acknowledged at once to be one of
the best-looking fellows he had ever seen.  The stranger's countenance,
despite an extreme darkness of complexion, was, to be sure, from the
great regularity of the features, rather effeminate; but, on the other
hand, his figure, though slender and graceful, betrayed to an experienced
eye an extraordinary proportion of sinew and muscle; and even the dash of
effeminacy in the countenance was accompanied by so manly and frank an
air, and was so perfectly free from all coxcombry or self-conceit, that
it did not in the least decrease the prepossessing effect of his
appearance.  An angry and bitter pang shot across that portion of
Mauleverer's frame which the earl thought fit, for want of another name,
to call his heart.  "How cursedly pleased she looks!" muttered he.  "By
Heaven! that stolen glance under the left eyelid, dropped as suddenly as
it is raised; and he--ha! how firmly he holds that little hand!  I think
I see him paddle with it; and then the dog's earnest, intent look,--and
she all blushes, though she dare not look up to meet his gaze, feeling it
by intuition.  Oh, the demure, modest, shamefaced hypocrite!  How silent
she is!  She can prate enough to me!  I would give my promised garter if
she would but talk to him.  Talk, talk, laugh, prattle, only simper, in
God's name, and I shall be happy.  But that bashful, blushing
silence,--it is insupportable.  Thank Heaven, the dance is over!  Thank
Heaven, again!  I have not felt such pains since the last nightmare I had
after dining with her father!"

With a face all smiles, but with a mien in which more dignity than he
ordinarily assumed was worn, Mauleverer now moved towards Lucy, who was
leaning on her partner's arm.  The earl, who had ample tact where his
consummate selfishness did not warp it, knew well how to act the lover,
without running ridiculously into the folly of seeming to play the hoary
dangler.  He sought rather to be lively than sentimental; and beneath the
wit to conceal the suitor.

Having paid, then, with a careless gallantry his first compliments, he
entered into so animated a conversation, interspersed with so many naive
yet palpably just observations on the characters present, that perhaps he
had never appeared to more brilliant advantage.  At length, as the music
was about to recommence, Mauleverer, with a careless glance at Lucy's
partner, said, "Will Miss Brandon now allow me the agreeable duty of
conducting her to her father?"

"I believe," answered Lucy, and her voice suddenly became timid, "that,
according to the laws of the rooms, I am engaged to this gentleman for
another dance."

Clifford, in an assured and easy tone, replied in assent.

As he spoke.  Mauleverer honoured him with a more accurate survey than he
had hitherto bestowed on him; and whether or not there was any expression
of contempt or superciliousness in the survey, it was sufficient to call
up the indignant blood to Clifford's cheek.  Returning the look with
interest, he said to Lucy, "I believe, Miss Brandon, that the dance is
about to begin;" and Lucy, obeying the hint, left the aristocratic
Mauleverer to his own meditations.

At that moment the master of the ceremonies came bowing by, half afraid
to address so great a person as Mauleverer, but willing to show his
respect by the profoundness of his salutation.

"Aha! my dear Mr. -------!" said the earl, holding out both his hands to
the Lycurgus of the rooms; "how are you?  Pray can you inform me who that
young man is, now dancing with Miss Brandon?"

"It is--let me see-oh! it is a Captain Clifford, my lord! a very fine
young man, my lord!  Has your lordship never met him?"

"Never!  Who is he?  One under your more especial patronage?" said the
earl, smiling.

"Nay, indeed!" answered the master of the ceremonies, with a simper of
gratification; "I scarcely know who he is yet; the captain only made his
appearance here to-night for the first time.  He came with two other
gentlemen,--ah! there they are!" and he pointed the earl's scrutinizing
attention to the elegant forms of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson and Mr. Ned
Pepper, just emerging from the card-rooms.  The swagger of the latter
gentleman was so peculiarly important that Mauleverer, angry as he was,
could scarcely help laughing.  The master of the ceremonies noted the
earl's countenance, and remarked that "that fine-looking man seemed
disposed to give himself airs."

"Judging from the gentleman's appearance," said the earl, dryly (Ned's
face, to say truth, did betoken his affection for the bottle), "I should
imagine that he was much more accustomed to give himself thorough
draughts!"

"Ah!" renewed the arbiter elegantiarum, who had not heard Mauleverer's
observation, which was uttered in a very low voice,--"ah! they seem real
dashers!"

"Dashers!" repeated Mauleverer; "true, haberdashers!" Long Ned now,
having in the way of his profession acquitted himself tolerably well at
the card-table, thought he had purchased the right to parade himself
through the rooms, and show the ladies what stuff a Pepper could be made
of.

Leaning with his left hand on Tomlinson's arm, and employing the right in
fanning himself furiously with his huge chapeau bras, the lengthy
adventurer stalked slowly along, now setting out one leg jauntily, now
the other, and ogling "the ladies" with a kind of Irish look,--namely, a
look between a wink and a stare.

Released from the presence of Clifford, who kept a certain check on his
companions, the apparition of Ned became glaringly conspicuous; and
wherever he passed, a universal whisper succeeded.

"Who can he be?" said the widow Matemore.  "'T is a droll creature; but
what a head of hair!"

"For my part," answered the spinster Sneerall, "I think he is a
linen-draper in disguise; for I heard him talk to his companion of
'tape.'"

"Well, well," thought Mauleverer, "it would be but kind to seek out
Brandon, and hint to him in what company his niece seems to have fallen!"
And so thinking, he glided to the corner where, with a gray-headed old
politician, the astute lawyer was conning the affairs of Europe.

In the interim the second dance had ended, and Clifford was conducting
Lucy to her seat, each charmed with the other, when he found himself
abruptly tapped on the back, and turning round in alarm,--for such taps
were not unfamiliar to him,--he saw the cool countenance of Long Ned,
with one finger sagaciously laid beside the nose.

"How now?" said Clifford, between his ground teeth; "did I not tell thee
to put that huge bulk of thine as far from me as possible?"

"Humph!" granted Ned; "if these are my thanks, I may as well keep my
kindness to myself; but know you, my kid, that Lawyer Brandon is here,
peering through the crowd at this very moment, in order to catch a
glimpse of that woman's face of thine."

"Ha!" answered Clifford, in a very quick tone; "begone, then!  I will
meet you without the rooms immediately."  Clifford now turned to his
partner, and bowing very low, in reality to hide his face from those
sharp eyes which had once seen it in the court of Justice Burnflat, said:
"I trust, madam, I shall have the honour to meet you again.  Is it, if I
may be allowed to ask, with your celebrated uncle that you are staying,
or--"

"With my father," answered Lucy, concluding the sentence Clifford had
left unfinished; "but my uncle has been with us, though I fear he leaves
us to-morrow."

Clifford's eyes sparkled; he made no answer, but bowing again, receded
into the crowd and disappeared.  Several times that night did the
brightest eyes in Somersetshire rove anxiously round the rooms in search
of our hero; but he was seen no more.

It was on the stairs that Clifford encountered his comrades; taking an
arm of each, he gained the door without any adventure worth noting, save
that, being kept back by the crowd for a few moments, the moralizing
Augustus Tomlinson, who honoured the moderate Whigs by enrolling himself
among their number, took up, pour passer le temps, a tall gold-headed
cane, and weighing it across his finger with a musing air, said, "Alas!
among our supporters we often meet heads as heavy, but of what a
different metal!"  The crowd now permitting, Augustus was walking away
with his companions, and, in that absence of mind characteristic of
philosophers, unconsciously bearing with him the gold-headed object of
his reflection, when a stately footman, stepping up to him, said, "Sir,
my cane!"

"Cane, fellow!" said Tomlinson.  "Ah, I am so absent!  Here is thy cane.
Only think of my carrying off the man's cane, Ned!  Ha, ha!"

"Absent indeed!" grunted a knowing chairman, watching the receding
figures of the three gentlemen; "body o' me!  but it was the cane that
was about to be absent!"




CHAPTER XVI.

          Whackum.  My dear rogues, dear boys, Bluster and Dingboy! you
          are the bravest fellows that ever scoured yet!--SUADWELL:
          Scourers.

          Cato, the Thessalian, was wont to say that some things may be
          done unjustly, that many things may be done justly.--LORD BACON
          (being a justification of every rascality).

Although our three worthies had taken unto themselves a splendid lodging
in Milsom Street, which, to please Ned, was over a hairdresser's shop,
yet, instead of returning thither, or repairing to such taverns as might
seem best befitting their fashion and garb, they struck at once from the
gay parts of the town, and tarried not till they reached a mean-looking
alehouse in a remote suburb.

The door was opened to them by an elderly lady; and Clifford, stalking
before his companions into an apartment at the back of the house, asked
if the other gentlemen were come yet.

"No," returned the dame.  "Old Mr. Bags came in about ten minutes ago;
but hearing more work might be done, he went out again."

"Bring the lush and the pipes, old blone!" cried Ned, throwing himself on
a bench; "we are never at a loss for company!"

"You, indeed, never can be, who are always inseparably connected with the
object of your admiration," said Tomlin, son, dryly, and taking up an old
newspaper.  Ned, who, though choleric, was a capital fellow, and could
bear a joke on himself, smiled, and drawing forth a little pair of
scissors, began trimming his nails.

"Curse me," said he, after a momentary silence, "if this is not a
devilish deal pleasanter than playing the fine gentleman in that great
room, with a rose in one's button-hole!  What say you, Master Lovett?"

Clifford (as henceforth, despite his other aliases, we shall denominate
our hero), who had thrown himself at full length on a bench at the far
end of the room, and who seemed plunged into a sullen revery, now looked
up for a moment, and then, turning round and presenting the dorsal part
of his body to Long Ned, muttered, "Fish!"

"Harkye, Master Lovett!" said Long Ned, colouring.  "I don't know what
has come over you of late; but I would have you to learn that gentlemen
are entitled to courtesy and polite behaviour; and so, d' ye see, if you
ride your high horse upon me, splice my extremities if I won't have
satisfaction!"

"Hist, man!  be quiet," said Tomlinson, philosophically, snuffing the
candles,--

                  "'For companions to quarrel,
                    Is extremely immoral.'

"Don't you see that the captain is in a revery?  What good man ever loves
to be interrupted in his meditations?  Even Alfred the Great could not
bear it!  Perhaps at this moment, with the true anxiety of a worthy
chief, the captain is designing something for our welfare!"

"Captain indeed!" muttered Long Ned, darting a wrathful look at Clifford,
who had not deigned to pay any attention to Mr. Pepper's threat; "for my
part I cannot conceive what was the matter with us when we chose this
green slip of the gallows-tree for our captain of the district.  To be
sure, he did very well at first, and that robbery of the old lord was not
ill-planned; but lately--"

"Nay, nay," quoth Augustus, interrupting the gigantic grumbler; "the
nature of man is prone to discontent.  Allow that our present design of
setting up the gay Lothario, and trying our chances at Bath for an
heiress, is owing as much to Lovett's promptitude as to our invention."

"And what good will come of it?" returned Ned, as he lighted his pipe;
"answer me that.  Was I not dressed as fine as a lord, and did not I walk
three times up and down that great room without being a jot the better
for it?"

"Ah! but you know not how many secret conquests you may have made.  You
cannot win a prize by looking upon it."

"Humph!" grunted Ned, applying himself discontentedly to the young
existence of his pipe.

"As for the captain's partner," renewed Tomlinson, who maliciously
delighted in exciting the jealousy of the handsome "tax-collector,"--for
that was the designation by which Augustus thought proper to style
himself and companions,--"I will turn Tory if she be not already half in
love with him; and did you hear the old gentleman who cut into our rubber
say what a fine fortune she had?  Faith, Ned, it is lucky for us two that
we all agreed to go shares in our marriage speculations; I fancy the
worthy captain will think it a bad bargain for himself."

"I am not so sure of that, Mr. Tomlinson," said Long Ned, sourly eying
his comrade.  "Some women may be caught by a smooth skin and a showy
manner; but real masculine beauty,--eyes, colour, and hair,--Mr.
Tomlinson, must ultimately make its way; so hand me the brandy, and cease
your jaw."

"Well, well," said Tomlinson, "I'll give you a toast,--'The prettiest
girl in England,' and that's Miss Brandon!"

"You shall give no such toast, sir!" said Clifford, starting from the
bench.  "What the devil is Miss Brandon to you?  And now, Ned," seeing
that the tall hero looked on him with an unfavourable aspect, "here's my
hand; forgive me if I was uncivil.  Tomlinson will tell you, in a maxim,
men are changeable.  Here's to your health; and it shall not be my fault,
gentlemen, if we have not a merry evening!"

This speech, short as it was, met with great applause from the two
friends; and Clifford, as president, stationed himself in a huge chair at
the head of the table.  Scarcely had he assumed this dignity, before the
door opened, and half-a-dozen of the gentlemen confederates trooped
somewhat noisily into the apartment.

"Softly, softly, messieurs," said the president, recovering all his
constitutional gayety, yet blending it with a certain negligent
command,--"respect for the chair, if you please!  'T is the way with all
assemblies where the public purse is a matter of deferential interest!"

"Hear him!" cried Tomlinson.

"What, my old friend Bags!" said the president; "you have not come
empty-handed, I will swear; your honest face is like the table of
contents to the good things in your pockets!"

"Ah, Captain Clifford," said the veteran, groaning, and shaking his
reverend head, "I have seen the day when there was not a lad in England
forked so largely, so comprehensively-like, as I did.  But, as King Lear
says at Common Garden, 'I be's old now!'"

"But your zeal is as youthful as ever, my fine fellow," said the captain,
soothingly; "and if you do not clean out the public as thoroughly as
heretofore, it is not the fault of your inclinations."

"No, that it is not!" cried the "tax-collectors" unanimously.

"And if ever a pocket is to be picked neatly, quietly, and effectually,"
added the complimentary Clifford, "I do not know to this day, throughout
the three kingdoms, a neater, quieter, and more effective set of fingers
than Old Bags's!"

The veteran bowed disclaimingly, and took his seat among the heartfelt
good wishes of the whole assemblage.

"And now, gentlemen," said Clifford, as soon as the revellers had
provided themselves with their wonted luxuries, potatory and fumous, "let
us hear your adventures, and rejoice our eyes with their produce.  The
gallant Attie shall begin; but first, a toast,--'May those who leap from
a hedge never leap from a tree!'"

This toast being drunk with enthusiastic applause, Fighting Attie began
the recital of his little history.

"You sees, Captain," said he, putting himself in a martial position, and
looking Clifford full in the face, "that I'm not addicted to much
blarney.  Little cry and much wool is my motto.  At ten o'clock A.M. saw
the enemy--in the shape of a Doctor of Divinity.  'Blow me,' says I to
Old Bags, 'but I 'll do his reverence!'  'Blow me,'  says Old  Bags, 'but
you sha' n't,--you'll have us scragged if you touches the Church.'  'My
grandmother!'  says I.  Bags tells the pals,--all in a fuss about
it,--what care I?  I puts on a decent dress, and goes to the doctor as a
decayed soldier wot supplies the shops in the turning line.  His
reverence--a fat jolly dog as ever you see--was at dinner over a fine
roast pig; so I tells him I have some bargains at home for him.  Splice
me, if the doctor did not think he had got a prize; so he puts on his
boots, and he comes with me to my house.  But when I gets him into a
lane, out come my pops.  'Give up, Doctor,' says I; 'others must share
the goods of the Church now.'  You has no idea what a row he made; but I
did the thing, and there's an end on't."

"Bravo, Attie!" cried Clifford; and the word echoed round the board.
Attie put a purse on the table, and the next gentleman was called to
confession.

"It skills not, boots not," gentlest of readers, to record each of the
narratives that now followed one another.  Old Bags, in especial,
preserved his well-earned reputation by emptying six pockets, which had
been filled with every possible description of petty valuables.  Peasant
and prince appeared alike to have come under his hands; and perhaps the
good old man had done in the town more towards effecting an equality of
goods among different ranks than all the Reformers, from Cornwall to
Carlisle.  Yet so keen was his appetite for the sport that the veteran
appropriator absolutely burst into tears at not having "forked more."

"I love a warm-hearted enthusiasm," cried Clifford, handling the
movables, while he gazed lovingly on the ancient purloiner.  "May new
cases never teach us to forget Old Bags!"

As soon as this "sentiment" had been duly drunk, and Mr. Bagshot had
dried his tears and applied himself to his favourite drink,--which, by
the way, was "blue ruin,"--the work of division took place.  The
discretion and impartiality of the captain in this arduous part of his
duty attracted universal admiration; and each gentleman having carefully
pouched his share, the youthful president hemmed thrice, and the society
became aware of a purposed speech.

"Gentlemen!" began Clifford,--and his main supporter, the sapient
Augustus, shouted out, "Hear!"--"gentlemen, you all know that when some
months ago you were pleased, partly at the instigation of Gentleman
George--God bless him!--partly from the exaggerated good opinion
expressed of me by my friends, to elect me to the high honour of the
command of this district, I myself was by no means ambitious to assume
that rank, which I knew well was far beyond my merits, and that
responsibility which I knew with equal certainty was too weighty for my
powers.  Your voices, however, overruled my own; and as Mr. Muddlepud,
the great metaphysician, in that excellent paper, 'The Asinaeum,' was
wont to observe, 'the susceptibilities, innate, extensible,
incomprehensible, and eternal,' existing in my bosom, were infinitely
more powerful than the shallow suggestions of reason,--that ridiculous
thing which all wise men and judicious Asinaeans sedulously stifle."

"Plague take the man! what is he talking about?" said Long Ned, who we
have seen was of an envious temper, in a whisper to Old Bags.  Old Bags
shook his head.

"In a word, gentlemen," renewed Clifford, "your kindness overpowered me;
and despite my cooler inclinations, I accepted your flattering proposal.
Since then I have endeavoured, so far as I have been able, to advance
your interests; I have kept a vigilant eye upon all my neighbours; I
have, from county to county, established numerous correspondents; and our
exertions have been carried on with a promptitude that has ensured
success.

"Gentlemen, I do not wish to boast; but on these nights of periodical
meetings, when every quarter brings us to go halves,--when we meet in
private to discuss the affairs of the public, show our earnings as it
were in privy council, and divide them amicably as it were in the Cabinet
['Hear! hear!' from Mr. Tomlinson],--it is customary for your captain for
the time being to remind you of his services, engage your pardon for his
deficiencies, and your good wishes for his future exertions.  Gentlemen,
has it ever been said of Paul Lovett that he heard of a prize and forgot
to tell you of his news?  ['Never! never!' loud cheering.]  Has it ever
been said of him that he sent others to seize the booty, and stayed at
home to think how it should be spent?  ['No! no!' repeated cheers.]  Has
it ever been said of him that he took less share than his due of your
danger, and more of your guineas?  [Cries in the negative, accompanied
with vehement applause.]  Gentlemen, I thank you for these flattering and
audible testimonials in my favour; but the points on which I have dwelt,
however necessary to my honour, would prove but little for my merits;
they might be worthy notice in your comrade, you demand more subtle
duties in your chief.  Gentlemen, has it ever been said of Paul Lovett
that he sent out brave men on forlorn hopes; that he hazarded your own
heads by rash attempts in acquiring pictures of King George's; that zeal,
in short, was greater in him than caution, or that his love of a quid (A
guinea) ever made him neglectful of your just aversion to a quod? (A
prison)  [Unanimous cheering.]

"Gentlemen, since I have had the honour to preside over your welfare,
Fortune, which favours the bold, has not been unmerciful to you!  But
three of our companions have been missed from our peaceful festivities.
One, gentlemen, I myself expelled from our corps for ungentlemanlike
practices; he picked pockets of fogles, (handkerchiefs)--it was a vulgar
employment.  Some of you, gentlemen, have done the same for amusement;
Jack Littlefork did it for occupation.  I expostulated with him in public
and in private; Mr. Pepper cut his society; Mr. Tomlinson read him an
essay on Real Greatness of Soul: all was in vain.  He was pumped by the
mob for the theft of a bird's-eye wipe.  The fault I had borne with,--the
detection was unpardonable; I expelled him.  Who's here so base as would
be a fogle-hunter?  If any, speak; for him have I offended!  Who's here
so rude as would not be a gentleman?  If any, speak; for him have I
offended!  I pause for a reply!  What, none! then none have I offended.
[Loud cheers.]  Gentlemen, I may truly add, that I have done no more to
Jack Littlefork than you should do to Paul Lovett!  The next vacancy in
our ranks was occasioned by the loss of Patrick Blunderbull.  You know,
gentlemen, the vehement exertions that I made to save that misguided
creature, whom I had made exertions no less earnest to instruct.  But he
chose to swindle under the name of the 'Honourable Captain Smico;' the
Peerage gave him the lie at once; his case was one of aggravation, and he
was so remarkably ugly that he 'created no interest.'  He left us for a
foreign exile; and if as a man I lament him, I confess to you, gentlemen,
as a 'tax-collector' I am easily consoled.

"Our third loss must be fresh in your memory.  Peter Popwell, as bold a
fellow as ever breathed, is no more!  [A movement in the assembly.] Peace
be with him!  He died on the field of battle; shot dead by a Scotch
Colonel, whom poor Popwell thought to rob of nothing with an empty
pistol.  His memory, gentlemen,--in solemn silence!

"These make the catalogue of our losses," resumed the youthful chief, so
soon as the "red cup had crowned the memory" of Peter Popwell; "I am
proud, even in sorrow, to think that the blame of those losses rests not
with me.  And now, friends and followers!  Gentlemen of the Road, the
Street, the Theatre, and the Shop!  Prigs, Tobymen, and Squires of the
Cross! according to the laws of our Society, I resign into your hands
that power which for two quarterly terms you have confided to mine, ready
to sink into your ranks as a comrade, nor unwilling to renounce the
painful honour I have borne,--borne with much infirmity, it is true, but
at least with a sincere desire to serve that cause with which you have
intrusted me."

So saying, the captain descended from his chair amidst the most
uproarious applause; and as soon as the first burst had partially
subsided, Augustus Tomlinson rising, with one hand in his breeches'
pocket and the other stretched out, said,--

"Gentlemen, I move that Paul Lovett be again chosen as our captain for
the ensuing term of three months.  [Deafening cheers.]  Much might I say
about his surpassing merits; but why dwell upon that which is obvious?
Life is short!  Why should speeches be long?  Our lives, perhaps, are
shorter than the lives of other men; why should not our harangues be of a
suitable brevity?  Gentlemen, I shall say but one word in favour of my
excellent friend,--of mine, say I? ay, of mine, of yours.  He is a friend
to all of us!  A prime minister is not more useful to his followers and
more burdensome to the public than I am proud to say is--Paul Lovett.
[Loud plaudits.]  What I shall urge in his favour is simply this: the man
whom opposite parties unite in praising must have supereminent merit.  Of
all your companions, gentlemen, Paul Lovett is the only man who to that
merit can advance a claim.  [Applause.]  You all know, gentlemen, that
our body has long been divided into two factions,--each jealous of the
other, each desirous of ascendancy, and each emulous which shall put the
greatest number of fingers into the public pie.  In the language of the
vulgar, the one faction would be called 'swindlers,' and the other
'highwaymen.'  I, gentlemen, who am fond of finding new names for things
and for persons, and am a bit of a politician, call the one Whigs, and
the other Tories.  [Clamorous cheering.]  Of the former body I am
esteemed no uninfluential member; of the latter faction Mr. Bags is
justly considered the most shining ornament.  Mr. Attie and Mr. Edward
Pepper can scarcely be said to belong entirely to either; they unite the
good qualities of both.  'British compounds' some term them; I term them
Liberal Aristocrats!  [Cheers.]  I now call upon you all, Whig, or
Swindler, Tory, or Highwayman, 'British Compounds,' or Liberal
Aristocrats,--I call upon you all to name me one man whom you will all
agree to elect."

All,--"Lovett forever!"

"Gentlemen," continued the sagacious Augustus, "that shout is sufficient;
without another word, I propose, as your captain, Mr. Paul Lovett."

"And I seconds the motion!" said old Mr. Bags.

Our hero, being now by the unanimous applause of his confederates
restored to the chair of office, returned thanks in a neat speech; and
Scarlet Jem declared, with great solemnity, that it did equal honour to
his head and heart.

The thunders of eloquence being hushed, flashes of lightning, or, as the
vulgar say, glasses of gin, gleamed about.  Good old Mr. Bags stuck,
however, to his blue ruin, and Attie to the bottle of bingo; some, among
whom were Clifford and the wise Augustus, called for wine; and Clifford,
who exerted himself to the utmost in supporting the gay duties of his
station, took care that the song should vary the pleasures of the bowl.
Of the songs we have only been enabled to preserve two.  The first is by
Long Ned; and though we confess we can see but little in it, yet (perhaps
from some familiar allusion or other with which we are necessarily
unacquainted) it produced a prodigious sensation.  It ran thus:--

                         THE ROGUE'S RECIPE.

                    Your honest fool a rogue to make,
                    As great as can be seen, sir,
                    Two hackneyed rogues you first must take,
                    Then place your fool between, sir.

                    Virtue 's a dunghill cock, ashamed
                    Of self when paired with game ones;
                    And wildest elephants are tamed
                    If stuck betwixt two tame ones.

The other effusion with which we have the honour to favour our readers is
a very amusing duet which took place between Fighting Attie and a tall
thin robber, who was a dangerous fellow in a mob, and was therefore
called Mobbing Francis; it was commenced by the latter:--

                      MOBBING FRANCIS:

          The best of all robbers as ever I knowed
          Is the bold Fighting Attie, the pride of the road!--
          Fighting Attie, my hero, I saw you to-day
          A purse full of yellow boys seize;
          And as, just at present, I'm low in the lay,
          I'll borrow a quid, if you please.
          Oh!  bold Fighting Attie, the knowing, the natty,
          By us all it must sure be confest,
          Though your shoppers and snobbers are pretty good robbers,
          A soldier is always the best.

                       FIGHTING ATTIE

                    Stubble your whids, (Hold your tongue)
                    You wants to trick I.
                    Lend you my quids?
                    Not one, by Dickey.

                        MOBBING FRANCIS:

               Oh, what a beast is a niggardly ruffler,
               Nabbing, grabbing all for himself!
               Hang it, old fellow, I'll hit you a muffler,
               Since you won't give me a pinch of the pelf.
               You has not a heart for the general distress,
               You cares not a mag if our party should fall,
               And if Scarlet Jem were not good at a press,
               By Goles, it would soon be all up with us all!
               Oh, Scarlet Jem, he is trusty and trim,
               Like his wig to his poll, sticks his conscience to him;
               But I vows I despises the fellow who prizes
               More his own ends than the popular stock, sir;
               And the soldier as bones for himself and his crones,
               Should be boned like a traitor himself at the block, sir.

The severe response of Mobbing Francis did not in the least ruffle the
constitutional calmness of Fighting Attie; but the wary Clifford, seeing
that Francis had lost his temper, and watchful over the least sign of
disturbance among the company, instantly called for another song, and
Mobbing Francis sullenly knocked down Old Bags.

The night was far gone, and so were the wits of the honest tax-gatherers,
when the president commanded silence, and the convivialists knew that
their chief was about to issue forth the orders for the ensuing term.
Nothing could be better timed than such directions,--during merriment and
before oblivion.

"Gentlemen," said the captain, "I will now, with your leave, impart to
you all the plans I have formed for each.  You, Attie, shall repair to
London: be the Windsor road and the purlieus of Pimlico your especial
care.  Look you, my hero, to these letters; they will apprise you of much
work.  I need not caution you to silence.  Like the oyster, you never
open your mouth but for something.  Honest Old Bags, a rich grazier will
be in Smithfield on Thursday; his name is Hodges, and he will have
somewhat like a thousand pounds in his pouch.  He is green, fresh, and
avaricious; offer to assist him in defrauding his neighbours in a
bargain, and cease not till thou hast done that with him which he wished
to do to others.  Be, excellent old man, like the frog-fish, which fishes
for other fishes with two horns that resemble baits; the prey dart at the
horns, and are down the throat in an instant!--For thee, dearest Jem,
these letters announce a prize: fat is Parson Pliant; full is his purse;
and he rides from Henley to Oxford on Friday,--I need say no more!  As
for the rest of you, gentlemen, on this paper you will see your
destinations fixed.  I warrant you, ye will find enough work till we meet
again this day three months.  Myself, Augustus Tomlinson, and Ned Pepper
remain in Bath; we have business in hand, gentlemen, of paramount
importance; should you by accident meet us, never acknowledge us,--we are
incog.; striking at high  game, and putting on falcon's plumes to do it
in character,--you understand; but this accident can scarcely occur, for
none of you will remain at Bath; by to-morrow night, may the road receive
you.  And now, gentlemen, speed the glass, and I'll give you a sentiment
by way of a spur to it,--

                       "'Much sweeter than honey
                         Is other men's money!"'

Our hero's maxim was received with all the enthusiasm which agreeable
truisms usually create.  And old Mr. Bags rose to address the chair;
unhappily for the edification of the audience, the veteran's foot slipped
before he had proceeded further than "Mr. President;" he fell to the
earth with a sort of reel,--

               "Like shooting stars he fell to rise no more!"

His body became a capital footstool for the luxurious Pepper.  Now
Augustus Tomlinson and Clifford, exchanging looks, took every possible
pains to promote the hilarity of the evening; and before the third hour
of morning had sounded, they had the satisfaction of witnessing the
effects of their benevolent labours in the prostrate forms of all their
companions.  Long Ned, naturally more capacious than the rest, succumbed
the last.

"As leaves of trees," said the chairman, waving his hand,

             "'As leaves of trees the race of man is found,
               Now fresh with dew, now withering on the ground.'"

"Well said, my Hector of Highways;" cried Tomlinson; and then helping
himself to the wine, while he employed his legs in removing the supine
forms of Scarlet Jem and Long Ned, he continued the Homeric quotation,
with a pompous and self-gratulatory tone,--

               "'So flourish these when those have passed away!'"

"We managed to get rid of our friends," began Clifford--

"Like Whigs in place," interrupted the politician.

"Right, Tomlinson, thanks to the milder properties of our drink, and
perchance to the stronger qualities of our heads; and now tell me, my
friend, what think you of our chance of success?  Shall we catch an
heiress or not?"

"Why, really," said Tomlinson, "women are like those calculations in
arithmetic, which one can never bring to an exact account; for my part, I
shall stuff my calves, and look out for a widow.  You, my good fellow,
seem to stand a fair chance with Miss ------"

"Oh, name her not!" cried Clifford, colouring, even through the flush
which wine had spread over his countenance.  "Ours are not the lips by
which her name should be breathed; and, faith, when I think of her, I do
it anonymously."

"What, have you ever thought of her before this evening?"

"Yes, for months," answered Clifford.  "You remember some time ago, when
we formed the plan for robbing Lord Mauleverer, how, rather for frolic
than profit, you robbed Dr. Slopperton, of Warlock, while I
compassionately walked home with the old gentleman.  Well, at the
parson's house I met Miss Brandon--mind, if I speak of her by name, you
must not; and, by Heaven!--But I won't swear.  I accompanied her home.
You know, before morning we robbed Lord Mauleverer; the affair made a
noise, and I feared to endanger you all if I appeared in the vicinity of
the robbery.  Since then, business diverted my thoughts; we formed the
plan of trying a matrimonial speculation at Bath.  I came hither,--guess
my surprise at seeing her--"

"And your delight," added Tomlinson, "at hearing she is as rich as she is
pretty."

"No!" answered Clifford, quickly; "that thought gives me no pleasure. You
stare.  I will try and explain.  You know, dear Tomlinson, I'm not much
of a canter, and yet my heart shrinks when I look on that innocent face,
and hear that soft happy voice, and think that my love to her can be only
ruin and disgrace; nay, that my very address is contamination, and my
very glance towards her an insult."

"Heyday!" quoth Tomlinson; "have you been under my instructions, and
learned the true value of words, and can you have any scruples left on so
easy a point of conscience?  True, you may call your representing
yourself to her as an unprofessional gentleman, and so winning her
affections, deceit; but why call it deceit when a genius for intrigue is
so much neater a phrase?  In like manner, by marrying the young lady, if
you say you have ruined her, you justly deserve to be annihilated; but
why not say you have saved yourself, and then, my dear fellow, you will
have done the most justifiable thing in the world."

"Pish, man!" said Clifford, peevishly; "none of thy sophisms and sneers!"

"By the soul of Sir Edward Coke, I am serious!  But look you, my friend!
this is not a matter where it is convenient to have a tender-footed
conscience.  You see these fellows on the ground, all d---d clever, and
so forth; but you and I are of a different order.  I have had a classical
education, seen the world, and mixed in decent society; you, too, had not
been long a member of our club before you distinguished yourself above us
all.  Fortune smiled on your youthful audacity.  You grew particular in
horses and dress, frequented public haunts, and being a deuced
good-looking fellow, with an inborn air of gentility and some sort of
education, you became sufficiently well received to acquire in a short
time the manner and tone of a--what shall I say?--a gentleman, and the
taste to like suitable associates.  This is my case too!  Despite our
labours for the public weal, the ungrateful dogs see that we are above
them; a single envious breast is sufficient to give us to the hangman. We
have agreed that we are in danger; we have agreed to make an honourable
retreat; we cannot do so without money.  You know the vulgar distich
among our set.  Nothing can be truer,--

                       "'Hanging is 'nation
                         More nice than starvation!'

You will not carry off some of the common stock, though I think you
justly might, considering how much you have put into it.  What, then,
shall we do?  Work we cannot, beg we will not; and, between you and me,
we are cursedly extravagant!  What remains but marriage?"

"It is true," said Clifford, with a half sigh.

"You may well sigh, my good fellow.  Marriage is a lackadaisical
proceeding at best; but there is no resource.  And now, when you have got
a liking to a young lady who is as rich as a she-Craesus, and so gilded
the pill as bright as a lord mayor's coach, what the devil have you to do
with scruples?"

Clifford made no answer, and there was a long pause; perhaps he would not
have spoken so frankly as he had done, if the wine had not opened his
heart.

"How proud," renewed Tomlinson, "the good old matron at Thames Court
would be if you married a lady!  You have not seen her lately?"

"Not for years," answered our hero.  "Poor old soul!  I believe that she
is well in health, and I take care that she should not be poor in
pocket."

"But why not visit her?  Perhaps, like all great men, especially of a
liberal turn of mind, you are ashamed of old friends, eh?"

"My good fellow, is that like me?  Why, you know the beaux of our set
look askant on me for not keeping up my dignity, robbing only in company
with well-dressed gentlemen, and swindling under the name of a lord's
nephew.  No, my reasons are these: first, you must know, that the old
dame had set her heart on my turning out an honest man."

"And so you have," interrupted Augustus,--"honest to your party; what
more would you have from either prig or politician?"

"I believe," continued Clifford, not heeding the interruption, "that my
poor mother, before she died, desired that I might be reared honestly;
and strange as it may seem to you, Dame Lobkins is a conscientious woman
in her own way,--it is not her fault if I have turned out as I have done.
Now I know well that it would grieve her to the quick to see me what I
am.  Secondly, my friend, under my new names, various as they
are,--Jackson and Howard, Russell and Pigwiggin, Villiers and Gotobed,
Cavendish and Solomons,--you may well suppose that the good persons in
the neighbourhood of Thames Court have no suspicion that the adventurous
and accomplished ruffler, at present captain of this district, under the
new appellation of Lovett, is in reality no other than the obscure and
surnameless Paul of the Mug.  Now you and I, Augustus, have read human
nature, though in the black letter; and I know well that were I to make
my appearance in Thames Court, and were the old lady (as she certainly
would, not from unkindness, but insobriety,--not that she loves me less,
but heavy wet more) to divulge the secret of that appearance--"

"You know well," interrupted the vivacious Tomlinson, "that the identity
of your former meanness with your present greatness would be easily
traced; the envy and jealousy of your early friends aroused; a hint of
your whereabout and your aliases given to the police, and yourself
grabbed, with a slight possibility of a hempen consummation."

"You conceive me exactly!" answered Clifford.  "The fact is, that I have
observed in nine cases out of ten our bravest fellows have been taken off
by the treachery of some early sweetheart or the envy of some boyish
friend.  My destiny is not yet fixed.  I am worthy of better things than
a ride in the cart with a nosegay in my hand; and though I care not much
about death in itself, I am resolved, if possible, not to die a
highwayman.  Hence my caution, and that prudential care for secrecy and
safe asylums, which men less wise than you have so often thought an
unnatural contrast to my conduct on the road."

"Fools!" said the philosophical Tomlinson; "what has the bravery of a
warrior to do with his insuring his house from fire?"

"However," said Clifford, "I send my good nurse a fine gift every now and
then to assure her of my safety; and thus, notwithstanding my absence, I
show my affection by my presents,--excuse a pun."

"And have you never been detected by any of your quondam associates?"

"Never!  Remember in what a much more elevated sphere of life I have been
thrown; and who could recognize the scamp Paul with a fustian jacket in
gentleman Paul with a laced waistcoat?  Besides, I have diligently
avoided every place where I was likely to encounter those who saw me in
childhood.  You know how little I frequent flash houses, and how
scrupulous I am in admitting new confederates into our band; you and
Pepper are the only two of my associates--save my _protege_, as you
express it, who never deserts the cave--that possess a knowledge of my
identity with the lost Paul; and as ye have both taken that dread oath to
silence, which to disobey until indeed I be in the jail or on the gibbet,
is almost to be assassinated, I consider my secret is little likely to be
broken, save with my own consent."

"True," said Augustus, nodding; "one more glass, and to bed, Mr.
Chairman."

"I pledge you, my friend; our last glass shall be philanthropically
quaffed,--'All fools, and may their money soon be parted!'"

"All fools!" cried Tomlinson, filling a bumper; "but I quarrel with the
wisdom of your toast.  May fools be rich, and rogues will never be poor!
I would make a better livelihood off a rich fool than a landed estate."

So saying, the contemplative and ever-sagacious Tomlinson tossed off his
bumper; and the pair, having kindly rolled by pedal applications the body
of Long Ned into a safe and quiet corner of the room, mounted the stairs,
arm-in-arm, in search of somnambular accommodations.




CHAPTER XVII

               That contrast of the hardened and mature,
               The calm brow brooding o'er the project dark,
               With the clear loving heart, and spirit pure
               Of youth,--I love, yet, hating, love to mark!

                                                  H. FLETCHER.

On the forenoon of the day after the ball, the carriage of William
Brandon, packed and prepared, was at the door of his abode at Bath;
meanwhile the lawyer was closeted with his brother.

"My dear Joseph," said the barrister, "I do not leave you without being
fully sensible of your kindness evinced to me, both in coming hither,
contrary to your habits, and accompanying me everywhere, despite of your
tastes."

"Mention it not, my dear William," said the kind-hearted squire, "for
your delightful society is to me the most agreeable (and that's what I
can say of very few people like you; for, for my own part, I generally
find the cleverest men the most unpleasant) in the world!  And I think
lawyers in particular (very different, indeed, from your tribe you are!)
perfectly intolerable!"

"I have now," said Brandon, who with his usual nervous quickness of
action was walking with rapid strides to and fro the apartment, and
scarcely noted his brother's compliment,--"I have now another favour to
request of you.  Consider this house and these servants yours for the
next month or two at least.  Don't interrupt me,--it is no compliment,--I
speak for our family benefit."  And then seating himself next to his
brother's armchair, for a fit of the gout made the squire a close
prisoner, Brandon unfolded to his brother his cherished scheme of
marrying Lucy to Lord Mauleverer.  Notwithstanding the constancy of the
earl's attentions to the heiress, the honest squire had never dreamed of
their palpable object; and he was overpowered with surprise when he heard
the lawyer's expectations.

"But, my dear brother," he began, "so great a match for my Lucy, the
Lord-Lieutenant of the Coun--"

"And what of that?" cried Brandon, proudly, and interrupting his brother.
"Is not the race of Brandon, which has matched its scions with royalty,
far nobler than that of the upstart stock of Mauleverer?  What is there
presumptuous in the hope that the descendant of the Earls of Suffolk
should regild a faded name with some of the precious dust of the quondam
silversmiths of London?  Besides," he continued, after a pause, "Lucy
will be rich, very rich, and before two years my rank may possibly be of
the same order as Mauleverer's!"

The squire stared; and Brandon, not giving him time to answer, resumed.
It is needless to detail the conversation; suffice it to say that the
artful barrister did not leave his brother till he had gained his
point,--till Joseph Brandon had promised to remain at Bath in possession
of the house and establishment of his brother; to throw no impediment on
the suit of Mauleverer; to cultivate society, as before; and above all,
not to alarm Lucy, who evidently did not yet favour Mauleverer
exclusively, by hinting to her the hopes and expectations of her uncle
and father. Brandon, now taking leave of his brother, mounted to the
drawing-room in search of Lucy.  He found her leaning over the gilt cage
of one of her feathered favourites, and speaking to the little inmate in
that pretty and playful language in which all thoughts, innocent yet
fond, should be clothed.  So beautiful did Lucy seem, as she was thus
engaged in her girlish and caressing employment, and so utterly unlike
one meet to be the instrument of ambitious designs, and the sacrifice of
worldly calculations, that Brandon paused, suddenly smitten at heart, as
he beheld her.  He was not, however, slow in recovering himself; he
approached.  "Happy he," said the man of the world, "for whom caresses
and words like these are reserved!"

Lucy turned.  "It is ill!" she said, pointing to the bird, which sat with
its feathers stiff and erect, mute and heedless even of that voice which
was as musical as its own.

"Poor prisoner!" said Brandon; "even gilt cages and sweet tones cannot
compensate to thee for the loss of the air and the wild woods!"

"But," said Lucy, anxiously, "it is not confinement which makes it ill!
If you think so, I will release it instantly."

"How long have you had it?" asked Brandon.

"For three years!" said Lucy.  "And is it your chief favourite?"

"Yes; it does not sing so prettily as the other, but it is far more
sensible, and so affectionate!"

"Can you release it then?" asked Brandon, smiling.  "Would it not be
better to see it die in your custody than to let it live and to see it no
more?"

"Oh, no, no!" said Lucy, eagerly; "when I love any one, anything, I wish
that to be happy, not me!"

As she said this, she took the bird from the cage; and bearing it to the
open window, kissed it, and held it on her hand in the air.  The poor
bird turned a languid and sickly eye around it, as if the sight of the
crowded houses and busy streets presented nothing familiar or inviting;
and it was not till Lucy with a tender courage shook it gently from her,
that it availed itself of the proffered liberty.  It flew first to an
opposite balcony; and then recovering from a short and as it were
surprised pause, took a brief circuit above the houses; and after
disappearing for a few minutes, flew back, circled the window, and
re-entering, settled once more on the fair form of its mistress and
nestled into her bosom.

Lucy covered it with kisses.  "You see it will not leave me!" said she.

"Who can?" said the uncle, warmly, charmed for the moment from every
thought but that of kindness for the young and soft creature before
him,--"who can," he repeated with a sigh, "but an old and withered
ascetic like myself?  I must leave you indeed; see, my carriage is at the
door! Will my beautiful niece, among the gayeties that surround her,
condescend now and then to remember the crabbed lawyer, and assure him by
a line of her happiness and health?  Though I rarely write any notes but
those upon cases, you, at least, may be sure of an answer.  And tell me,
Lucy, if there be in all this city one so foolish as to think that these
idle gems, useful only as a vent for my pride in you, can add a single
charm to a beauty above all ornament?"

So saying, Brandon produced a leathern case; and touching a spring, the
imperial flash of diamonds, which would have made glad many a patrician
heart, broke dazzlingly on Lucy's eyes.

"No thanks, Lucy," said Brandon, in answer to his niece's disclaiming and
shrinking gratitude; "I do honour to myself, not you; and now bless you,
my dear girl.  Farewell!  Should any occasion present itself in which you
require an immediate adviser, at once kind and wise, I beseech you, my
dearest Lucy, as a parting request, to have no scruples in consulting
Lord Mauleverer.  Besides his friendship for me, he is much interested in
you, and you may consult him with the more safety and assurance; because"
(and the lawyer smiled) "he is perhaps the only man in the world whom my
Lucy could not make in love with her.  His gallantry may appear
adulation, but it is never akin to love.  Promise me that you will not
hesitate in this."

Lucy gave the promise readily; and Brandon continued in a careless tone:
"I hear that you danced last night with a young gentleman whom no one
knew, and whose companions bore a very strange appearance.  In a place
like Bath, society is too mixed not to render the greatest caution in
forming acquaintances absolutely necessary.  You must pardon me, my
dearest niece, if I remark that a young lady owes it not only to herself
but to her relations to observe the most rigid circumspection of conduct.
This is a wicked world, and the peach-like bloom of character is easily
rubbed away.  In these points Mauleverer can be of great use to you.  His
knowledge of character, his penetration into men, and his tact in manners
are unerring.  Pray, be guided by him; whomsoever he warns you against,
you may be sure is unworthy of your acquaintance.  God bless you!  You
will write to me often and frankly, dear Lucy; tell me all that happens
to you,--all that interests, nay, all that displeases."

Brandon then, who had seemingly disregarded the blushes with which during
his speech Lucy's cheeks had been spread, folded his niece in his arms,
and hurried, as if to hide his feelings, into his carriage.  When the
horses had turned the street, he directed the postilions to stop at Lord
Mauleverer's.  "Now," said he to himself, "if I can get this clever
coxcomb to second my schemes, and play according to my game and not
according to his own vanity, I shall have a knight of the garter for my
nephew-in-law!"

Meanwhile Lucy, all in tears, for she loved her uncle greatly, ran down
to the squire to show him Brandon's magnificent present.

"Ah," said the squire, with a sigh, "few men were born with more good,
generous, and great qualities (pity only that his chief desire was to get
on in the world; for my part, I think no motive makes greater and more
cold-hearted rogues) than my brother William!"




CHAPTER XVIII.

               Why did she love him?  Curious fool, be still!
               Is human love the growth of human will?
               To her he might be gentleness!

                                                  LORD BYRON.

In three weeks from the time of his arrival, Captain Clifford was the
most admired man in Bath.  It is true the gentlemen, who have a quicker
tact as to the respectability of their own sex than women, might have
looked a little shy upon him, had he not himself especially shunned
appearing intrusive, and indeed rather avoided the society of men than
courted it; so that after he had fought a duel with a baronet (the son of
a shoemaker), who called him one Clifford, and had exhibited a
flea-bitten horse, allowed to be the finest in Bath, he rose insensibly
into a certain degree of respect with the one sex as well as popularity
with the other.  But what always attracted and kept alive suspicion, was
his intimacy with so peculiar and dashing a gentleman as Mr. Edward
Pepper. People could get over a certain frankness in Clifford's address,
but the most lenient were astounded by the swagger of Long Ned.
Clifford, however, not insensible to the ridicule attached to his
acquaintances, soon managed to pursue his occupations alone; nay, he took
a lodging to himself, and left Long Ned and Augustus Tomlinson (the
latter to operate as a check on the former) to the quiet enjoyment of the
hairdresser's apartments.  He himself attended all public gayeties; and
his mien, and the appearance of wealth which he maintained, procured him
access into several private circles which pretended to be exclusive,--as
if people who had daughters ever could be exclusive!  Many were the kind
looks, nor few the inviting letters, which he received; and if his sole
object had been to marry an heiress, he would have found no difficulty in
attaining it.  But he devoted himself entirely to Lucy Brandon; and to
win one glance from her, he would have renounced all the heiresses in the
kingdom.  Most fortunately for him, Mauleverer, whose health was easily
deranged, had fallen ill the very day William Brandon left Bath; and his
lordship was thus rendered unable to watch the movements of Lucy, and
undermine or totally prevent the success of her lover.  Miss Brandon,
indeed, had at first, melted by the kindness of her uncle, and struck
with the sense of his admonition (for she was no self-willed young lady,
who was determined to be in love), received Captain Clifford's advances
with a coldness which, from her manner the first evening they had met at
Bath, occasioned him no less surprise than mortification.  He retreated,
and recoiled on the squire, who, patient and bold, as usual, was
sequestered in his favourite corner.  By accident, Clifford trod on the
squire's gouty digital; and in apologizing for the offence, was so struck
by the old gentleman's good-nature and peculiarity of expressing himself,
that without knowing who he was, he entered into conversation with him.
There was an off-hand sort of liveliness and candour, not to say wit,
about Clifford, which always had a charm for the elderly, who generally
like frankness above all the cardinal virtues; the squire was exceedingly
pleased with him.  The acquaintance, once begun, was naturally continued
without difficulty when Clifford ascertained who was his new friend; and
next morning, meeting in the pump-room, the squire asked Clifford to
dinner.  The entree to the house thus gained, the rest was easy.  Long
before Mauleverer recovered his health, the mischief effected by his
rival was almost beyond redress; and the heart of the pure, the simple,
the affectionate Lucy Brandon was more than half lost to the lawless and
vagrant cavalier who officiates as the hero of this tale.

One morning, Clifford and Augustus strolled out together.  "Let us," said
the latter, who was in a melancholy mood, "leave the busy streets, and
indulge in a philosophical conversation on the nature of man, while we
are enjoying a little fresh air in the country."  Clifford assented to
the proposal, and the pair slowly sauntered up one of the hills that
surround the city of Bladud.

"There are certain moments," said Tomlinson, looking pensively down at
his kerseymere gaiters, "when we are like the fox in the nursery rhyme,
'The fox had a wound, he could not tell where,'--we feel extremely
unhappy, and we cannot tell why.  A dark and sad melancholy grows over
us; we shun the face of man; we wrap ourselves in our thoughts like
silkworms; we mutter fag-ends of dismal songs; tears come into our eyes;
we recall all the misfortunes that have ever happened to us; we stoop in
our gait, and bury our hands in our breeches-pockets; we say, 'What is
life?--a stone to be shied into a horsepond!'  We pine for some congenial
heart, and have an itching desire to talk prodigiously about ourselves;
all other subjects seem weary, stale, and unprofitable.  We feel as if a
fly could knock us down, and are in a humour to fall in love, and make a
very sad piece of business of it.  Yet with all this weakness we have at
these moments a finer opinion of ourselves than we ever had before.  We
call our megrims the melancholy of a sublime soul, the yearnings of an
indigestion we denominate yearnings after immortality, nay, sometimes 'a
proof of the nature of the soul!'  May I find some biographer who
understands such sensations well, and may he style those melting emotions
the offspring of the poetical character,' which, in reality, are the
offspring of--a mutton-chop!"

     [Vide Moore's "Life of Byron," in which it is satisfactorily shown
     that if a man fast forty-eight hours, then eat three lobsters, and
     drink Heaven knows how many bottles of claret; if, when he wake the
     next morning, he sees himself abused as a demon by half the
     periodicals of the country,--if, in a word, he be broken in his
     health, irregular in his habits, unfortunate in his affairs, unhappy
     in his home, and if then he should be so extremely eccentric as to
     be low-spirited and misanthropical, the low spirits and the
     misanthropy are by no means to be attributed to the above agreeable
     circumstances, but, God wot, to the "poetical character"!]

"You jest pleasantly enough on your low spirits," said Clifford; "but I
have a cause for mine."

"What then?" cried Tomlinson.  "So much the easier is it to cure them.
The mind can cure the evils that spring from the mind.  It is only a fool
and a quack and a driveller when it professes to heal the evils that
spring from the body.  My blue devils spring from the body; consequently
my mind, which, as you know, is a particularly wise mind, wrestles riot
against them.  Tell me frankly," renewed Augustus, after a pause, "do you
ever repent?  Do you ever think, if you had been a shop-boy with a white
apron about your middle, that you would have been a happier and a better
member of society than you now are?"

"Repent!" said Clifford, fiercely; and his answer opened more of his
secret heart, its motives, its reasonings, and its peculiarities than
were often discernible,--"repent! that is the idlest word in our
language.  No; the moment I repent, that moment I reform!  Never can it
seem to me an atonement for crime merely to regret it.  My mind would
lead me, not to regret, but to repair!  Repent! no, not yet.  The older I
grow, the more I see of men and of the callings of social life, the more
I, an open knave, sicken at the glossed and covert dishonesties around. I
acknowledge no allegiance to society.  From my birth to this hour, I have
received no single favour from its customs or its laws; openly I war
against it, and patiently will I meet its revenge.  This may be crime;
but it looks light in my eyes when I gaze around, and survey on all sides
the masked traitors who acknowledge large debts to society, who profess
to obey its laws, adore its institutions, and, above all--oh, how
righteously!--attack all those who attack it, and who yet lie and cheat
and defraud and peculate,--publicly reaping all the comforts, privately
filching all the profits.  Repent!--of what?  I come into the world
friendless and poor; I find a body of laws hostile to the friendless and
the poor!  To those laws hostile to me, then, I acknowledge hostility in
my turn.  Between us are the conditions of war.  Let them expose a
weakness,--I insist on my right to seize the advantage; let them defeat
me, and I allow their right to destroy."--[The author need not, he hopes,
observe that these sentiments are Mr. Paul Clifford's, not his.]

"Passion," said Augustus, coolly, "is the usual enemy of reason; in your
case it is the friend."

The pair had now gained the summit of a hill which commanded a view of
the city below.  Here Augustus, who was a little short-winded, paused to
recover breath.  As soon as he had done so, he pointed with his
forefinger to the scene beneath, and said enthusiastically, "What a
subject for contemplation!"

Clifford was about to reply, when suddenly the sound of laughter and
voices was heard behind.  "Let us fly!" cried Augustus; "on this day of
spleen man delights me not--or woman either."

"Stay!" said Clifford, in a trembling accent; for among those voices he
recognized one which had already acquired over him an irresistible and
bewitching power.  Augustus sighed, and reluctantly remained motionless.
Presently a winding in the road brought into view a party of pleasure,
some on foot, some on horseback, others in the little vehicles which even
at that day haunted watering-places, and called themselves "Flies" or
"Swallows."

But among the gay procession Clifford had only eyes for one!  Walking
with that elastic step which so rarely survives the first epoch of youth,
by the side of the heavy chair in which her father was drawn, the fair
beauty of Lucy Brandon threw--at least in the eyes of her lover--a magic
and a lustre over the whole group.  He stood for a moment, stilling the
heart that leaped at her bright looks and the gladness of her innocent
laugh; and then recovering himself, he walked slowly, and with a certain
consciousness of the effect of his own singularly handsome person,
towards the party.  The good squire received him with his usual kindness,
and informed him, according to that lucidus ordo which he so especially
favoured, of the whole particulars of their excursion.  There was
something worthy of an artist's sketch in the scene at that moment: the
old squire in his chair, with his benevolent face turned towards
Clifford, and his hands resting on his cane, Clifford himself bowing down
his stately head to hear the details of the father; the beautiful
daughter on the other side of the chair, her laugh suddenly stilled, her
gait insensibly more composed, and blush chasing blush over the smooth
and peach-like loveliness of her cheek; the party, of all sizes, ages,
and attire, affording ample scope for the caricaturist; and the pensive
figure of Augustus Tomlinson (who, by the by, was exceedingly like
Liston) standing apart from the rest, on the brow of the hill where
Clifford had left him, and moralizing on the motley procession, with one
hand hid in his waistcoat, and the other caressing his chin, which slowly
and pendulously with the rest of his head moved up and down.

As the party approached the brow of the hill, the view of the city below
was so striking that there was a general pause for the purpose of survey.
One young lady in particular drew forth her pencil, and began sketching,
while her mamma looked complacently on, and abstractedly devoured a
sandwich.  It was at this time, in the general pause, that Clifford and
Lucy found themselves--Heaven knows how!--next to each other, and at a
sufficient distance from the squire and the rest of the party to feel in
some measure alone.  There was a silence in both which neither dared to
break; when Lucy, after looking at and toying with a flower that she had
brought from the place which the party had been to see, accidentally
dropped it; and Clifford and herself stooping at the same moment to
recover it, their hands met.  Involuntarily, Clifford detained the soft
fingers in his own; his eyes, that encountered hers, so spell-bound and
arrested them that for once they did not sink beneath his gaze; his lips
moved, but many and vehement emotions so suffocated his voice that no
sound escaped them.  But all the heart was in the eyes of each; that
moment fixed their destinies.  Henceforth there was an era from which
they dated a new existence; a nucleus around which their thoughts, their
remembrances, and their passions clung.  The great gulf was passed; they
stood on the same shore, and felt that though still apart and disunited,
on that shore was no living creature but themselves!  Meanwhile Augustus
Tomlinson, on finding himself surrounded by persons eager to gaze and to
listen, broke from his moodiness and reserve.  Looking full at his next
neighbour, and flourishing his right hand in the air, till he suffered it
to rest in the direction of the houses and chimneys below, he repeated
that moral exclamation which had been wasted on Clifford, with a more
solemn and a less passionate gravity than before,--"What a subject,
ma'am, for contemplation!"

"Very sensibly said, indeed, sir," said the lady addressed, who was
rather of a serious turn.

"I never," resumed Augustus in a louder key, and looking round for
auditors,--"I never see a great town from the top of a hill without
thinking of an apothecary's shop!"

"Lord, sir!" said the lady.  Tomlinson's end was gained.  Struck with the
quaintness of the notion, a little crowd gathered instantly around him,
to hear it further developed.

"Of an apothecary's shop, ma'am!" repeated Tomlinson.  "There lie your
simples and your purges and your cordials and your poisons,--all things
to heal and to strengthen and to destroy.  There are drugs enough in that
collection to save you, to cure you all; but none of you know how to use
them, nor what medicines to ask for, nor what portions to take; so that
the greater part of you swallow a wrong dose, and die of the remedy!"

"But if the town be the apothecary's shop, what, in the plan of your
idea, stands for the apothecary?" asked an old gentleman, who perceived
at what Tomlinson was driving.

"The apothecary, sir," answered Augustus, stealing his notion from
Clifford, and sinking his voice lest the true proprietor should overhear
him (Clifford was otherwise employed),--"the apothecary, sir, is the LAW!
It is the law that stands behind the counter, and dispenses to each man
the dose he should take.  To the poor it gives bad drugs gratuitously; to
the rich, pills to stimulate the appetite; to the latter, premiums for
luxury; to the former, only speedy refuges from life!  Alas! either your
apothecary is but an ignorant quack, or his science itself is but in its
cradle.  He blunders as much as you would do if left to your own
selection.  Those who have recourse to him seldom speak gratefully of his
skill.  He relieves you, it is true,--but of your money, not your malady;
and the only branch of his profession in which he is an adept is that
which enables him to bleed you!  O mankind!" continued Augustus, "what
noble creatures you ought to be!  You have keys to all sciences, all
arts, all mysteries, but one!  You have not a notion how you ought to be
governed; you cannot frame a tolerable law, for the life and soul of you!
You make yourselves as uncomfortable as you can by all sorts of galling
and vexatious institutions, and you throw the blame upon 'Fate.'  You lay
down rules it is impossible to comprehend, much less to obey; and you
call each other monsters, because you cannot conquer the impossibility!
You invent all sorts of vices, under pretence of making laws for
preserving virtue; and the anomalous artificialities of conduct
yourselves produce, you say you are born with; you make a machine by the
perversest art you can think of, and you call it, with a sigh, 'Human
Nature.'  With a host of good dispositions struggling at your breasts,
you insist upon libelling the Almighty, and declaring that he meant you
to be wicked.  Nay, you even call the man mischievous and seditious who
begs and implores you to be one jot better than you are.  O mankind! you
are like a nosegay bought at Covent Garden.  The flowers are lovely, the
scent delicious.  Mark that glorious hue; contemplate that bursting
petal!  How beautiful, how redolent of health, of nature, of the dew and
breath and blessing of Heaven, are you all!  But as for the dirty piece
of string that ties you together, one would think you had picked it out
of the kennel."

So saying, Tomlinson turned on his heel, broke away from the crowd, and
solemnly descended the hill.  The party of pleasure slowly followed; and
Clifford, receiving an invitation from the squire to partake of his
family dinner, walked by the side of Lucy, and felt as if his spirit were
drunk with the airs of Eden.

A brother squire, who among the gayeties of Bath was almost as forlorn as
Joseph Brandon himself, partook of the Lord of Warlock's hospitality.
When the three gentlemen adjourned to the drawing-room, the two elder sat
down to a game at backgammon, and Clifford was left to the undisturbed
enjoyment of Lucy's conversation.  She was sitting by the window when
Clifford joined her.  On the table by her side were scattered books, the
charm of which (they were chiefly poetry) she had only of late learned to
discover; there also were strewn various little masterpieces of female
ingenuity, in which the fairy fingers of Lucy Brandon were especially
formed to excel.  The shades of evening were rapidly darkening over the
empty streets; and in the sky, which was cloudless and transparently
clear, the stars came gradually out one by one, until,--

              "As water does a sponge, so their soft light
               Filled the void, hollow, universal air."

Beautiful evening!  (if we, as well as Augustus Tomlinson, may indulge in
an apostrophe)--beautiful evening!  For thee all poets have had a song,
and surrounded thee with rills and waterfalls and dews and flowers and
sheep and bats and melancholy and owls; yet we must confess that to us,
who in this very sentimental age are a bustling, worldly, hard-minded
person, jostling our neighbours, and thinking of the main chance,--to us
thou art never so charming as when we meet thee walking in thy gray hood
through the emptying streets and among the dying sounds of a city.  We
love to feel the stillness where all, two hours back, was clamour.  We
love to see the dingy abodes of Trade and Luxury--those restless patients
of earth's constant fever--contrasted and canopied by a heaven full of
purity and quietness and peace.  We love to fill our thought with
speculations on man, even though the man be the muffin-man, rather than
with inanimate objects,--hills and streams,--things to dream about, not
to meditate on.  Man is the subject of far nobler contemplation, of far
more glowing hope, of a far purer and loftier vein of sentiment, than all
the "floods and fells" in the universe; and that, sweet evening! is one
reason why we like that the earnest and tender thoughts thou excitest
within us should be rather surrounded by the labours and tokens of our
species than by sheep and bats and melancholy and owls.  But whether,
most blessed evening! thou delightest us in the country or in the town,
thou equally disposest us to make and to feel love!  Thou art the cause
of more marriages and more divorces than any other time in the
twenty-four hours!  Eyes that were common eyes to us before, touched by
thy enchanting and magic shadows, become inspired, and preach to us of
heaven.  A softness settles on features that were harsh to us while the
sun shone; a mellow "light of love" reposes on the complexion which by
day we would have steeped "full fathom five" in a sea of Mrs. Gowland's
lotion.  What, then, thou modest hypocrite! to those who already and
deeply love,--what, then, of danger and of paradise dost thou bring?

Silent, and stilling the breath which heaved in both quick and fitfully,
Lucy and Clifford sat together.  The streets were utterly deserted; and
the loneliness, as they looked below, made them feel the more intensely
not only the emotions which swelled within them, but the undefined and
electric sympathy which, in uniting them, divided them from the world.
The quiet around was broken by a distant strain of rude music; and as it
came nearer, two forms of no poetical order grew visible.  The one was a
poor blind man, who was drawing from his flute tones in which the
melancholy beauty of the air compensated for any deficiency (the
deficiency was but slight) in the execution.  A woman much younger than
the musician, and with something of beauty in her countenance,
accompanied him, holding a tattered hat, and looking wistfully up at the
windows of the silent street.  We said two forms; we did the injustice of
forgetfulness to another,--a rugged and simple friend, it is true, but
one that both minstrel and wife had many and moving reasons to love. This
was a little wiry terrier, with dark piercing eyes, that glanced quickly
and sagaciously in all quarters from beneath the shaggy covert that
surrounded them.  Slowly the animal moved onward, pulling gently against
the string by which he was held, and by which he guided his master.  Once
his fidelity was tempted: another dog invited him to play; the poor
terrier looked anxiously and doubtingly round, and then, uttering a low
growl of denial, pursued--

                    "The noiseless tenour of his way."

The little procession stopped beneath the window where Lucy and Clifford
sat; for the quick eye of the woman had perceived them, and she laid her
hand on the blind man's arm, and whispered him.  He took the hint, and
changed his air into one of love.  Clifford glanced at Lucy; her cheek
was dyed in blushes.  The air was over; another succeeded,--it was of the
same kind; a third,--the burden was still unaltered; and then Clifford
threw into the street a piece of money, and the dog wagged his abridged
and dwarfed tail, and darting forward, picked it up in his mouth; and the
woman (she had a kind face!) patted the officious friend, even before she
thanked the donor, and then she dropped the money with a cheering word or
two into the blind man's pocket, and the three wanderers moved slowly on.
Presently they came to a place where the street had been mended, and the
stones lay scattered about.  Here the woman no longer trusted to the
dog's guidance, but anxiously hastened to the musician, and led him with
evident tenderness and minute watchfulness over the rugged way.  When
they had passed the danger, the man stopped; and before he released the
hand which had guided him, he pressed it gratefully, and then both the
husband and the wife stooped down and caressed the dog.  This little
scene--one of those rough copies of the loveliness of human affections,
of which so many are scattered about the highways of the world--both the
lovers had involuntarily watched; and now as they withdrew their
eyes,--those eyes settled on each other,--Lucy's swam in tears.

"To be loved and tended by the one I love," said Clifford, in a low
voice, "I would walk blind and barefoot over the whole earth!"

Lucy sighed very gently; and placing her pretty hands (the one clasped
over the other) upon her knee, looked down wistfully on them, but made no
answer.  Clifford drew his chair nearer, and gazed on her, as she sat;
the long dark eyelashes drooping over her eyes, and contrasting the ivory
lids; her delicate profile half turned from him, and borrowing a more
touching beauty from the soft light that dwelt upon it; and her full yet
still scarcely developed bosom heaving at thoughts which she did not
analyze, but was content to feel at once vague and delicious.  He gazed,
and his lips trembled; he longed to speak; he longed to say but those
words which convey what volumes have endeavoured to express and have only
weakened by detail,--"I love."  How he resisted the yearnings of his
heart, we know not,--but he did resist; and Lucy, after a confused and
embarrassed pause, took up one of the poems on the table, and asked him
some questions about a particular passage in an old ballad which he had
once pointed to her notice.  The passage related to a border chief, one
of the Armstrongs of old, who, having been seized by the English and
condemned to death, vented his last feelings in a passionate address to
his own home--his rude tower--and his newly wedded bride.  "Do you
believe," said Lucy, as their conversation began to flow, "that one so
lawless and eager for bloodshed and strife as this robber is described to
be, could be so capable of soft affections?"

"I do," said Clifford, "because he was not sensible that he was as
criminal as you esteem him.  If a man cherish the idea that his actions
are not evil, he will retain at his heart all its better and gentler
sensations as much as if he had never sinned.  The savage murders his
enemy, and when he returns home is not the less devoted to his friend or
the less anxious for his children.  To harden and embrute the kindly
dispositions, we must not only indulge in guilt but feel that we are
guilty.  Oh! many that the world load with their opprobrium are capable
of acts--nay, have committed acts--which in others the world would
reverence and adore.  Would you know whether a man's heart be shut to the
power of love,--ask what he is, not to his foes, but to his friends!
Crime, too," continued Clifford, speaking fast and vehemently, while his
eyes flashed and the dark blood rushed to his cheek,--"crime,--what is
crime?  Men embody their worst prejudices, their most evil passions, in a
heterogeneous and contradictory code; and whatever breaks this code they
term a crime.  When they make no distinction in the penalty--that is to
say, in the estimation--awarded both to murder and to a petty theft
imposed on the weak will by famine, we ask nothing else to convince us
that they are ignorant of the very nature of guilt, and that they make up
in ferocity for the want of wisdom."

Lucy looked in alarm at the animated and fiery countenance of the
speaker.  Clifford recovered himself after a moment's pause, and rose
from his seat, with the gay and frank laugh which made one of his
peculiar characteristics.  "There is a singularity in politics, Miss
Brandon," said he, "which I dare say you have often observed,--namely,
that those who are least important are always most noisy, and that the
chief people who lose their temper are those who have nothing to gain in
return."

As Clifford spoke, the doors were thrown open, and some visitors to Miss
Brandon were announced.  The good squire was still immersed in the
vicissitudes of his game; and the sole task of receiving and entertaining
"the company," as the chambermaids have it, fell, as usual, upon Lucy.
Fortunately for her, Clifford was one of those rare persons who possess
eminently the talents of society.  There was much in his gay and gallant
temperament, accompanied as it was with sentiment and ardour, that
resembled our beau-ideal of those chevaliers, ordinarily peculiar to the
Continent,--heroes equally in the drawing-room and the field.  Observant,
courteous, witty, and versed in the various accomplishments that combine
(that most unfrequent of all unions!) vivacity with grace, he was
especially formed for that brilliant world from which his circumstances
tended to exclude him.  Under different auspices, he might have
been--Pooh! we are running into a most pointless commonplace; what might
any man be under auspices different from those by which his life has been
guided?  Music soon succeeded to conversation, and Clifford's voice was
of necessity put into requisition.  Miss Brandon had just risen from the
harpsichord, as he sat down to perform his part; and she stood by him
with the rest of the group while he sang.  Only twice his eye stole to
that spot which her breath and form made sacred to him; once when he
began, and once when he concluded his song.  Perhaps the recollection of
their conversation inspired him; certainly it dwelt upon his mind at the
moment,--threw a richer flush over his brow, and infused a more meaning
and heartfelt softness into his tone.

                               STANZAS.

               When I leave thee, oh! ask not the world what that heart
               Which adores thee to others may be!
               I know that I sin when from thee I depart,
               But my guilt shall not light upon thee!

               My life is a river which glasses a ray
               That hath deigned to descend from above;
               Whatever the banks that o'ershadow its way,
               It mirrors the light of thy love.

               Though the waves may run high when the night wind awakes,
               And hurries the stream to its fall;
               Though broken and wild be the billows it makes,
               Thine image still trembles on all!"

While this ominous love between Clifford and Lucy was thus finding fresh
food in every interview and every opportunity, the unfortunate
Mauleverer, firmly persuaded that his complaint was a relapse of what he
termed the "Warlock dyspepsia," was waging dire war with the remains of
the beef and pudding, which he tearfully assured his physicians "were
lurking in his constitution."  As Mauleverer, though complaisant, like
most men of unmistakable rank, to all his acquaintances, whatever might
be their grade, possessed but very few friends intimate enough to enter
his sick-chamber, and none of that few were at Bath, it will readily be
perceived that he was in blissful ignorance of the growing fortunes of
his rival; and to say the exact truth, illness, which makes a man's
thoughts turn very much upon himself, banished many of the most tender
ideas usually floating in his mind around the image of Lucy Brandon.  His
pill superseded his passion; and he felt that there are draughts in the
world more powerful in their effects than those in the phials of
Alcidonis.--[See Marmontel's pretty tale of "Les Quatres Flacons."]--He
very often thought, it is true, how pleasant it would be for Lucy to
smooth his pillow, and Lucy to prepare that mixture; but then Mauleverer
had an excellent valet, who hoped to play the part enacted by Gil Blas
towards the honest Licentiate, and to nurse a legacy while he was nursing
his master.  And the earl, who was tolerably good-tempered, was forced to
confess that it would be scarcely possible for any one "to know his ways
better than Smoothson."  Thus, during his illness, the fair form of his
intended bride little troubled the peace of the noble adorer.  And it was
not till he found himself able to eat three good dinners consecutively,
with a tolerable appetite, that Mauleverer recollected that he was
violently in love.  As soon as this idea was fully reinstated in his
memory, and he had been permitted by his doctor to allow himself "a
little cheerful society," Mauleverer resolved to go to the rooms for an
hour or two.

It may be observed that most great personages have some favourite place,
some cherished Baiae, at which they love to throw off their state, and to
play the amiable instead of the splendid; and Bath at that time, from its
gayety, its ease, the variety of character to be found in its haunts, and
the obliging manner in which such characters exposed themselves to
ridicule, was exactly the place calculated to please a man like
Mauleverer, who loved at once to be admired and to satirize.  He was
therefore an idolized person at the city of Bladud; and as he entered the
rooms he was surrounded by a whole band of imitators and sycophants,
delighted to find his lordship looking so much better and declaring
himself so convalescent.  As soon as the earl had bowed and smiled, and
shaken hands sufficiently to sustain his reputation, he sauntered towards
the dancers in search of Lucy.  He found her not only exactly in the same
spot in which he had last beheld her, but dancing with exactly the same
partner who had before provoked all the gallant nobleman's jealousy and
wrath.  Mauleverer, though not by any means addicted to preparing his
compliments beforehand, had just been conning a delicate speech for Lucy;
but no sooner did the person of her partner flash on him than the whole
flattery vanished at once from his recollection.  He felt himself grow
pale; and when Lucy turned, and seeing him near, addressed him in the
anxious and soft tone which she thought due to her uncle's friend on his
recovery, Mauleverer bowed, confused and silent; and that green-eyed
passion, which would have convulsed the mind of a true lover, altering a
little the course of its fury, effectually disturbed the manner of the
courtier.

Retreating to an obscure part of the room, where he could see all without
being conspicuous, Mauleverer now employed himself in watching the
motions and looks of the young pair.  He was naturally a penetrating and
quick observer, and in this instance jealousy sharpened his talents; he
saw enough to convince him that Lucy was already attached to Clifford;
and being, by that conviction, fully persuaded that Lucy was necessary to
his own happiness, he resolved to lose not a moment in banishing Captain
Clifford from her presence, or at least in instituting such inquiries
into that gentleman's relatives, rank, and respectability as would, he
hoped, render such banishment a necessary consequence of the research.

Fraught with this determination, Mauleverer repaired at once to the
retreat of the squire, and engaging him in conversation, bluntly asked
him who the deuce Miss Brandon was dancing with.

The squire, a little piqued at this brusquerie, replied by a long
eulogium on Paul; and Mauleverer, after hearing it throughout with the
blandest smile imaginable, told the squire, very politely, that he was
sure Mr. Brandon's good-nature had misled him.  "Clifford!" said he,
repeating the name,--"Clifford!  It is one of those names which are
particularly selected by persons nobody knows,--first, because the name
is good, and secondly, because it is common.  My long and dear friendship
with your brother makes me feel peculiarly anxious on any point relative
to his niece; and, indeed, my dear William, overrating, perhaps, my
knowledge of the world and my influence in society, but not my affection
for him, besought me to assume the liberty of esteeming myself a friend,
nay, even a relation of yours and Miss Brandon's; so that I trust you do
not consider my caution impertinent."

The flattered squire assured him that he was particularly honoured, so
far from deeming his lordship (which never could be the case with people
so distinguished as his lordship was, especially!) impertinent.

Lord Mauleverer, encouraged by this speech, artfully renewed, and
succeeded, if not in convincing the squire that the handsome captain was
a suspicious character, at least in persuading him that common prudence
required that he should find out exactly who the handsome captain was,
especially as he was in the habit of dining with the squire thrice a
week, and dancing with Lucy every night.

"See," said Mauleverer, "he approaches you now; I will retreat to the
chair by the fireplace, and you shall cross-examine him,--I have no doubt
you will do it with the utmost delicacy."

So saying, Mauleverer took possession of a seat where he was not
absolutely beyond hearing (slightly deaf as he was) of the ensuing
colloquy, though the position of his seat screened him from sight.
Mauleverer was esteemed a man of the most punctilious honour in private
life, and he would not have been seen in the act of listening to other
people's conversation for the world.

Hemming with an air and resettling himself as Clifford approached, the
squire thus skilfully commenced the attack "Ah, ha! my good Captain
Clifford, and how do you do?  I saw you (and I am very glad, my friend,
as every one else is, to see you) at a distance.  And where have you left
my daughter?"

"Miss Brandon is dancing with Mr. Muskwell, sir," answered Clifford.

"Oh!  she is!  Mr. Muskwell,--humph!  Good family the Muskwells,--came
from Primrose Hall.  Pray, Captain, not that I want to know for my own
sake, for I am a strange, odd person, I believe, and I am thoroughly
convinced (some people are censorious, and others, thank God, are not!)
of your respectability,--what family do you come from?  You won't think
my--my caution impertinent?" added the shrewd old gentleman, borrowing
that phrase which he thought so friendly in the mouth of Lord Mauleverer.

Clifford coloured for a moment, but replied with a quiet archness of
look, "Family! oh, my dear sir, I come from an old family,--a very old
family indeed."

"So I always thought; and in what part of the world?"

"Scotland, sir,--all our family come from Scotland; namely, all who live
long do,--the rest die young."

"Ay, particular air does agree with particular constitutions.  I, for
instance, could not live in all countries; not--you take me--in the
North!"

"Few honest men can live there," said Clifford, dryly.  "And," resumed
the squire, a little embarrassed by the nature of his task, and the cool
assurance of his young friend,--"and pray, Captain Clifford, what
regiment do you belong to?"

"Regiment?--oh, the Rifles!" answered Clifford.  ("Deuce is in me,"
muttered he, "if I can resist a jest, though I break my neck over it.")

"A very gallant body of men," said the squire.

"No doubt of that, sir!" rejoined Clifford.

"And do you think, Captain Clifford," renewed the squire, "that it is a
good corps for getting on?"

"It is rather a bad one for getting off," muttered the Captain; and then
aloud, "Why, we have not much interest at court, sir."

"Oh!  but then there is a wider scope, as my brother the lawyer says--and
no man knows better--for merit.  I dare say you have seen many a man
elevated from the ranks?"

"Nothing more common, sir, than such elevation; and so great is the
virtue of our corps, that I have also known not a few willing to transfer
the honour to their comrades."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed the squire, opening his eyes at such
disinterested magnanimity.

"But," said Clifford, who began to believe he might carry the equivoke
too far, and who thought, despite of his jesting, that it was possible to
strike out a more agreeable vein of conversation--"but, sir, if you
remember, you have not yet finished that youthful hunting adventure of
yours, when the hounds were lost at Burnham Copse."

"Oh, very true," cried the squire, quite forgetting his late suspicions;
and forthwith he began a story that promised to be as long as the chase
it recorded.  So charmed was he, when he had finished it, with the
character of the gentleman who had listened to it so delightedly, that on
rejoining Mauleverer, he told the earl, with an important air, that he
had strictly examined the young captain, and that he had fully convinced
himself of the excellence of his family, as well as the rectitude of his
morals.  Mauleverer listened with a countenance of polite incredulity; he
had heard but little of the conversation that had taken place between the
pair; but on questioning the squire upon sundry particulars of Clifford's
birth, parentage, and property, he found him exactly as ignorant as
before.  The courtier, however, seeing further expostulation was in vain,
contented himself with patting the squire's shoulder, and saying, with a
mysterious urbanity, "Ah, sir, you are too good!"

With these words he turned on his heel, and, not yet despairing, sought
the daughter.  He found Miss Brandon just released from dancing, and with
a kind of paternal gallantry, he offered his arm to parade the
apartments.  After some preliminary flourish, and reference for the
thousandth time to his friendship for William Brandon, the earl spoke to
her about that "fine-looking young man who called himself Captain
Clifford."

Unfortunately for Mauleverer, he grew a little too unguarded, as his
resentment against the interference of Clifford warmed with his language,
and he dropped in his anger one or two words of caution, which especially
offended the delicacy of Miss Brandon.

"Take care how I encourage, my lord!" said Lucy, with glowing cheeks,
repeating the words which had so affronted her, "I really must beg you--"

"You mean, dear Miss Brandon," interrupted Mauleverer, squeezing her hand
with respectful tenderness, "that you must beg me to apologize for my
inadvertent expression.  I do most sincerely.  If I had felt less
interest in your happiness, believe me, I should have been more guarded
in my language."

Miss Brandon bowed stiffly, and the courtier saw, with secret rage, that
the country beauty was not easily appeased, even by an apology from Lord
Mauleverer.  "I have seen the time," thought he, "when young unmarried
ladies would have deemed an affront from me an honour!  They would have
gone into hysterics at an apology!"  Before he had time to make his
peace, the squire joined them; and Lucy, taking her father's arm,
expressed her wish to return home.  The squire was delighted at the
proposition.  It would have been but civil in Mauleverer to offer his
assistance in those little attentions preparatory to female departure
from balls.  He hesitated for a moment.  "It keeps one so long in those
cursed thorough draughts," thought he, shivering.  "Besides, it is just
possible that I may not marry her, and it is no good risking a cold
(above all, at the beginning of winter) for nothing!"  Fraught with this
prudential policy, Mauleverer then resigned Lucy to her father, and
murmuring in her ear that "her displeasure made him the most wretched of
men," concluded his adieu by a bow penitentially graceful.

About five minutes afterwards, he himself withdrew.  As he was wrapping
his corporeal treasure in his roquelaire of sables, previous to immersing
himself in his chair, he had the mortification of seeing Lucy, who with
her father, from some cause or other, had been delayed in the hall,
handed to the carriage by Captain Clifford.  Had the earl watched more
narrowly than in the anxious cares due to himself he was enabled to do,
he would, to his consolation, have noted that Lucy gave her hand with an
averted and cool air, and that Clifford's expressive features bore rather
the aspect of mortification than triumph.

He did not, however, see more than the action; and as he was borne
homeward with his flambeaux and footmen preceding him, and the watchful
Smoothson by the side of the little vehicle, he muttered his
determination of writing by the very next post to Brandon all his anger
for Lucy and all his jealousy of her evident lover.

While this doughty resolve was animating the great soul of Mauleverer,
Lucy reached her own room, bolted the door, and throwing herself on her
bed, burst into a long and bitter paroxysm of tears.  So unusual were
such visitors to her happy and buoyant temper, that there was something
almost alarming in the earnestness and obstinacy with which she now wept.

"What!" said she, bitterly, "have I placed my affections upon a man of
uncertain character, and is my infatuation so clear that an acquaintance
dare hint at its imprudence?  And yet his manner--his tone!  No, no,
there can be no reason for shame in loving him!"  And as she said this,
her heart smote her for the coldness of her manner towards Clifford on
his taking leave of her for the evening.  "Am I," she thought, weeping
yet more vehemently than before,--"am I so worldly, so base, as to feel
altered towards him the moment I hear a syllable breathed against his
name?  Should I not, on the contrary, have clung to his image with a
greater love, if he were attacked by others?  But my father, my dear
father, and my kind, prudent uncle,--something is due to them; and they
would break their hearts if I loved one whom they deemed unworthy.  Why
should I not summon courage, and tell him of the suspicions respecting
him?  One candid word would dispel them.  Surely it would be but kind in
me towards him, to give him an opportunity of disproving all false and
dishonouring conjectures.  And why this reserve, when so often, by look
and hint, if not by open avowal, he has declared that he loves me, and
knows--he must know--that he is not indifferent to me?  Why does he never
speak of his parents, his relations, his home?"

And Lucy, as she asked this question, drew from a bosom whose hue and
shape might have rivalled hers who won Cymon to be wise,--[See Dryden's
poem of "Cymon and Iphigenia."]--a drawing which she herself had secretly
made of her lover, and which, though inartificially and even rudely done,
yet had caught the inspiration of memory, and breathed the very features
and air that were stamped already ineffaceably upon a heart too holy for
so sullied an idol.  She gazed upon the portrait as if it could answer
her question of the original; and as she looked and looked, her tears
slowly ceased, and her innocent countenance relapsed gradually into its
usual and eloquent serenity.  Never, perhaps, could Lucy's own portrait
have been taken at a more favourable moment, The unconscious grace of her
attitude; her dress loosened; the modest and youthful voluptuousness of
her beauty; the tender cheek to which the virgin bloom, vanished for a
while, was now all glowingly returning; the little white soft hand on
which that cheek leaned, while the other contained the picture upon which
her eyes fed; the half smile just conjured to her full, red, dewy lips,
and gone the moment after, yet again restored,--all made a picture of
such enchanting loveliness that we question whether Shakspeare himself
could have fancied an earthly shape more meet to embody the vision of a
Miranda or a Viola.  The quiet and maiden neatness of the apartment gave
effect to the charm; and there was a poetry even in the snowy furniture
of the bed, the shutters partly unclosed and admitting a glimpse of the
silver moon, and the solitary lamp just contending with the purer ray of
the skies, and so throwing a mixed and softened light around the chamber.

She was yet gazing on the drawing, when a faint stream of music stole
through the air beneath her window, and it gradually rose till the sound
of a guitar became distinct and clear, suiting with, not disturbing, the
moonlit stillness of the night.  The gallantry and romance of a former
day, though at the time of our story subsiding, were not quite dispelled;
and nightly serenades under the casements of a distinguished beauty were
by no means of unfrequent occurrence.  But Lucy, as the music floated
upon her ear, blushed deeper and deeper, as if it had a dearer source to
her heart than ordinary gallantry; and raising herself on one arm from
her incumbent position, she leaned forward to catch the sound with a
greater and more unerring certainty.

After a prelude of some moments a clear and sweet voice accompanied the
instrument, and the words of the song were as follows:--

                      CLIFFORD'S SERENADE.

               There is a world where every night
               My spirit meets and walks with thine;
               And hopes I dare not tell thee light,
               Like stars of Love, that world of mine!

               Sleep!--to the waking world my heart
               Hath now, methinks, a stranger grown;
               Ah, sleep! that I may feel thou art
               Within one world that is my own.

As the music died away, Lucy sank back once more, and the drawing which
she held was pressed (with cheeks glowing, though unseen, at the act) to
her lips.  And though the character of her lover was uncleared, though
she herself had come to no distinct resolution even to inform him of the
rumours against his name, yet so easily restored was her trust in him,
and so soothing the very thought of his vigilance and his love, that
before an hour had passed, her eyes were closed in sleep.  The drawing
was laid, as a spell against grief, under her pillow; and in her dreams
she murmured his name, and unconscious of reality and the future, smiled
tenderly as she did so!




CHAPTER XIX.

               Come, the plot thickens! and another fold
               Of the warm cloak of mystery wraps us around.
                . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
               And for their loves?
                      Behold the seal is on them!

                                             Tanner of Tyburn.

We must not suppose that Clifford's manner and tone were towards Lucy
Brandon such as they seemed to others.  Love refines every roughness; and
that truth which nurtures tenderness is never barren of grace.  Whatever
the habits and comrades of Clifford's life, he had at heart many good and
generous qualities.  They were not often perceptible, it is true,--first,
because he was of a gay and reckless turn; secondly, because he was not
easily affected by any external circumstances; and thirdly, because he
had the policy to affect among his comrades only such qualities as were
likely to give him influence with them.  Still, however, his better
genius broke out whenever an opportunity presented itself.  Though no
"Corsair," romantic and unreal, an Ossianic shadow becoming more vast in
proportion as it recedes from substance; though no grandly-imagined lie
to the fair proportions of human nature, but an erring man in a very
prosaic and homely world,--Clifford still mingled a certain generosity
and chivalric spirit of enterprise even with the practices of his
profession.  Although the name of Lovett, by which he was chiefly known,
was one peculiarly distinguished in the annals of the adventurous, it had
never been coupled with rumours of cruelty or outrage; and it was often
associated with anecdotes of courage, courtesy, good humour, or
forbearance.  He was one whom a real love was peculiarly calculated to
soften and to redeem.  The boldness, the candour, the unselfishness of
his temper, were components of nature upon which affection invariably
takes a strong and deep hold.  Besides, Clifford was of an eager and
aspiring turn; and the same temper and abilities which had in a very few
years raised him in influence and popularity far above all the chivalric
band with whom he was connected, when once inflamed and elevated by a
higher passion, were likely to arouse his ambition from the level of his
present pursuits, and reform him, ere too late, into a useful, nay, even
an honourable member of society.  We trust that the reader has already
perceived that, despite his early circumstances, his manner and address
were not such as to unfit him for a lady's love.  The comparative
refinement of his exterior is easy of explanation, for he possessed a
natural and inborn gentility, a quick turn for observation, a ready sense
both of the ridiculous and the graceful; and these are materials which
are soon and lightly wrought from coarseness into polish.  He had been
thrown, too, among the leaders and heroes of his band; many not
absolutely low in birth, nor debased in habit.  He had associated with
the Barringtons of the day,--gentlemen who were admired at Ranelagh, and
made speeches worthy of Cicero, when they were summoned to trial.  He had
played his part in public places; and as Tomlinson was wont to say after
his classic fashion, "the triumphs accomplished in the field had been
planned in the ball-room."  In short, he was one of those accomplished
and elegant highwaymen of whom we yet read wonders, and by whom it would
have been delightful to have been robbed: and the aptness of intellect
which grew into wit with his friends, softened into sentiment with his
mistress.  There is something, too, in beauty (and Clifford's person, as
we have before said, was possessed of even uncommon attractions) which
lifts a beggar into nobility; and there was a distinction in his gait and
look which supplied the air of rank and the tone of courts.  Men, indeed,
skilled like Mauleverer in the subtleties of manner, might perhaps have
easily detected in him the want of that indescribable essence possessed
only by persons reared in good society; but that want being shared by so
many persons of indisputable birth and fortune, conveyed no particular
reproach.  To Lucy, indeed, brought up in seclusion, and seeing at
Warlock none calculated to refine her taste in the fashion of an air or
phrase to a very fastidious standard of perfection, this want was
perfectly imperceptible; she remarked in her lover only a figure
everywhere unequalled, an eye always eloquent with admiration, a step
from which grace could never be divorced, a voice that spoke in a silver
key, and uttered flatteries delicate in thought and poetical in word;
even a certain originality of mind, remark, and character, occasionally
approaching to the bizarre, yet sometimes also to the elevated, possessed
a charm for the imagination of a young and not unenthusiastic female, and
contrasted favourably, rather than the reverse, with the dull insipidity
of those she ordinarily saw.  Nor are we sure that the mystery thrown
about him, irksome as it was to her, and discreditable as it appeared to
others, was altogether ineffectual in increasing her love for the
adventurer; and thus Fate, which transmutes in her magic crucible all
opposing metals into that one which she is desirous to produce, swelled
the wealth of an ill-placed and ominous passion by the very circumstances
which should have counteracted and destroyed it.

We are willing, by what we have said, not to defend Clifford, but to
redeem Lucy in the opinion of our readers for loving so unwisely; and
when they remember her youth, her education, her privation of a mother,
of all female friendship, even of the vigilant and unrelaxing care of
some protector of the opposite sex, we do not think that what was so
natural will be considered by any inexcusable.

Mauleverer woke the morning after the ball in better health than usual,
and consequently more in love than ever.  According to his resolution the
night before, he sat down to write a long letter to William Brandon: it
was amusing and witty as usual; but the wily nobleman succeeded, under
the cover of wit, in conveying to Brandon's mind a serious apprehension
lest his cherished matrimonial project should altogether fail.  The
account of Lucy and of Captain Clifford contained in the epistle
instilled, indeed, a double portion of sourness into the professionally
acrid mind of the lawyer; and as it so happened that he read the letter
just before attending the court upon a case in which he was counsel to
the crown, the witnesses on the opposite side of the question felt the
full effects of the barrister's ill humour.  The case was one in which
the defendant had been engaged in swindling transactions to a very large
amount; and among his agents and assistants was a person of the very
lowest orders, but who, seemingly enjoying large connections, and
possessing natural acuteness and address, appeared to have been of great
use in receiving and disposing of such goods as were fraudulently
obtained.  As a witness against the latter person appeared a pawnbroker,
who produced certain articles that had been pledged to him at different
times by this humble agent.  Now, Brandon, in examining the guilty
go-between, became the more terribly severe in proportion as the man
evinced that semblance of unconscious stolidity which the lower orders
can so ingeniously assume, and which is so peculiarly adapted to enrage
and to baffle the gentlemen of the bar.  At length, Brandon entirely
subduing and quelling the stubborn hypocrisy of the culprit, the man
turned towards him a look between wrath and beseechingness, muttering,--

"Aha! if so be, Counsellor Prandon, you knew vat I knows.  You vould not
go for to bully I so!"

"And pray, my good fellow, what is it that you know that should make me
treat you as if I thought you an honest man?"

The witness had now relapsed into sullenness, and only answered by a sort
of grunt.  Brandon, who knew well how to sting a witness into
communicativeness, continued his questioning till the witness, re-aroused
into anger, and it may be into indiscretion, said in a low voice,--

"Hax Mr. Swoppem the pawnbroker what I sold 'im on the 15th hof February,
exactly twenty-three yearn ago."  Brandon started back, his lips grew
white, he clenched his hands with a convulsive spasm; and while all his
features seemed distorted with an earnest yet fearful intensity of
expectation, he poured forth a volley of questions, so incoherent and so
irrelevant that he was immediately called to order by his learned brother
on the opposite side.  Nothing further could be extracted from the
witness.  The pawnbroker was resummoned: he appeared somewhat
disconcerted by an appeal to his memory so far back as twenty-three
years; but after taking some time to consider, during which the agitation
of the usually cold and possessed Brandon was remarkable to all the
court, he declared that he recollected no transaction whatsoever with the
witness at that time.  In vain were all Brandon's efforts to procure a
more elucidatory answer.  The pawnbroker was impenetrable, and the lawyer
was compelled reluctantly to dismiss him.  The moment the witness left
the box, Brandon sank into a gloomy abstraction,--he seemed quite to
forget the business and the duties of the court; and so negligently did
he continue to conclude the case, so purposeless was the rest of his
examination and cross-examination, that the cause was entirely marred,
and a verdict "Not guilty" returned by the jury.

The moment he left the court, Brandon repaired to the pawnbroker's; and
after a conversation with Mr. Swoppem, in which he satisfied that honest
tradesman that his object was rather to reward than intimidate, Swoppem
confessed that twenty-three years ago the witness had met him at a
public-house in Devereux Court, in company with two other men, and sold
him several articles in plate, ornaments, etc.  The great bulk of these
articles had, of course, long left the pawnbroker's abode; but he still
thought a stray trinket or two, not of sufficient worth to be reset or
remodelled, nor of sufficient fashion to find a ready sale, lingered in
his drawers.  Eagerly, and with trembling hands, did Brandon toss over
the motley contents of the mahogany reservoirs which the pawnbroker now
submitted to his scrutiny.  Nothing on earth is so melancholy a prospect
as a pawnbroker's drawer!  Those little, quaint, valueless
ornaments,--those true-lovers' knots, those oval lockets, those battered
rings, girdled by initials, or some brief inscription of regard or of
grief,--what tales of past affections, hopes, and sorrows do they not
tell!  But no sentiment of so general a sort ever saddened the hard mind
of William Brandon, and now less than at any time could such reflections
have occurred to him.  Impatiently he threw on the table, one after
another, the baubles once hoarded perchance with the tenderest respect,
till at length his eyes sparkled, and with a nervous gripe he seized upon
an old ring which was inscribed with letters, and circled a heart
containing hair.  The inscription was simply, "W. B. to Julia."  Strange
and dark was the expression that settled on Brandon's face as he regarded
this seemingly worthless trinket.  After a moment's gaze, he uttered an
inarticulate exclamation, and thrusting it into his pocket, renewed his
search.  He found one or two other trifles of a similar nature; one was
an ill-done miniature set in silver, and bearing at the back sundry
half-effaced letters, which Brandon construed at once (though no other
eye could) into "Sir John Brandon, 1635, AEtat. 28;" the other was a seal
stamped with the noble crest of the house of Brandon, 'A bull's head,
ducally crowned and armed, Or.'  As soon as Brandon had possessed himself
of these treasures, and arrived at the conviction that the place held no
more, he assured the conscientious Swoppem of his regard for that
person's safety, rewarded him munificently, and went his way to Bow
Street for a warrant against the witness who had commended him to the
pawnbroker.  On his road thither, a new resolution occurred to him.  "Why
make all public," he muttered to himself, "if it can be avoided?  and it
may be avoided!"  He paused a moment, then retraced his way to the
pawnbroker's, and, after a brief mandate to Mr. Swoppem, returned home.
In the course of the same evening the witness we refer to was brought to
the lawyer's house by Mr. Swoppem, and there held a long and private
conversation with Brandon; the result of this seemed a compact to their
mutual satisfaction, for the man went away safe, with a heavy purse and a
light heart, although sundry shades and misgivings did certainly ever and
anon cross the