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That Boy of Norcott's

by Charles Lever · English · Gutenberg #32693 · 419,594 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: That Boy of Norcott's

Author: Charles Lever

Illustrator: W. Cubitt Cooke


        
Release date: June 4, 2010 [eBook #32693]
                Most recently updated: February 28, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32693

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S ***




Produced by David Widger





THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S

By Charles James Lever


With Illustrations By W. Cubitt Cooke.

BOSTON:

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

1904.


TO BARON EMILE ERLANGER

My dear Erlanger,--Through the many anxieties which beset me while I was
writing this story, your name was continually recurring, and always
with some act of kindness, or some proof of affection. Let me, then, in
simple gratitude dedicate to you a volume of which, in a measure, you
stand sponsor, and say to the world at large what I have so often said
to my own,

How sincerely and heartily I am

Your friend,

CHARLES LEVER. Trieste, February 20th, 1869.






THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S.



CHAPTER I. THE TRIAL

Some years ago there was a trial in Dublin, which, partly because the
parties in the cause were in a well-to-do condition of life, and partly
because the case in some measure involved the interests of the two
conflicting Churches, excited considerable sensation and much comment.

The contention was the right to the guardianship of a boy whose father
and mother had ceased to live together. On their separation they had
come to a sort of amicable arrangement that the child--then seven years
old--should live alternate years with each; and though the mother's
friends warmly urged her not to consent to a plan so full of danger
to her child, and so certain to result in the worst effects on his
character, the poor woman, whose rank in life was far inferior to her
husband's, yielded, partly from habit of deference to his wishes, and
more still because she believed, in refusing these terms, she might have
found herself reduced to accept even worse ones. The marriage had
been unfortunate in every way. Sir Roger Norcott had accompanied his
regiment, the--th Dragoons, to Ireland, where some violent disturbances
in the south had called for an increase of military force. When the
riots had been suppressed, the troops, broken up into small detachments,
were quartered through the counties, as opportunity and convenience
served; Norcott s troop--for he was a captain--being stationed in
that very miserable and poverty-stricken town called Macroom. Here the
dashing soldier, who for years had been a Guardsman, mixing in all the
gayeties of a London life, passed days and weeks of dreary despondency.
His two subs, who happened to be sons of men in trade, he treated with a
cold and distant politeness, but never entered into their projects, nor
accepted their companionship; and though they messed together each day,
no other intimacy passed between them than the courtesies of the table.

It chanced that while thus hipped, and out of sorts, sick of the place
and the service that had condemned him to it, he made acquaintance with
a watchmaker, when paying for some slight service, and subsequently with
his daughter, a very pretty, modest-looking, gentle girl of eighteen.
The utter vacuity of his life, the tiresome hours of barrack-room
solitude, the want of some one to talk to him, but, still more, of some
one to listen,--for he liked to talk, and talked almost well,--led him
to pass more than half his days and all his evenings at their house. Nor
was the fact that his visits had become a sort of town scandal without
its charm for a man who actually pined for a sensation, even though
painful; and there was, too, an impertinence that, while declining the
society of the supposed upper classes of the neighborhood, he found
congenial companionship with these humble people, had a marvellous
attraction for a man who had no small share of resentfulness in his
nature, and was seldom so near being happy as when flouting some
prejudice or outraging some popular opinion.

It had been his passion through life to be ever doing or saying
something that no one could have anticipated. For the pleasure of
astonishing the world, no sacrifice was too costly; and whether he rode,
or shot, or played, or yachted, his first thought was notoriety. An
ample fortune lent considerable aid to this tendency; but every year's
extravagance was now telling on his resources, and he was forced to draw
on his ingenuity where before he needed but to draw on his banker.

There was nothing that his friends thought less likely than that he
would marry, except that, if he should, his wife would not be a woman
of family: to bowl over both of these beliefs together, he married the
watchmaker's daughter, and Mary Owen became a baronet's bride.

Perhaps--I 'm not very sure of even that--her marriage gave her one
entire day of unbroken happiness,--I do not believe it gave her a week,
and I know it did not a month. Whether it was that his friends were less
shocked than he had hoped for, or that the shock wore out sooner, he
was frantic at the failure of his grand coup, and immediately set about
revenging on his unhappy wife all the disappointment she had caused him.
After a series of cruelties--some of which savored of madness--but which
she bore without complaint, or even murmur, he bethought him that her
religious belief offered a groundwork for torment which he had hitherto
neglected. He accordingly determined to make his profession to the
Church of Rome, and to call on her to follow. This she stoutly refused;
and he declared that they should separate. The menace had no longer a
terror for her. She accepted whatever terms he was pleased to dictate;
she only stipulated as to the child, and for him but to the extent we
have already seen. The first year after the separation the boy passed
with his father; the second he spent with his mother. At the end of the
third year, when her turn again came round, Sir Roger refused to part
with him; and when reminded of his promise, coarsely replied that
his boy, above all things, must be “a gentleman,” and that he was now
arrived at an age when association with low and vulgar people would
attach a tone to his mind and a fashion to his thoughts that all the
education in the world would not eradicate; and that rather than yield
to such a desecration, he would litigate the matter to the last shilling
of his estate. Such was the cause before the Barons of the Exchequer:
the mother pleading that her child should be restored to her; the father
opposing the demand that the mother's habits and associates were not
in accordance with the prospects of one who should inherit title and
fortune; and, last of all, that the boy was devotedly attached to him,
and bore scarcely a trace of affection for his mother.

So painful were the disclosures that came out during the trial, so
subversive of every feeling that pertains to the sanctity of the family,
and so certain to work injuriously on the character of the child whose
interests were at stake, that the Judge, made more than one attempt to
arrest the proceedings and refer the case to arbitration, but Sir Roger
would not agree to this. He was once more in his element, he was before
the world,--the newspapers were full of him, and, better than all, in
attack and reprobation. He had demanded to be put on the table as
a witness, and they who saw, it is said, never forgot the insolent
defiance of public opinion that he on that day displayed; how boldly he
paraded opinions in opposition to every sense of right and justice, and
how openly he avowed his principle of education to be--to strip off from
youth every delusion as to the existence of truth and honor in life, and
to teach a child, from his earliest years, that trickery and falsehood
were the daily weapons of mankind, and that he who would not consent to
be the dupe of his fellow-men must be their despot and their persecutor.
If he had the satisfaction of outraging the feelings of all in court,
and insulting every sense of propriety and decorum, he paid heavily for
the brief triumph. The judge delivered a most stern denunciation of
his doctrines, and declared that no case had ever come before the court
where so little hesitation existed as to the judgment to be pronounced.
The sentence was that, up to the age of twelve, the child was to be
confided to the mother's charge; after which period the court would, on
application, deliberate and determine on the future guardianship.

“Will you leave me, Digby?” asked the father; and his lips trembled,
and his cheek blanched as he uttered the words. The boy sprang into his
arms, and kissed him wildly and passionately; and the two clung to each
other in close embrace, and their mingled sobs echoed through the now
silent court. “You see, my Lord, you see--” cried the father; but the
boy's struggles were choking him, and, with his own emotions, would not
suffer him to continue. His sufferings were now real, and a murmur ran
through the court that showed how public feeling was trembling in the
balance. The bustle of a new cause that was coming on soon closed the
scene. The child was handed over to an officer of the court, while the
mother's friends concerted together, and all was over.

Over as regarded the first act of a life-long drama; and ere the curtain
rises, it only remains to say that the cause which that day decided was
mine, and that I, who write this, was the boy “Digby Norcott.”




CHAPTER II. WITH MY MOTHER

My mother lived in a little cottage at a place called the Green Lanes,
about three miles from Dublin. The name was happily given, for on every
side there were narrow roads overshadowed by leafy trees, which met
above and gave only glimpses of sky and cloud through their feathery
foliage. The close hedgerows of white or pink thorn limited the view on
either side, and imparted a something of gloom to a spot whose silence
was rarely broken, for it was not a rich man's neighborhood. They who
frequented it were persons of small fortune, retired subalterns in the
army, or clerks in public offices, and such like petty respectabilities
who preferred to herd together, and make no contrasts of their humble
means with larger, greater incomes.

Amongst the sensations I shall never forget--and which, while I write,
are as fresh as the moment I first felt them--were my feelings when the
car stopped opposite a low wicket, and Mr. McBride, the attorney, helped
me down and said, “This is your home, Digby; your mother lives here.”
 The next moment a pale but very handsome young woman came rushing down
the little path and clasped me in her arms. She had dropped on her knees
to bring her face to mine, and she kissed me madly and wildly, so that
my cap fell off. “See how my frill is all rumpled,” said I, unused as
I was to such disconcerting warmth, and caring far more for my smart
appearance than for demonstrations of affection. “Oh, darling, never
mind it,” sobbed she. “You shall have another and a nicer. I will make
it myself, for my own boy,--for you are mine, Digby. You are mine,
dearest, ain't you?”

“I am papa's boy,” said I, doggedly.

“But you will love mamma too, Digby, won't you?--poor mamma, that has no
one to love her, or care for her if you do not; and who will so love
you in return, and do everything for you,--everything to make you
happy,--happy and good, Digby.”

“Then let us go back to Earls Court. It's far prettier than this, and
there are great lions over the gateway, and wide steps up to the door. I
don't like this. It looks so dark and dreary,--it makes me cry.” And to
prove it, I burst out into a full torrent of weeping, and my mother hung
over me and sobbed too; and long after the car had driven away, we
sat there on the grass weeping bitterly together, though there was no
concert in our sorrow, nor any soul to our grief.

That whole afternoon was passed in attempts to comfort and caress me by
my mother, and in petulant demands on my part for this or that luxury I
had left behind me. I wanted my nice bed with the pink curtains, and my
little tool-case. I wanted my little punt, my pony, my fishing-rod.
I wanted the obsequious servants, who ran at my bidding, and whose
respectful manner was a homage I loved to exact. Not one of these was
forthcoming, and how could I believe her who soothingly told me that her
love would replace them, and that her heart's affection would soon be
dearer to roe than all my toys and all the glittering presents that
littered my room? “But I want my pony,” I cried; “I want my little dog
Fan, and I want to sit beside papa, and see him drive four horses, and
he lets me whip them too, and _you_ won't.” And so I cried hysterically
again, and in these fretful paroxysms I passed my evening.

The first week of my life there was to me--it still is to me--like a
dream,--a sad, monotonous dream. Repulsed in every form, my mother still
persisted in trying to amuse or interest me, and I either sat in moody
silence, refusing all attention, or went off into passionate grief,
sobbing as if my heart would break. “Let him cry his fill,” said old
Biddy the maid,--“let him cry his fill, and it will do him good.” And I
could have killed her on the spot as she said it.

If Biddy Cassidy really opined that a hearty fit of crying would have
been a good alterative for me, she ought not to have expressed the
opinion in my presence, for there was that much of my father in me that
quickly suggested resistance, and I at once resolved that, no matter
what it might cost me, or by what other means I might find a vent for
my grief, I 'd cry no more. All my poor mother's caresses, all her
tenderness, and all her watchful care never acted on my character with
half the force or one-tenth of the rapidity that did this old hag's
attempt to thwart and oppose me. Her system was, by a continual
comparison between my present life and my past, to show how much better
off I was now than in my former high estate, and by a travesty of all I
had been used to, to pretend that anything like complaint from me would
be sheer ingratitude. “Here's the pony, darlin', waitin' for you to ride
him,” she would say, as she would lay an old walking-stick beside my
door; and though the blood would rush to my head at the insult, and
something very nigh choking rise to my throat, I would master my passion
and make no reply. This demeanor was set down to sulkiness, and Biddy
warmly entreated my mother to suppress the temper it indicated, and, as
she mildly suggested, “cut it out of me when I was young”--a counsel, I
must own, she did not follow.

Too straitened in her means to keep a governess for me, and unwilling
to send me to a school, my mother became my teacher herself; and, not
having had any but the very commonest education, she was obliged to
acquire in advance what she desired to impart. Many a night would she
pore over the Latin Grammar, that she might be even one stage before me
in the morning. Over and over did she get up the bit of geography that
was to test my knowledge the next day; and in this way, while leading
_me_ on, she acquired, almost without being aware of it, a considerable
amount of information. Her faculties were above the common, and her zeal
could not be surpassed; so that, while I was stumbling and blundering
over “Swaine's Sentences,” she had read all Sallust's “Catiline,” and
most of the “Odes” of Horace; and long before I had mastered my German
declensions, she was reading “Grimm's Stories” and Auerbach's “Village
Sketches.” Year after year went over quietly, uneventfully. I had long
ceased to remember my former life of splendor, or, if it recurred to
me, it came with no more of reality than the events of a dream. One day,
indeed,--I shall never forget it,--the past revealed itself before me
with the vivid distinctness of a picture, and, I shame to say, rendered
me unhappy and discontented for several days after. I was returning one
afternoon from a favorite haunt, where I used to spend hours,--the old
churchyard of Killester, a long-unused cemetery, with a ruined church
beside it,--when four spanking chestnuts came to the foot of the little
rise on which the ruin stood, and the servants, jumping down, undid the
bearing-reins, to breathe the cattle up the ascent. It was my father was
on the box; and as he skilfully brushed the flies from his horses with
his whip, gently soothing the hot-mettled creatures with his voice, I
bethought me of the proud time when I sat beside him, and when he talked
to me of the different tempers of each horse in the team, instilling
into me that interest and that love for them, as thinking sentient
creatures, which gives the horse a distinct character to all who have
learned thus to think of him from childhood. He never looked at me as he
passed. How should he recognize the little boy in the gray linen blouse
he was wont to see in black velvet with silver buttons? Perhaps I was
not sorry he did not know me. Perhaps I felt it easier to fight my own
shame alone than if it had been confessed and witnessed. At all events,
the sight sent me home sad and depressed, no longer able to take
pleasure in my usual pursuits, and turning from my toys and books with
actual aversion.

Remembering how all mention of my father used to affect my mother long
ago, seeing how painfully his mere name acted upon her, I forbore to
speak of this incident, and buried it in my heart, to think and ruminate
over when alone.

Time went on and on till I wanted but a few months of twelve, and my
lessons were all but dropped, as my mother's mornings were passed
either in letter-writing or in interviews with her lawyer. It was on
the conclusion of one of these councils that Mr. McBride led me into the
garden, and, seating me beside him on a bench, said, “I have something
to say to you, Digby; and I don't know that I 'd venture to say it, if
I had not seen that you are a thoughtful boy, and an affectionate son of
the best mother that ever lived. You are old enough, besides, to have a
right to know something about yourself and your future prospects, and it
is for that I have come out to-day.” And with this brief preface he told
me the whole story of my father's and mother's marriage and separation;
and how it came to pass that I had been taken from one to live with the
other; and how the time was now drawing nigh--it wanted but two months
and ten days--when I should be once more under my father's guidance,
and totally removed from the influence of that mother who loved me so
dearly.

“We might fight the matter in the courts, it is true,” said he. “There
are circumstances which might weigh with a judge whether he 'd remove
you from a position of safety and advantage to one of danger and
difficulty; but it would be the fight of a weak purse against a strong
one, not to say that it would also be the struggle of a poor mother's
heart against the law of the land; and I have at last persuaded her
it would be wiser and safer not to embitter the relations with your
father,--to submit to the inevitable; and not improbably you may be
permitted to see her from time to time, and, at all events, to write to
her.” It took a long time for him to go through what I have so briefly
set down here; for there were many pros and cons, and he omitted none of
them; and while he studiously abstained from applying to my father any
expression of censure or reprobation, he could not conceal from me that
he regarded him as a very cold-hearted, unfeeling man, from whom little
kindness could be expected, and to whom entreaty or petition would be
lost time. I will not dwell on the impression this revelation produced
on me, nor will I linger on the time that followed on it,--the very
saddest of my life. Our lessons were stopped,--all the occupations that
once filled the day ceased,--a mournful silence fell upon us, as though
there was a death in the house; and there was, indeed, the death of that
peaceful existence in which we had glided along for years, and we sat
grieving over a time that was to return no more. My mother tried to
employ herself in setting my clothes in order, getting my books decently
bound, and enabling me in every way to make a respectable appearance in
that new life I was about to enter on; but her grief usually overcame
her in these attempts, and she would hang in tears over the little trunk
that recalled every memory she was so soon to regard as the last traces
of her child. Biddy, who had long, for years back, ceased to torment or
annoy me, came back with an arrear of bitterness to her mockeries and
sneers. “I was going to be a lord, and I'd not know the mother that
nursed me if I saw her in the street! Fine clothes and fine treatment
was more to me than love and affection; signs on it, I was turning my
back on my own mother, and going to live with the blackguard”--she
did n't mince the word--“that left her to starve.” These neatly turned
compliments met me at every moment, and by good fortune served to arm
me with a sort of indignant courage that carried me well through all my
perils.

To spare my poor mother the pain of parting, Mr. McBride--I cannot say
how judiciously--contrived that I should be taken out for a drive
and put on board the packet bound for Holyhead, under the charge of a
courier, whom my father had sent to fetch me, to Brussels, where he was
then living. Of how I left Ireland, and journeyed on afterwards, I know
nothing; it was all confusion and turmoil. The frequent changes from
place to place, the noise, the new people, the intense haste that seemed
to pervade all that went on, addled me to that degree that I had few
collected thoughts at the time, and no memory of them afterwards.

From certain droppings of the courier, however, and his heartily
expressed joy as Brussels came in sight, I gathered that I had been
a very troublesome charge, and refractory to the very limit of actual
rebellion.




CHAPTER III. WITH MY FATHER.

At the time I speak of, my father dwelt in a villa near Brussels,
which had been built by or for Madame Malibran. It was a strange though
somewhat incongruous edifice, and more resembled a public building than
a private gentleman's residence. It stood in a vast garden, or rather
park, where fruit and forest trees abounded, and patches of flowers
came suddenly into view in most unexpected places. There were carriage
drives, too, so ingeniously managed that the visitor could be led to
believe the space ten times greater than it was in reality. The whole
inside and out savored strongly of the theatre, and every device of good
or bad taste--the latter largely predominating--had its inspiration in
the stage.

As we drove under the arched entrance gate, over which a crowned
leopard--the Norcott crest--was proudly rampant, I felt a strange throb
at my heart that proved the old leaven was still alive within me, and
that the feeling of being the son of a man of rank and fortune had a
strong root in my heart.

From the deep reverence of the gorgeous porter, who wore an embroidered
leather belt over his shoulder, to the trim propriety and order of
the noiseless avenue, all bespoke an amount of state and grandeur that
appealed very powerfully to me, and I can still recall how the
bronze lamps that served to light the approach struck me as something
wonderfully fine, as the morning's sun glanced on their crested tops.

The carriage drew up at the foot of a large flight of marble steps,
which led to a terrace covered by a long veranda.

Under, the shade of this two gentlemen sat at breakfast, both unknown
to me. “Whom have we here?” cried the elder, a fat, middle-aged man of
coarse features and stern expression,--“whom have we here?”

The younger--conspicuous by a dressing-gown and cap that glittered with
gold embroidery--looked lazily over the top of his newspaper, and said,
“That boy of Norcott's, I take it; he was to arrive to-day.”

This was the first time I heard an expression that my ears were soon to
be well familiar to, and I cannot tell how bitterly the words insulted
me. “Who were they,” I asked myself, “who, under my father's roof, could
dare so to call me! and why was I not styled Sir Roger Norcott's son,
and not thus disparagingly, 'that boy of Norcott's'?”

I walked slowly up the steps among these men as defiantly as though
there was a declared enmity between us, and was proceeding straight
towards the door, when the elder called out, “Holloa, youngster, come
here and report yourself! You 've just come, have n't you?”

“I have just come,” said I, slowly; “but when I report myself it shall
be to my father, Sir Roger Norcott.”

“You got that, Hotham, and I must say you deserved it too,” said the
younger in a low tone, which my quick hearing, however, caught.

“Will you have some breakfast with us?” said the elder, with a faint
laugh, as though he enjoyed the encounter.

“No, I thank you, sir,” said I, stiffly, and passed on into the house.

“Master Digby,” said a smart little man in black, who for a moment or
two puzzled me whether he was a guest or a servant, “may I show you to
your room, sir? Sir Roger is not up; he seldom rings for his bath before
one o'clock; but he said he would have it earlier to-day.”

“And what is your name, pray?”

“Nixon, sir. Mr. Nixon, Sir Roger is pleased to call me for distinction'
sake; the lower servants require it.”

“Tell me then, Mr. Nixon, who are the two gentlemen I saw at breakfast
outside?”

“The stoutish gentleman, sir, is Captain Hotham, of the Royal Navy;
the other, with the Turkish pipe, is Mr. Cleremont, Secretary to the
Legation here. Great friends of Sir Roger's, sir. Dine here three or
four times a week, and have their rooms always kept for them.”

The appearance of my room, into which Nixon now ushered me, went far
to restore me to a condition of satisfaction. It was the most perfect
little bedroom it is possible to imagine, and Nixon never wearied in
doing the honors of displaying it.

“Here's your library, sir. You've only to slide this mirror into the
wall; and here are all your books. This press is your armory. Sir Roger
gave the order himself for that breech-loader at Liège. This small
closet has your bath,--always ready, as you see, sir,--hot and cold; and
that knob yonder commands the shower-bath. It smells fresh of paint here
just now, sir, for it was only finished on Saturday; and the men are
coming to-day to fix a small iron staircase from your balcony down to
the garden. Sir Roger said he was sure you would like it.”

I was silent for a moment,--a moment of exquisite revery,--and then I
asked if there were always people visitors at the Villa.

“I may say, sir, indeed, next to always. We haven't dined alone since
March last.”

“How many usually come to dinner?”

“Five or seven, sir; always an odd number. Seldom more than seven, and
never above eleven, except a state dinner to some great swell going
through.”

“No ladies, of course?”

“Pardon me, sir. The Countess Vander Neeve dined here yesterday; Madam
Van Straaten, and Mrs. Cleremont--Excuse me, sir, there's Sir Roger's
bell. I must go and tell him you've arrived.”

When Nixon left me, I sat for full twenty minutes, like one walking out
of a trance, and asking myself how much was real, and how much fiction,
of all around me?

My eyes wandered over the room, and from the beautiful little Gothic
clock on the mantelpiece to the gilded pineapple from which my
bed-curtains descended,--everything seemed of matchless beauty to me.
Could I ever weary of admiring them? Would they seem to me every morning
as I awoke as tasteful and as elegant as now they appeared to me? Oh,
if dear mamma could but see them! If she but knew with what honor I
was received, would not the thought go far to assuage the grief our
separation cost her? And, last of all, came the thought, if she herself
were here to live with me, to read with me, to be my companion as she
used to be,--could life offer anything to compare with such happiness?
And why should not this be? If papa really should love me, why might I
not lead him to see to whom I owed all that made me worthy of his love?

“Breakfast is served, sir, in the small breakfast-room,” said a servant,
respectfully.

“You must show me where that is,” said I, rising to follow him.

And now we walked along a spacious corridor, and descended a splendid
stair of white marble, with gilded banisters, and across an octagon
hall, with a pyramid of flowering plants in the centre, and into a large
gallery with armor on the walls, that I wished greatly to linger over
and examine, and then into a billiard-room, and at last into the small
breakfast-parlor, where a little table was laid out, and another servant
stood in readiness to serve me.

“Mr. Eccles, sir, will be down in a moment, if you 'll be pleased to
wait for him,” said the man.

“And who is Mr. Eccles?” asked I.

“The gentleman as is to be your tutor, sir, I believe,” replied he,
timidly; “and he said perhaps you 'd make the tea, sir.”

“All right,” said I, opening the caddy, and proceeding to make myself at
home at once. “What is here?”

“Devilled kidneys, sir; and this is fried mackerel. Mr. Eccles takes
oysters; but he won't have them opened till he's down. Here he is, sir.”

The door was now flung open, and a good-looking young man, with a glass
stuck in one eye, entered, and with a cheery but somewhat affected
voice, called out,--

“Glad to see you, Digby, my boy; hope I have not starved you out waiting
for me?”

“I'm very hungry, sir, but not quite starved out,” said I, half amazed
at the style of man selected to be my guide, and whose age at most could
not be above three or four and twenty.

“You haven't seen your father yet, of course, nor won't these two hours.
Yes, Gilbert, let us have the oysters. I always begin with oysters and
a glass of sauterne; and, let me tell you, your father's sauterne is
excellent Not that I counsel _you_, however, to start with wine at
breakfast. I have n't told you that I 'm to be your tutor,” said he,
filling his glass; “and here's to our future fellowship.”

I smiled and sipped my tea to acknowledge the toast, and he went on,--

“You mustn't be afraid that I 'll lean too heavily on you, Digby,--at
least, at first. My system is, never make education a punishment.
There's nothing that a gentleman--mind, I say a gentleman--ought to
know that he cannot acquire as easily and as pleasantly as he does
field-sports. If a man has to live by his wits, he must drudge; there's
no help for it. And--But here come the oysters. Ain't they magnificent?
Let me give you one piece of instruction while the occasion serves; let
no one ever persuade you that Colchester oysters equal the Ostend. They
have neither the plumpness nor the juiciness, and still less have they
that fresh odor of the sea that gives such zest to appetite. One of
these days I shall ask you what Horace says of oysters, and where. You
never heard of Horace, eh?”

“Yes, sir; I was reading the 'Odes' when I came away.”

“And with whom, pray?”

“With mamma, sir.”

“And do you mean to say mamma knew Latin?”

“Yes, sir; she learned it to teach me. She worked far harder than I did,
and I could never come up with her.”

“Ah, yes, I see; but all that sort of learning--that irregular study--is
a thing to be grubbed up. If I were to be frank with you, Digby, I 'd
say I 'd rather have you in total ignorance than with that smattering of
knowledge a mamma's teaching is sure to imply. What had you read before
Horace?”

“'Caesar's Commentaries,' sir, an 'Æneid' of Virgil, two plays of
Terence--”

“Any Greek?--anything of Euripedes or Aristophanes, eh?” asked he,
mockingly.

“No, sir; we were to begin the New Testament after the holidays; for I
had just gone over the grammar twice.”

“With mamma, of course?”

“Yes, sir.”

He helped himself to a cutlet, and as he poured the Harvey's sauce over
it, it was plain to see that he was not thinking of what was before him,
but employed in another and different direction. After a considerable
pause he turned his eyes full upon me, and with a tone of far more
serious import than he had yet used, said, “We 're not very long
acquainted, Digby; but I have a trick of reading people through their
faces, and I feel I can trust you.” He waited for some remark from
me, but I made none, and he went on: “With an ordinary boy of your
age,--indeed, I might go farther, and say with any other boy--I 'd not
venture on the confidence I am now about to make; but a certain instinct
tells me I run no danger in trusting _you_.”

“Is it a secret, sir?”

“Well, in one sense it _is_ a secret; but why do you ask?”

“Because mamma told me to avoid secrets; to have none of my own, and
know as little as I could of other people's.”

“An excellent rule in general, but there are cases where it will not
apply: this is one of them, for here the secret touches your own family.
You are aware that papa and mamma do not live together? Don't flush up,
Digby; I 'm not going to say one word that could hurt you. It is for
your benefit--I might say for your absolute safety--that I speak now.
Your father has one of the noblest natures a man ever possessed; he is
a prince in generosity, and the very soul of honor, and, except pride,
I don't believe he has a fault. This same pride, however, leads him to
fancy he can never do wrong; indeed, he does not admit that he ever made
a mistake in his life, and, consequently, he does not readily forgive
those to whom he imputes any disasters that befall him. Your mother's
family are included in this condemned list,--I can't exactly say why;
and for the same reason, or no reason, your mother herself. You must,
therefore, take especial care that you never speak of one of these
people.”

“And mamma?”

“_Her_ name least of all. There may come a time--indeed, it is sure to
come--when this difficulty can be got over; but any imprudence now--the
smallest mistake--would destroy this chance. Of course it's very hard on
you, my poor fellow, to be debarred from the very theme you 'd like best
to dwell on; but when you know the danger--not merely danger, but the
positive certainty of mischief--a chance word might bring about, I read
you very ill, or you 'll profit by my warning.”

I bent my head to mean assent, but I could not speak.

“Papa will question you whether you have been to school, and what books
you are reading, and your answer will be, 'Never at school; had all my
lessons at home.' Not a word more, mind that, Digby. Say it now after
me, that I may see if you can be exact to a syllable.”

I repeated the words correctly, and he patted me affectionately on the
shoulder, and said,--

“You and I are sure to get on well together. When I meet with a boy,
who, besides being intelligent, is a born gentleman, I never hesitate
about treating him as my equal, save in that knowledge of life I 'm
quite ready to share with him. I don't want to be a Pope with my pupil,
and say, 'You are not to do this, or think that,' and give no reason
why. You 'll always find me ready to discuss with you, and talk over
anything that puzzles you. I was not treated in that fashion myself, and
I know well what the repressive system has cost me. You follow me, don't
you, in what I say?”

“Yes, sir; I think I understand it all.”

Whether I looked as if my words had more meaning than they expressed,
or that some sort of misgiving was working within him that he had been
hasty in his confidence, I know not; but he arose suddenly, and said, “I
must go and get a cigarette.” And with that he left me.




CHAPTER IV. THE VILLA MALIBRAN

For some hours I wandered over the house, admiring the pictures and
the bronzes and the statuettes, and the hundreds of odd knick-knacks of
taste or curiosity that filled the _salons_. The treasures of art were
all new to me, and I thought I could never weary of gazing on some grand
landscape by Both, or one of those little interiors of Dutch life by
Ostade or Mieris. It seemed to me the very summit of luxury, that all
these glorious objects should be there, awaiting as it were the eye of
him who owned them, patient slaves of his pleasure, to be rewarded
by, perhaps, a hurried glance as he passed. The tempered light, the
noiseless footsteps, as one trod the triple-piled carpet, the odor of
rich flowers everywhere, imparted a dreaminess to the sense of enjoyment
that, after long, long years, I can recall and almost revive by an
effort of memory.

I met no one as I loitered through the rooms, for I was in a part of the
house only opened on great occasions or for large receptions; and so
I strayed on, lost in wonderment at the extent and splendor of a scene
which, to my untutored senses, seemed of an actually royal magnificence.
Having reached what I believed to be the limit of the suite of rooms,
I was about to retrace my steps, when I saw that a small octagon tower
opened from an angle of the room, though no apparent doorway led into
it. This puzzle interested me at once, and I set about to resolve it,
if I might. I opened one of the windows to inspect the tower on
the outside, and saw that no stairs led up to it, nor any apparent
communication existed with the rest of the house. I bethought me of the
sliding mirror which in my own room concealed the bookcase, and set to
work to see if some similar contrivance had not been employed here; but
I searched in vain. Defeated and disappointed, I was turning away when,
passing my hand along the margin of a massive picture-frame, I touched
a small button; and as I did so, with a faint sound like a wail, the
picture moved slowly, like an opening door, and disclosed the interior
of the tower. I entered at once, my curiosity now raised to a point of
intensity to know what had been so carefully and cunningly guarded from
public view. What a blank disappointment was mine! The little room,
about nine or ten feet in diameter, contained but a few straw-bottomed
chairs, and a painted table on which a tea-service of common blue-ware
stood. A Dutch clock was on a bracket at one side of the window, and a
stuffed bird--a grouse, I believe--occupied another. A straight-backed
old sofa, covered with a vulgar chintz, stood against the wall; an open
book, with a broken fan in the leaves, to mark the place, lay on the
sofa. The book was “Paul and Virginia”. A common sheet almanac was nailed
against the wall, but over the printed columns of the months a piece of
white paper was pasted, on which, in large letters, was written “June
11, 18--. Dies infausta.”

I started. I had read that date once before in my mother's prayer-book,
and had learned it was her marriage-day. As a ray of sunlight displays
in an instant every object within its beam, I at once saw the meaning of
every detail around me. These were the humble accessories of that modest
home from which my dear mother was taken; these were the grim reminders
of the time my father desired to perpetuate as an undying sorrow. I
trembled to think what a nature I should soon be confronted with, and
how terrible must be the temper of a man whose resentments asked
for such aliment to maintain them! I stole away abashed at my own
intrusiveness, and feeling that I was rightfully punished by the misery
that overwhelmed me. How differently now did all the splendor appear to
me as I retraced my steps! how defiantly I gazed on that magnificence
which seemed to insult the poverty I had just quitted! What a contrast
to the nurtured spitefulness of his conduct was my poor mother's careful
preservation of a picture representing my father in his uniform. A badly
painted thing it was; but with enough of likeness to recall him. And
as such, in defiance of neglect and ill-usage and insult, she preserved
it,--a memorial, not of happier days, but of a time when she dreamed
of happiness to come. While I was thus thinking, seeking in my mind
comparisons between them, which certainly redounded but little to his
credit, Nixon came up to me, saying, “Oh, Master Digby, we 've been
looking for you in every direction. Sir Roger has asked over and over
why you have not been to see him; and I 'm afraid you 'll find him
displeased at your delay.”

“I 'm ready now,” said I, drily, and followed him.

My father was in his study, lying on a sofa, and cutting the leaves of
a new book as I entered; and he did not interrupt the operation to offer
me his hand.

“So, sir,” said he, calmly and coldly, “you have taken your time to
present yourself to me? Apparently you preferred making acquaintance
with the house and the grounds.”

“I am very sorry, sir,” I began; “but I did not know you had risen.
Nixon told me about one or two--”

“Indeed! I was not aware that you and Mr. Nixon had been discussing my
habits. Come nearer; nearer still. What sort of dress is this? Is it a
smock-frock you have on?”

“No, sir. It's a blouse to keep my jacket clean. I have got but one.”

“And these shoes; are they of your own making?”

“No, sir. I could n't make even as good as these.”

“You are a very poor-looking object, I must say. What was Antoine about
that he did n't, at least, make you look like a gentleman, eh? Can you
answer me that?”

“No, sir, I cannot”

“Nor I, either,” said he, sighing. “Have you been equally neglected
inside as out? Have you learned to read?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And to write?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Write my name, then, there, on that piece of paper, and let me see it.”

I drew nigh, and wrote in a fall, bold hand, Roger Norcott.

“Why not Sir Roger Norcott, boy? Why not give me my name and title too?”

“You said your name, sir, and I thought--”

“No matter what you thought. This literalism comes of home breeding,”
 muttered he to himself; “they are made truthful at the price of being
vulgar. What do you know besides reading and writing?”

“A little Latin, sir, and some French, and some German, and three books
of Euclid, and the Greek grammar--”

“There, there, that's more than enough. It will tax your tutor's
ingenuity to stub up all this rubbish, and prepare the soil for
real acquirement. I was hoping I should see you a savage: a fresh,
strong-natured impulsive savage! What I 'm to do with you, with your
little peddling knowledge of a score of things, I can't imagine. I 'd
swear you can neither ride, row, nor fence, never handled a cricket-ball
or a single-stick?”

“Quite true, sir; but I 'd like to do every one of them.”

“Of course you have been taught music?”

“Yes, sir; the piano, and a little singing.”

“That completes it,” cried he, flinging his book from him. “They 've
been preparing you for a travelling circus, while I wanted to make you
a gentleman. Mind me now, sir, and don't expect that I ever repeat my
orders to any one. What I say once I mean to be observed. Let your past
life be entirely forgotten by you,--a thing that had no reality; begin
from this day--from this very room--a new existence, which is to have
neither link nor tie to what has gone before it. The persons you will
see here, their ways, their manners, their tone, will be examples for
your imitation; copy them, not servilely nor indiscriminately, but as
you will find how their traits will blend with your own nature. Never
tell an untruth, never accept an insult without redress, be slow about
forming friendships, and where you hate, hate thoroughly. That's enough
for the present. Ask Mr. Eccles to have the kindness to take you to his
tailor and order some clothes. You must dine alone till you are suitably
dressed. After that you shall come to my table. One thing more and you
may go: don't ever approach me with tales or complaints of any one;
right yourself where you can, and where you cannot, bear your grievance
silently. You can change nothing, alter nothing, here; you are a guest,
but a guest over whom I exercise full control. If you please me, it will
be well for you; if not, you understand--it will cost me little to tell
you so. Go. Go now.” He motioned me to leave him, and I went. Straight
to my room I went, and sat down at once to write it all to mother. My
heart swelled with indignation at the way I had been received, and a
hundred times over did I say to myself that there was no poverty, no
hardship I would not face rather than buy a life of splendor on such
ignominious terms. Oh, if I could but get back again to the little home
I had quitted, how I would bless the hour that restored me to peace
of mind and self-respect! As I wrote, my indignation warmed with every
line. I found that my passion was actually mastering my reason. Better
to finish this, later on,--when I shall be cooler, thought I; and I
walked to my window and opened it. There were voices of people speaking
in the paddock below, and I leaned over the balcony and saw the two men
I had seen at breakfast, seated on rustic chairs, watching a young horse
being broken to the saddle. The well-worn ring in the grass showed that
this spot was reserved for such purposes, nor was I displeased to know
that such a source of interest lay so near to me.

“Isn't he one of your Mexicans, George?” asked Captain Hotham.

“No, sir, he's a Hungarian-bred 'un. Master calls him a Jucker, whatever
that is.”

“Plenty of action, anyhow.”

“A little too much, sir; that's his fault. He's a-comin' now, and it's
all they can do to keep him going over the park paling. Take this
one back,” said he to the groom, who was ringing a heavy-shouldered,
ungainly colt in the ring.

“You 'll not gain much credit by that animal, George,” said Cleremont,
as he lighted a cigar.

“He ain't a beauty, sir; he 's low before, and he's cow-hocked behind;
but Sir Roger says he's the best blood in Norfolk. Take care, take care,
sir! the skittish devil never knows where he 'll send his hind-legs.
Steady, Tom, don't check him: why, he's sweating as if he had been round
the two-mile course.”

The animal that called for this criticism was a dark chestnut, but so
bathed in sweat as to appear almost black. He was one of those cross
breeds between the Arab and the western blood, that gain all the beauty
of head and crest and straightly formed croup, and yet have length of
body and depth of rib denied to the pure Arab. To my thinking he was the
most perfect creature I had ever seen, and as he bounded and plunged,
there was a supple grace and pliancy about him indescribably beautiful.

George now unloosened the long reins which were attached to the heavy
surcingle, and after walking the animal two or three times round the
circle, suffered him to go free. As if astonished at his liberty, the
young creature stood still for a minute or two, and sniffed the air, and
then gave one wild bound and headlong plunge, as though he were going
straight into the earth; after which he looked timidly about him, and
then walked slowly along in the track worn by the others.

“He's far quieter than the last time I saw him,” said Hotham.

“He's gettin' more sense every day, sir,” replied George; “he don't
scratch his head with his hind-leg now, sir, and he don't throw hisself
down neither.”

“He has n't given up biting, I see,” said Cleremont.

“No, sir; and they tell me them breed never does; but it's only play,
sir.”

“I'll give you six months before you can call him fit to ride, George.”

“My name ain't Spunner, sir, if the young gent as come yesterday don't
back him in six weeks' time.”

“And is it for the boy Norcott intends him?” asked Cleremont of Hotham.

“So he told me yesterday; and though I warned him that he hadn't another
boy if that fellow should come to grief, he only said, 'If he's got _my_
blood in him, he 'll keep his saddle; and if he has n't, he had better
make room for another.'”

“Ain't he a-going beautiful now?” cried George, as the animal swung
slowly along at a gentle trot, every step of which was as measured as
clockwork.

“You 'll have to teach the youngster also, George,” said Hotham. “I 'm
sure he never backed a horse in his life.”

“Nay, sir, he rode very pretty indeed when he was six years old. I
didn't put him on a Shelty, or one of the hard-mouthed 'uns, but a nice
little lively French mare, that reared up the moment he bore hard on her
bit; so that he learned to sit on his beast without holdin' on by the
bridle.”

“He's a loutish boy,” said Cleremont to the Captain. “I 'll wager what
you like they'll not make a horseman of him.”

“Ecoles says he's a confounded pedant,” said the other; “that he wanted
to cap Horace with him at breakfast.”

“Poor Bob! that was n't exactly his line; but he 'd hold his own in
Balzac or Fred Soulié.”

“Oh, now I see what Norcott was driving at when he said, 'I wanted
the stuff to make a gentleman, and they 've sent me the germ of a
school-usher.' I said, 'Send him to sea with me. I shall be afloat in
March, and I 'll take him.'”

“Well, what answer did he make you?”

“It was n't a civil one,” said the other, gruffly. “He said, 'You
misapprehend me, Hotham. A sea-captain is only a boatswain in
epaulettes. I mean the boy to be a gentleman.'”

“And you bore that?”

“Yes. Just as well as you bore his telling you at dinner on Sunday last
that a Legation secretary was a cross between an old lady and a clerk in
the Customs.”

“A man who scatters impertinences broadcast is only known for the merits
of his cook or his cellar.”

“Both of which are excellent.”

“Shall I send him in, sir?” asked George, as he patted the young horse
and caressed him.

“Well, Eccles,” cried Hotham, as the tutor lounged lazily tip, “what do
you say to the mount they 're going to put your pupil on?”

“I wish they 'd wait a bit I shall not be ready for orders till next
spring, and I 'd rather they 'd not break his neck before February or
March.”

“Has Norcott promised you the presentation, Bob?”

“No. He can't make up his mind whether he 'll give it to me or to a
Plymouth Brother, or to that fellow that was taken up at Salford for
blasphemy, and who happens to be in full orders.”

“With all his enmity to the Established Church, I think he might be
satisfied with you,” said Cleremont.

“Very neat, and very polite too,” said Eccles; “but that this is the
Palace of Truth, I might feel nettled.”

“Is it, by Jove?” cried Hotham. “Then it must be in the summer months,
when the house is shut up. Who has got a strong cigar? These Cubans of
Norcott's have no flavor. It must be close on luncheon-time.”

“I can't join you, for I 've to go into town, and get my young bear
trimmed, and his nails cut. 'Make him presentable,' Norcott said, and
I 've had easier tasks to do.”

So saying, Eccles moved off in one direction, while Hotham and Cleremont
strolled away in another; and I was left to my own reflections, which
were not few.




CHAPTER V. A FIRST DINNER-PARTY

I was made “presentable” in due time, and on the fifth day after my
arrival made my appearance at the dinner-table. “Sit there, sir,”
 said my father, “opposite me.” And I was not sorry to perceive that an
enormous vase with flowers effectually screened me from his sight.
The post of honor thus accorded me was a sufficient intimation to my
father's guests how he intended me to be treated by them; and as they
were without an exception all hangers-on and dependants,--men who dined
badly or not at all when uninvited to his table,--they were marvellously
quick in understanding that I was to be accepted as his heir, and, after
himself, the person of most consideration there.

Besides the three individuals I have already mentioned, our party
included two foreigners,--Baron Steinmetz, an aide-de-camp of the King,
and an Italian duke, San Giovanni. The Duke sat on my father's right,
the Baron on mine. The conversation during dinner was in French, which I
followed imperfectly, and was considerably relieved on discovering that
the German spoke French with difficulty, and blundered over his genders
as hopelessly as I should have done had I attempted to talk. “Ach Gott,”
 muttered he to himself in German, “when people were seeking for a common
language, why did n't they take one that all humanity could pronounce?”

“So meine ich auch, Herr Baron,” cried I; “I quite agree with you.”

He turned towards me with a look of-positive affection, on seeing I knew
German, and we both began to talk together at once with freedom.

“What's the boy saying?” cried my father, as he caught the sounds of
some glib speech of mine. “Don't let him bore you with his bad French,
Steinmetz.”

“He is charming me with his admirable German,” said the Baron. “I can't
tell when I have met a more agreeable companion.”

This was, of course, a double flattery, for my German was very bad, and
my knowledge on any subject no better; but the fact did not diminish the
delight the praise afforded me.

“Do you know German, Digby?” asked my father.

“A little,--a very little, sir.”

“The fellow would say he knew Sanscrit if you asked him,” whispered
Hotham to Eccles; but my sharp ears overheard him.

“Come, that's better than I looked for,” said my father. “What do you
say, Eccles? Is there stuff there?”

“Plenty, Sir Roger; enough and to spare. I count on Digby to do me great
credit yet.”

“What career do you mean your son to follow?” asked the Italian, while
he nodded to me over his wine-glass in most civil recognition.

“I'll not make a sailor of him, like that sea-wolf yonder; nor a
diplomatist, like my silent friend in the corner. Neither shall he be a
soldier till British armies begin to do something better than hunt out
illicit stills and protect process-servers.”

“A politician, perhaps?”

“Certainly not, sir. There 's no credit in belonging to a Parliament
brought down to the meridian of soap-boilers and bankrupt bill-brokers.”

“There's the Church, Sir Roger,” chimed in Eccles.

“There's the Pope's Church, with some good prizes in the wheel; but your
branch, Master Bob, is a small concern, and it is trembling, besides.
No. I 'll make him none of these. It is in our vulgar passion for
money-getting we throw our boys into this or that career in life, and
we narrow to the stupid formula of some profession abilities that were
meant for mankind. I mean Digby to deal with the world; and to fit him
for the task, he shall learn as much of human nature as I can afford to
teach him.”

“Ah, there's great truth in that, very great truth; very wise and very
original too,” were the comments that ran round the board.

Excited by this theme, and elated by his success, my father went on:--

“If you want a boy to ride, you don't limit him to the quiet hackney
that neither pulls nor shies, neither bolts nor plunges; and so, if you
wish your son to know his fellow-men, you don't keep him in a charmed
circle of deans and archdeacons, but you throw him fearlessly into
contact with old debauchees like Hotham, or abandoned scamps of the
style of Cleremont,”--and here he had to wait till the laughter subsided
to add, “and, last of all, you take care to provide him with a finishing
tutor like Eccles.”

“I knew your turn was coming, Bob,” whispered Hotham; but still all
laughed heartily, well satisfied to stand ridicule themselves if others
were only pilloried with them.

When dinner was over, we sat about a quarter of an hour, not more, and
then adjourned to coffee in a small room that seemed half boudoir, half
conservatory. As I loitered about, having no one to speak to, I found
myself at last in a little shrubbery, through which a sort of labyrinth
meandered. It was a taste of the day revived from olden times, and
amazed me much by its novelty. While I was puzzling myself to find out
the path that led out of the entanglement, I heard a voice I knew at
once to be Hotham's, saying,--

“Look at that boy of Norcott's: he's not satisfied with the imbroglio
within doors, but he must go out to mystify himself with another.”

“I don't much fancy that young gentleman,” said Cleremont.

“And I only half. Bob Eccles says we have all made a precious mistake in
advising Norcott to bring him back.”

“Yet it was our only chance to prevent it. Had we opposed the plan,
he was sure to have determined on it. There's nothing for it but your
notion, Hotham; let him send the brat to sea with you.”

“Yes, I think that would do it.” And now they had walked out of earshot,
and I heard no more.

If I was not much reassured by these droppings, I was far more moved by
the way in which I came to hear them. Over and over had my dear mother
cautioned me against listening to what was not meant for me; and
here, simply because I found myself the topic, I could not resist the
temptation to learn how men would speak of me. I remembered well the
illustration by which my mother warned me as to the utter uselessness of
the sort of knowledge thus gained. She told me of a theft some visitor
had made at Abbotsford,--the object stolen being a signet-ring Lord
Byron had given to Sir Walter. The man who stole this could never
display the treasure without avowing himself a thief. He had, therefore,
taken what from the very moment of the fraud became valueless. He might
gaze on it in secret with such pleasure as his self-accusings would
permit. He might hug himself with the thought of possession; but how
could that give pleasure, or how drown the everlasting shame the mere
sight of the object must revive? So would it be, my mother said, with
him who unlawfully possessed himself of certain intelligence which he
could not employ without being convicted of the way he gained it The
lesson thus illustrated had not ceased to be remembered by me; and
though I tried all my casuistry to prove that I listened without
intention, almost without being aware of it, I was shocked and grieved
to find how soon I was forgetting the precepts she had labored so hard
to impress upon me.

She had also said, “By the same rule which would compel you to restore
to its owner what you had become possessed of wrongfully, you are bound
to let him you have accidentally overheard know to what extent you are
aware of his thoughts.”

“This much, at least, I can do,” said I: “I can tell these gentlemen
that I heard a part of their conversation.”

I walked about for nigh an hour revolving these things in my head, and
at last returned to the house. As I entered the drawing-room, I was
struck by the silence. My father, Cleremont, and the two foreigners were
playing whist at one end of the room, Hotham and Eccles were seated at
chess at another. Not a word was uttered save some brief demand of
the game, or a murmured “check,” by the chess-players. Taking my place
noiselessly beside these latter, I watched the board eagerly, to try and
acquire the moves.

“Do you understand the game?” whispered Hotham.

“No, sir,” said I, in the same cautious tone.

“I 'll show you the moves, when this party is over.” And I muttered my
thanks for the courtesy.

“This is intolerable!” cried out my father. “That confounded whispering
is far more distracting than any noise. I have lost all count of my
game. I say, Eccles, why is not that boy in bed?”

“I thought you said he might sup, Sir Roger.”

“If I did, it was because I thought he knew how to conduct himself. Take
him away at once.”

And Eccles rose, and with more kindness than I had expected from him,
said, “Come, Digby, I 'll go too, for we have both to be early risers
to-morrow.”

Thus ended my first day in public, and I have no need to say what a
strange conflict filled my head that night as I dropped off to sleep.



CHAPTER VI. HOW THE DAYS WENT OYER

If I give one day of my life, I give, with very nearly exactness, the
unbroken course of my existence. I rose very early--hours ere the rest
of the household was stirring--to work at my lessons, which Mr. Eccles
apportioned for me with a liberality that showed he had the highest
opinion of my abilities, or--as I discovered later on to be the truth--a
profound indifference about them. Thus, a hundred lines of Virgil,
thirty of Xenophon, three propositions of Euclid, with a sufficient
amount of history, geography, and logic, would be an ordinary day's
work. It is fair I should own that when the time of examination came, I
found him usually imbibing seltzer and curacoa, with a wet towel round
his head; or, in his robuster moments, practising the dumbbells to
develop his muscles. So that the interrogatories-were generally in this
wise:--

“How goes it, Digby? What of the Homer, eh?”

“'It 's Xenophon, sir.”

“'To be sure it is. I was forgetting, as a man might who had my
headache. And, by the way, Digby, why will your father give Burgundy
at supper instead of Bordeaux? Some one must surely have told him
accidentally it was a deadly poison, for he adheres to it with desperate
fidelity.”

“I believe I know my Greek, sir,” would I say, modestly, to recall him
to the theme.

“Of course you do; you'd cut a sorry figure here this morning if
you did not know it. No, sir; I 'm not the man to enjoy your father's
confidence, and take his money, and betray my trust His words to me
were, 'Make him a gentleman, Eccles. I could find scores of fellows to
cram him with Greek particles and double equations, but I want the man
who can turn out the perfect article,--the gentleman.' Come now, what
relations subsisted between Cyrus and Xenophon?”

“Xenophon coached him, sir.”

“So he did. Just strike a light for me. My head is splitting for want of
a cigar. You may have a cigarette too. I don't object Virgil we'll keep
till to-morrow. Virgil was a muff, after all. Virgil was a decentish
sort of Martin Tupper, Digby. He had no wit, no repartee, no smartness;
he prosed about ploughs and shepherds, like a maudlin old squire; or he
told a very shady sort of anecdote about Dido, which I always doubted
should be put into the hands of youth. Horace is free, too, a thought
too free; but he could n't help it. Horace lived the same kind of life
we do here, a species of roast-partridge and pretty woman sort of life;
but then he was the gentleman always. If old Flaccus had lived now,
he'd have been pretty much like Bob Eccles, and putting in his divinity
lectures perhaps. By the way, I hope your father won't go and give
away that small rectory in Kent. 'We who live to preach, must preach
to live.' That is n't exactly the line, but it will do. Pulvis et umbra
sumus, Digby; and take what care we may of ourselves, we must go back,
as the judges say, to the place from whence we came. There, now, you 've
had classical criticism, sound morality, worldly wisdom, and the rest
of it; and, with your permission, we'll pack up the books, and stand
prorogued till--let me see--Saturday next.”

Of course I moved no amendment, and went my way rejoicing.

From that hour I was free to follow my own inclinations, which usually
took a horsey turn; and as the stable offered several mounts, I very
often rode six hours a day. Hotham was always to be found in the
pistol-gallery about four of an afternoon, and I usually joined him
there, and speedily became more than his match.

“Well, youngster,” he would say, when beaten and irritable, “I can beat
your head off at billiards, anyhow.”

But I was not long in robbing him of even this boast, and in less than
three months I could defy the best player in the house. The fact was,
I had in a remarkable degree that small talent for games of every kind
which is a speciality with certain persons. I could not only learn a
game quickly, but almost always attain considerable skill in it.

“So, sir,” said my father to me one day at dinner,--and nothing was more
rare than for him to address a word to me, and I was startled as he did
so,--“so, sir, you are going to turn out an Admirable Crichton on my
hands, it seems. I hear of nothing but your billiard-playing, your
horsemanship, and your cricketing, while Mr. Eccles tells me that your
progress with him is equally remarkable.”

He stopped and seemed to expect me to make some rejoinder; but I could
not utter a word, and felt overwhelmed at the observation and notice his
speech had drawn upon me.

“It's better I should tell you at once,” resumed my father, “that I
dislike prodigies. I dislike because I distrust them. The fellow who
knows at fourteen what he might reasonably have known at thirty is not
unlikely to stop short at fifteen and grow no more. I don't wish to be
personal, but I have heard it said Cleremont was a very clever boy.”

The impertinence of this speech, and the laughter it at once excited,
served to turn attention away from me; but, through the buzz and murmur
around, I overheard Cleremont say to Hotham, “I shall pull him up short
one of these days, and you 'll see an end of all this.”

“Now,” continued my father, “if Eccles had told me that the boy was a
skilful hand at sherry-cobbler, or a rare judge of a Cuban cigar, I
'd have reposed more faith in the assurance than when he spoke of his
classics.”

“He ain't bad at a gin-sling with bitters, that I must say,” said
Eccles, whose self-control or good-humor, or mayhap some less worthy
trait, always carried him successfully over a difficulty.

“So, sir,” said my father, turning again on me, “the range of your
accomplishments is complete. You might be a tapster or a jockey. When
the nobility of France came to ruin in the Revolution, the best blood of
the kingdom became barbers and dancing-masters: so that when some fine
morning that gay gentleman yonder will discover that he is a beggar,
he 'll have no difficulty in finding a calling to suit his tastes, and
square with his abilities. What's Hotham grumbling about? Will any one
interpret him for me?”

“Hotham is saying that this claret is corked,” said the sea-captain,
with a hoarse loud voice.

“Bottled at home!” said my father, “and, like your own education,
Hotham, spoiled for a beggarly economy.”

“I 'm glad you 've got it,” muttered Cleremont, whose eyes glistened
with malignant spite. “I have had enough of this; I 'm for coffee,” and
he arose as he spoke.

“Has Cleremont left us?” asked my father.

“Yes; that last bottle has finished him. I told you before, Nixon knows
nothing about wine. I saw that hogshead lying bung up for eight weeks
before it was drawn off for bottling.”

“Why didn't you speak to him about it, then?”

“And be told that I'm not his master, eh? You don't seem to know,
Norcott, that you 've got a houseful of the most insolent servants in
Christendom. Cleremont's wife wanted the chestnuts yesterday in the
phaeton, and George refused her: she might take the cobs, or nothing.”

“Quite true,” chimed in Eccles; “and the fellow said, 'I 'm a-taking
the young horses out in the break, and if the missis wants to see the
chestnuts, she'd better come with _me_.'**

“And as to a late breakfast now, it's quite impossible; they delay and
delay till they run you into luncheon,” growled Hotham.

“They serve me my chocolate pretty regularly,” said my father,
negligently, and he arose and strolled out of the room. As he went, he
slipped his arm within mine, and said, in a half-whisper, “I suppose it
will come to this,--I shall have to change my friends or my household.
Which would you advise?”

“I 'd say the friends, sir.”

“So should I, but that they would not easily find another place. There,
go and see is the billiard-room lighted. I want to see you play a game
with Cleremont.”

Cleremont was evidently sulking under the sarcasm passed on him, and
took up his cue to play with a bad grace.

“Who will have five francs on the party?” said my father. “I 'm going to
back the boy.”

“Make it pounds, Norcott,” said Hotham.

“I'll give you six to five, in tens,” said Cleremont to my father. “Will
you take it?”

I was growing white and red by turns all this time. I was terrified at
the thought that money was to be staked on my play, and frightened by
the mere presence of my father at the table.

“The youngster is too nervous to play. Don't let him, Norcott,” said
Hotham, with a kindness I had not given him credit for.

“Give me the cue, Digby; I 'll take your place,” said my father; and
Cleremont and Hotham both drew nigh, and talked to him in a low tone.

“Eight and the stroke then be it,” said my father, “and the bet in
fifties.” The others nodded, and Cleremont began the game.

I could not have believed I could have suffered the amount of intense
anxiety that game cost me. Had my life been on the issue, I do not think
I could have gone through greater alternations of hope and fear than now
succeeded in my heart Cleremont started with eight points odds, and made
thirty-two off the balls before my father began to play. He now took his
place, and by the first stroke displayed a perfect mastery of the game.
There was a sort of languid grace, an indolent elegance about all he
did, that when the stroke required vigor or power made me tremble for
the result; but somehow he imparted the exact amount of force needed,
and the balls moved about here and there as though obedient to some
subtle instinct of which the cue gave a mere sign. He scored forty-two
points in a few minutes, and then drawing himself up, said, “There 's an
eight-stroke now on the table. I 'll give any one three hundred Naps to
two that I do it.”

None spoke. “Or I 'll tell you what I 'll do. I 'll take fifty from each
of you and draw the game!” Another as complete silence ensued. “Or here
's a third proposition, Give me fifty between you, and I 'll hand over
the cue to the boy; he shall finish the game.”

“Oh, no, sir! I beg you--I entreat--” I began; but already, “Done,” had
been loudly uttered by both together, and the bet was ratified.

“Don't be nervous, boy,” said my father, handing me his cue. “You see
what's on the balls. You cannon and hold the white, and land the red in
the middle pocket. If you can't do the brilliant thing, and finish the
game with an eight stroke, do the safe one,--the cannon or the hazard.
But, above all, don't lose your stroke, sir. Mind that, for I've a pot
of money on the game.”

“I don't think you ought to counsel him, Norcott,” said Cleremont. “If
he's a player, he's fit to devise his own game.”

“Oh, hang it, no,” broke in Hotham; “Norcott has a perfect right to tell
him what's on the table.”

“If you object seriously, sir,” said my father proudly, “the party is at
an end.”

“I put it to yourself,” began Cleremont.

“You shall not appeal to me against myself, sir. You either withdraw
your objection, or you maintain it.”

“Of course he withdraws it,” said Hotham, whose eyes never wandered from
my father's face.

Cleremont nodded a half-unwilling assent.

“You will do me the courtesy to speak, perhaps,” said my father; and
every word came from him with a tremulous roll.

“Yes, yes, I agree. There was really nothing in my remark,” said
Cleremont, whose self-control seemed taxed to its last limit.

“There, go on, boy, and finish this stupid affair,” said my father, and
he turned to the chimney to light his cigar.

I leaned over the table, and a mist seemed to rise before me. I saw
volumes of cloud rolling swiftly across, and meteors, or billiard-balls,
I knew not which, shooting through them. I played and missed; I did
not even strike a ball. A wild roar of laughter, a cry of joy, and a
confused blending of several voices in various tones followed, and
I stood there like one stunned into immobility. Meanwhile Cleremont
finished the game, and, clapping me gayly on the shoulder, cried, “I 'm
more grateful to you than your father is, my lad. That shaking hands of
yours has made a difference of two hundred Naps to me.” I turned towards
the fire; my father had left the room.




CHAPTER VII. A PRIVATE AUDIENCE

I had but reached my room when Eccles followed me to say my father
wished to see me at once.

“Come, come, Digby,” said Eccles, good-naturedly, “don't be frightened.
Even if he should be angry with you, his passion passes soon over;
and, if uncontradicted, he is never disposed to bear a grudge long. Go
immediately, however, and don't keep him waiting.”

I cannot tell with what a sense of abasement I entered my father's
dressing-room; for, after all, it was the abject condition of my own
mind that weighed me down.

“So, sir,” said he, as I closed the door, “this is something I was not
prepared for. You might be forty things, but I certainly did not suspect
that a son of mine should be a coward.”

Had my father ransacked his whole vocabulary for a term of insult, he
could pot have found one to pain me like this.

“I am not a coward, sir,” said I, reddening till I felt my face in a
perfect glow.

“What!” cried he, passionately; “are you going to give me a proof of
courage by daring to outrage _me?_ Is it by sending back my words in my
teeth you assume to be brave?”

“I ask pardon, sir,” said I, humbly, “if I have replied rudely; but you
called me by a name that made me forget myself. I hope you will forgive
me.”

“Sit down, there, sir; no, there.” And he pointed to a more distant
chair. “There are various sorts and shades of cowardice, and I would
not have you tarnished with any one of them. The creature whose first
thought, and indeed only one, in an emergency is his personal safety,
and who, till that condition is secured, abstains from all action, is
below contempt; him I will not even consider. But next to him--of
course with a long interval--comes the fellow who is so afraid of a
responsibility that the very thought of it unmans him. How did the fact
of my wager come to influence you at all, sir? Why should you have had
any thought but for the game you were playing, and how it behoved you
to play it? How came I and these gentlemen to stand between you and your
real object, if it were not that a craven dread of consequences had
got the ascendancy in your mind? If men were to be beset by these
calculations, if every fellow carried about him an armor of sophistry
like this, he 'd have no hand free to wield a weapon, and the world
would see neither men who storm a breach nor board an enemy. Till a man
can so isolate and concentrate his faculties on what he has to do that
all extraneous conditions cease to affect him, he will never be well
served by his own powers; and he who is but half served is only half
brave. There are times when the unreasoners are worth all the men of
logic, remember that. And now go and sleep over it.”

He motioned me to withdraw, but I could not bear to go till he had
withdrawn the slur he had cast on me in the word coward. He looked at me
steadfastly, but not harshly, for a moment or two, and then said,--

“You are not to think that it is out of regret for a lost sum of money I
have read you this lecture. As to the wager itself, I am as well pleased
that it ended as it did. These gentlemen are not rich, either of them. I
can afford the loss. What I cannot afford is the way I lost it.”

“But will you not say, sir, that I am no coward?” said I, faltering.

“I will withdraw the word,” said he, slowly, “the very first time I
shall see you deal with a difficulty without a thought for what it may
cost you. There; good-night; leave me now. I mean to have a ride with
you in the morning.”

And he nodded twice, and smiled, and dismissed me.

There was nothing, certainly, very flattering to me in this reception.
It cost me dearly while it lasted, and yet--I cannot explain why--I came
away with a feeling of affection for my father, and a desire to stand
well in his esteem, such as I had not experienced till that moment. It
was his utter indifference up to this that had chilled and repelled me.
Any show of interest, anything that might evidence that he cared what I
was or what I might become, was so much better than this apathy that I
welcomed the change with delight. Accustomed to the tender solicitude of
a loving mother, no niggard of her praise, and more given to sympathize
than blame, the stern reserve of my father's manner had been a terrible
reverse, and over and over had I asked myself why he took me from where
I was loved and cherished, to live this life of ceremonious observance
and cold deference.

To know that he felt even such interest in me as this, was to restore me
to self-esteem at once. He would not have his son a coward, he said;
and as I felt in my heart that I was not a coward, as I knew I was ready
then and there to confront any peril he could propose to me, all that
the speech left in my memory was a sense of self-satisfaction.

In each of the letters I had received from my mother she impressed on me
how important it was that I should win my father's affection, and now a
hope flashed across me that I might do this. I sat down to tell her all
that had passed between us; but somehow, in recounting the incident of
the billiard-room, I wandered away into a description of the house, its
splendors and luxury, and of the life of costly pleasure that we were
living. “You will ask, dearest mamma,” I wrote, “how and when I find
time to study amidst all these dissipations? and I grieve to own that I
do very little. Mr. Eccles says he is satisfied with me; but I fear it
is more because I obtrude little on his notice than that I am making any
progress. We are still in the same scene of the Adrian that I began
with you; and as to the Greek, we leave it over for Saturdays, and the
Saturdays get skipped. I have become a good shot with the rifle; and
George says I have the finest, lightest hand he knows on a horse, and
that he 'll make me yet a regular steeple-chase horseman. I have a
passion for riding, and sometimes get four mounts on a day. Indeed, papa
takes no interest in the stable, and I give all the orders, and can have
a team harnessed for me--which I do--when I am tired with the saddle.
They have not quite given up calling me 'that boy of Norcott's;' only
now, when they do so, it is to say how well he rides, and what a taste
he shows for driving and shooting.

“Don't be afraid that I am neglecting my music. I play every day, and
take singing lessons with an Italian: they call him the Count Guastalla;
but I believe he is the tenor of the opera here, and only teaches me out
of compliment to papa. He dines here nearly every day, and plays piquet
with papa all the evening.

“There is a very beautiful lady comes here,--Madame Cleremont. She is
the wife of the Secretary to the Legation. She is French, and has
such pleasing ways, and is so gay, and so good-natured, and so fond of
gratifying me in every way, that I delight in being with her; and we
ride out together constantly, and I am now teaching her to drive the
ponies, and she enjoys it just as I used myself. I don't think papa
likes her, for he seldom speaks to her, and never takes her in to dinner
if there is another lady in the room; and I suspect she feels this,
for she is often very sad. I dislike Mr. Cleremont; he is always saying
snappish things, and is never happy, no matter how merry we are. But
papa seems to like him best of all the people here. Old Captain Hotham
and I are great friends, though he's always saying, 'You ought to be at
sea, youngster. This sort of life will only make a blackleg of you.'
But I can't make out why, because I am very happy and have so much to
interest and amuse me, I must become a scamp. Mdme. Cleremont says, too,
it is not true; that papa is bringing me up exactly as he ought, that I
will enter life as a gentleman, and not be passing the best years of
my existence in learning the habits of the well-bred world. They fight
bitterly over this every day; but she always gets the victory, and then
kisses me, and says, 'Mon cher petit Digby, I 'll not have you spoiled,
to please any vulgar prejudice of a tiresome old sea-captain,' This she
whispers, for she would not offend him for anything. Dear mamma, how you
would love her if you knew her! I believe I 'm to go to Rugby to school;
but I hope not, for how I shall live like a schoolboy after all this
happiness I don't know; and Mdme. Cleremont says she will never permit
it; but she has no influence over papa, and how could she prevent it?
Captain Hotham is always saying, 'If Norcott does not send that boy
to Harrow or Rugby, or some of these places, he 'll graduate in the
Marshalsea--that's a prison--before he's twenty.' I am so glad when a
day passes without my being brought up for the subject of a discussion,
which papa always ends with, 'After all I was neither an Etonian nor
Rugbeian, and I suspect I can hold my own with most men; and if that boy
doesn't belie his breeding, perhaps he may do so too.'

“Nobody likes contradicting papa, especially when he says anything in a
certain tone of voice, and whenever he uses this, the conversation turns
away to something else.

“I forgot to say in my last, that your letters always come regularly.
They arrive with papa's, and he sends them up to me at once, by
his valet, Mons. Durand, who is always so nicely dressed, and has a
handsomer watch-chain than papa.

“Mdme. Cleremont said yesterday: 'I'm so sorry not to know your dear
mamma, Digby: but if I dared, I'd send her so many caresses, _de ma
part_.' I said nothing at the time, but I send them now, and am your
loving son,

“Digby Norcott.”


This letter was much longer than it appears here. It filled several
sides of note-paper, and occupied me till daybreak. Indeed, I heard the
bell ringing for the workmen as I closed it, and shortly after a gentle
tap came to my door, and George Spunner, our head groom, entered.

“I saw you at the window, Master Digby,” said he, “and I thought I'd
step up and tell you not to ride in spurs this morning. Sir Roger wants
to see you on May Blossom, and you know she's a hot 'un, sir, and don't
want the steel. Indeed, if she feels the boot, she's as much as a man
can do to sit.”

“You 're a good fellow, George, to think of this,” said I. “Do you know
where we 're going?”

“That's what I was going to tell you, sir. We are going to the Bois de
Cambre, and there's two of our men gone on with hurdles, to set them up
in the cross alleys of the wood, and we 're to come on 'em unawares, you
see.”

“Then why don't you give me Father Tom or Hunger-ford?”

“The master would n't have either. He said, 'A child of five years old
could ride the Irish horse;' and as for Hungerford, he calls him a
circus horse.”

“But who knows if Blossom will take a fence?”

“I'll warrant she'll go high enough; how she'll come down, and where,
is another matter. Only don't you go a-pullin' at her, ride her in the
snaffle, and as light as you can. Face her straight at what she's got to
go over, and let her choose her own pace.”

“I declare I don't see how this is a fair trial of my riding, George. Do
you?”

“Well, it is, and it isn't,” said he, scratching his head. “You might
have a very tidy hand and a nice seat, and not be able to ride the mare;
but then, sir, you see, if you have the judgment to manage her coolly,
and not rouse her temper too far, if you can bring her to a fence, and
make her take off at a proper distance, and fly it, never changing her
stride nor balk, why then he'll see you can ride.”

“And if she rushes, or comes with her chest to a bank, or if--as I think
she will--she refuses her fence, rears, and falls back, what then?”

“Then I think the mornin's sport will be pretty nigh over,” growled he;
as though I had suggested something personally offensive to him.

“What time do we go, George?”

“Sir Roger said seven, sir, but that will be eight or half-past. He's to
drive over to the wood, and the horses are to meet him there.”

“All right. I'll take a short sleep and be sharp to time.”

As he left the room, I tore open my letter, to add a few words. I
thought I'd say something that, if mischance befell me, might be a
comfort to my dear mother to read over and dwell on, but for the life of
me I did not know how to do it, without exciting alarm or awakening her
to the dread of some impending calamity. Were I to say, I 'm off for a
ride with papa, it meant nothing; and if I said, I 'm going to show
him how I can manage a very hot horse, it might keep her in an agony of
suspense till I wrote again.

So I merely added, “I intend to write to you very soon again, and hope
I may do so within the week.” These few commonplace words had a great
meaning to my mind, however little they might convey to her I wrote
them to; and as I read them over, I stored them with details supplied by
imagination,--details so full of incident and catastrophe that they made
a perfect story. After this I lay down and slept heavily.




CHAPTER VIII. A DARK-ROOM PICTURE.

Mr next letter to my mother was very short, and ran thus:--

“Dearest Mamma,--Don't be shocked at my bad writing, for I had a fall on
Tuesday last, and hurt my arm a little; nothing broken, but bruised
and sore to move, so that I lie on my bed and read novels. Madame never
leaves me, but sits here to put ice on my shoulder and play chess with
me. She reads out Balzac for me, and I don't know when I had such a
jolly life. It was a rather big hurdle, and the mare took it sideways,
and caught her hind leg,--at least they say so,--but we came down
together, and she rolled over me. Papa cried out well done, for I did
not lose my saddle, and he has given me a gold watch and a seal with the
Norcott crest. Every one is so kind; and Captain Hotham comes up after
dinner and tells me all the talk of the table, and we smoke and have our
coffee very nicely.

“Papa comes every night before supper, and is very good to me. He says
that Blossom is now my own, but I must teach her to come cooler to her
fences. I can't write more, for my pain comes back when I stir my arm.
You shall hear of me constantly, if I cannot write myself.

“Oh, dearest mamma, when papa is kind there is no one like him,--so
gentle, so thoughtful, so soft in manner, and so dignified all the
while. I wish you could see him as he stood here. A thousand loves from
your own boy,

“DIGBY.”

Madame Cleremont wrote by the same post. I did not see her letter; but
when mamma's answer came I knew it must have been a serious version of
my accident, and told how, besides a dislocated shoulder, I had got
a broken collar-bone, and two ribs fractured. With all this, however,
there was no danger to life; for the doctor said everything had gone
luckily, and no internal parts were wounded.

Poor mamma had added a postscript that puzzled Madame greatly, and she
came and showed it to me, and asked what I thought she could do about
it. It was an entreaty that she might be permitted to come and see me.
There was a touching humility in the request that almost choked me with
emotion as I read it. “I could come and go unknown and unnoticed,” wrote
she. “None of Sir Roger's household have ever seen me, and my visit
might pass for the devotion of some old follower of the family, and
I will promise not to repeat it.” She urged her plea in the most
beseeching terms, and said that she would submit to any conditions if
her prayer were only complied with.

“I really do not know what to do here,” said Madame to me. “Without
your father's concurrence this cannot be done; and who is to ask him for
permission?”

“Shall I?”

“No, no, no,” cried she, rapidly. “Such a step on your part would be
ruin; a certain refusal, and ruin to yourself.”

“Could Mr. Eccles do it?”

“He has no influence whatever.”

“Has Captain Hotham?”

“Less, if less be possible.”

“Mr. Cleremont, then?”

“Ah, yes, he might, and with a better chance of success; but--” She
stopped, and though I waited patiently, she did not finish her sentence.

“But what?” asked I at last.

“Gaston hates doing a hazardous thing,” said she; and I remarked that
her expression changed, and her face assumed a hard, stern look as she
spoke. “His theory is, do nothing without three to one in your favor. He
says you 'll always gets these odds, if you only wait.”

“But you don't believe that,” cried I, eagerly.

“Sometimes--very seldom, that is, I do not whenever I can help it.”
 There was a long pause now, in which neither of us spoke. At last she
said, “I can't aid your mother in this project. She must give it up.
There is no saying how your father would resent it.”

“And how will you tell her that?” faltered I out.

“I can't tell. I'll try and show her the mischief it might bring upon
you; and that now, standing high, as you do, in your father's favor, she
would never forgive herself, if she were the cause of a change towards
you. This consideration will have more weight with her than any that
could touch herself personally.”

“But it shall not,” cried I, passionately. “Nothing in _my_ fortune
shall stand between my mother and her love for me.”

She bent down and looked at me with an intensity in her stare that I
cannot describe; it was as if, by actual steadfastness, she was able to
fix me, and read me in my inmost heart.

“From which of your parents, Digby,” said she, slowly, “do you derive
this nature?”

“I do not know; papa always says I am very like him.”

“And do you believe that papa is capable of great self-sacrifice? I
mean, would he let his affections lead him against his interests?”

“That he would! He has told me over and over the head is as often wrong
as right,--the heart only errs about once in five times.” She fell on
my neck and kissed me as I said this, with a sort of rapturous delight.
“Your heart will be always right, dear boy,” said she; once more she
bent down and kissed me, and then hurried away.

This scene must have worked more powerfully on my nerves than I felt,
or was aware of, while it was passing; at all events, it brought back my
fever, and before night I was in wild delirium. Of the seven long weeks
that followed, with all their alternations, I know nothing. My first
consciousness was to know myself, as very weak and propped by pillows,
in a half-darkened room, in which an old nurse-tender sat and mingled
her heavy snorings with the ticking of the clock on the chimney. Thus
drowsily pondering, with a debilitated brain, I used to fancy that I had
passed away into another form of existence, in which no sights or sounds
should come but these dreary breathings, and that remorseless ticking
that seemed to be spelling out “eternity.”

Sometimes one, sometimes two or three persons would enter the room,
approach the bed, and talk together in whispers, and I would languidly
lift up my eyes and look at them, and though I thought they were not
altogether unknown to me, the attempt at recognition would have been
an effort so full of pain that I would, rather than make it, fall back
again into apathy. The first moment of perfect consciousness--when I
could easily follow all that I heard, and remember it afterwards--was
one evening, when a faint but delicious air came in through the open
window, and the rich fragrance of the garden filled the room. Captain
Hotham and the doctor were seated on the balcony smoking and chatting.

“You 're sure the tobacco won't be bad for him?” asked Hotham.

“Nothing will be bad or good now,” was the answer. “Effusion has set
in.”

“Which means, that it's all over, eh?”

“About one in a thousand, perhaps, rub through. My own experience
records no instance of recovery.”

“And you certainly did not take such a gloomy view of his case at first.
You told me that there were no vital parts touched?”

“Neither were there; the ribs had suffered no displacement, and as for
a broken clavicle, I 've known a fellow get up and finish his race after
it This boy was doing famously. I don't know that I ever saw a case
going on better, when some of them here--it's not easy to say whom--sent
off for his mother to come and see him. Of course, without Norcott's
knowledge. It was a rash thing to do, and not well done either; for when
the woman arrived, there was no preparation made, either with the boy or
herself, for their meeting; and the result was that when she crossed the
threshold and saw him she fainted away. The youngster tried to get to
her and fainted too; a great hubbub and noise followed; and Norcott
himself appeared. The scene that ensued must have been, from what I
heard, terrific. He either ordered the woman out of the house, or he
dragged her away,--it's not easy to say which; but it is quite clear
that he went absolutely mad with passion: some say that he told them
to pack off the boy along with her, but, of course, this was sheer
impossibility; the boy was insensible, and has been so ever since.”

“I was at Namur that day, but they told me when I came back that
Cleremont's wife had behaved so well; that she had the courage to face
Norcott; and though I don't believe she did much by her bravery, she
drove him off the field to his own room, and when his wife did leave the
house for the railroad, it was in one of Norcott's carriages, and Madame
herself accompanied her.”

“Is she his wife? that's the question.”

“There's not a doubt of it. Blenkworth of the Grays was at the wedding.

“If I were to be examined before a commission of lunacy to-morrow,” said
the doctor, solemnly, “I 'd call that man insane.”

“And you'd shut him up?”

“I'd shut him up!”

“Then I 'm precious glad you are not called on to give an opinion, for
you 'd shut up the best house in this quarter of Europe.”

“And what security have you any moment that he won't make a clean sweep
of it, and turn you all into the streets?”

“Yes; that's on the cards any day.”

“He must have got through almost everything he had; besides, I never
heard his property called six thousand a year, and I 'll swear twelve
wouldn't pay his way here.”

“What does he care! His father and he agreed to cut off the entail; and
seeing the sort of marriage he made, he 'll not fret much at leaving the
boy a beggar.”

“But he likes him; if there's anything in the world he cares for, it's
that boy!”

The other must have made some gesture of doubt or dissent, for the
doctor quickly added, “No, no, I 'm right about that. It was only
yesterday morning he said to me with a shake in the voice there's
no mistaking, 'If you can come and tell me, doctor, that he's out of
danger, I 'll give you a thousand pounds.'”

“Egad, I think I 'd have done it, even though I might have made a
blunder.”

“Ye 're no a doctor, sir, that's plain;” and in the emotion of the
moment he spoke the words with a strong Scotch accent.

There was a silence of some minutes, and Hotham said, “That little
Frenchwoman and I have no love lost between us, but I 'm glad she cut up
so well.”

“They 're strange natures, there 's no denying it They 'll do less from
duty and more from impulse than any people in the world, and they 're
never thoroughly proud of themselves except when they 're all wrong.”

“That's a neat character for Frenchwomen,” said Hotham, laughing.

“I think Norcott will be looking out for his whist by this time,” said
the other; and they both arose, and passing noiselessly through the
room, moved away.

I had enough left me to think over, and I did think over it till I fell
asleep.




CHAPTER IX. MADAME CLEREMONT

From that day forth I received no tidings of my mother. Whether my own
letters reached her or not, I could not tell; and though I entreated
Madame Cleremont, who was now my confidante in everything, to aid me in
learning where my mother was, she declared that the task was beyond
her; and at last, as time went over, my anxieties became blunted and my
affections dulled. The life I was leading grew to have such a hold upon
me, and was so full of its own varied interests, that--with shame I say
it--I actually forgot the very existence of her to whom I owed any trace
of good or honest or truthful that was in me.

The house in which I was living was a finishing school for every sort
of dissipation, and all who frequented it were people who only lived for
pleasure. Play of the highest kind went on unceasingly, and large sums
were bandied about from hand to hand as carelessly as if all were men of
fortune and indifferent to heavy losses.

A splendid mode of living, sumptuous dinners, a great retinue, and
perfect liberty to the guests, drew around us that class who, knowing
well that they have no other occupation than self-indulgence, throw an
air of languid elegance over vice, which your vulgar sinner, who has
only intervals of wickedness, knows nothing of; and this, be it said
passingly, is, of all sections of society, the most seductive and
dangerous to the young: for there are no outrages to taste amongst these
people, they violate no decencies, they shock no principles. If they
smash the tables of the law, it is in kid-gloves, and with a delicious
odor of Ess bouquet about them. The Cleremonts lived at the Villa.
Cleremont managed the household, and gave the orders for everything.
Madame received the company, and did the honors; my father lounging
about like an unoccupied guest, and actually amused, as it seemed, by
his own unimportance. Hotham had gone to sea; but Eccles remained, in
name, as my tutor; but we rarely met, save at meal-times, and his manner
to me was almost slavish in subserviency, and with a habit of flattery
that, even young as I was, revolted me.

“Isn't that your charge, Eccles?” I once heard an old gentleman ask him;
and he replied, “Yes, my Lord; but Madame Cleremont has succeeded me. It
is _she_ is finishing him.”

And they both laughed heartily at the joke. There was, however, this
much of truth in the speech, that I lived almost entirely in her
society. We sang together; she called me Cherubino, and taught me all
the page's songs in Mozart or Rossini; and we rode out together, or
read or walked in company. Nor was her influence over me such as might
effeminate me. On the contrary, it was ever her aim to give me manly
tastes and ambitions. She laid great stress on my being a perfect
swordsman and a pistol-shot, over and over telling me that a conscious
skill in arms gives a man immense coolness in every question of
difference with other men; and she would add, “Don't fall into that John
Bull blunder of believing that duelling is gone out because they dislike
the practice in England. The world is happily larger than the British
Islands.”

Little sneers like this at England, sarcasms on English prudery, English
reserve, or English distrustfulness, were constantly dropping from her,
and I grew up to believe that while genuine sentiment and unselfish
devotion lived on one side of the Channel, a decorous hypocrisy had its
home on the other.

Now she would contrast the women 'of Balzac's novels with the colder
nonentities of English fiction; and now she would dwell on traits of
fascination in the sex which our writers either did not know of or were
afraid to touch on. “It is entirely the fault of your Englishwomen,” she
would say, “that the men invariably fall victims to foreign seductions.
Circe always sings with a bronchitis in the North;” and though I but
dimly saw what she pointed at then, I lived to perceive her meaning more
fully.

As for my father, I saw little of him, but in that little he was always
kind and good-natured with me. He would quiz me about my lessons, as
though I were the tutor, and Ecoles the pupil; and ask me how he got
on with his Aristophanes or his Homer? He talked to me freely about the
people who came to the house, and treated me almost as an equal.
All this time he behaved to Madame with a reserve that was perfectly
chilling, so that it was the rarest thing in the world for the three of
us to be together.

“I don't think you like papa,” said I once to her, in an effusion of
confidence. “I am sure you don't like him!”

“And why do you think so?” asked she, with the faintest imaginable flush
on her pale cheek.

While I was puzzling myself what to answer, she said,--

“Come now, Cherubino, what you really meant to say was, I don't think
papa likes _you!_”

Though I never could have made so rude a speech, its truth and force
struck me so palpably that I could not answer.

“Well,” cried she, with a little laugh, “he is very fond of Monsieur
Cleremont, and that ought always to be enough for Madame Cleremont. Do
you know, Cherubino, it's the rarest thing in life for a husband and
wife to be liked by the same people? There is in conjugal life some
beautiful little ingredient of discord that sets the two partners to the
compact at opposite poles, and gives them separate followings. I must
n't distract you with the theory, I only want you to see why liking my
husband is sufficient reason for not caring for me.”

Now, as I liked her exceedingly, and felt something very near to hatred
for Monsieur Cleremont, I accepted all she said as incontestable truth.
Still I grieved over the fact that papa was not of my own mind, and did
not see her and all her fascinations as I did.

There is something indescribably touching in the gentle sadness of
certain buoyant bright natures. Like the low notes in a treble voice,
there is that that seems to vibrate in our hearts at a most susceptible
moment, and with the force of an unforeseen contrast; and it was thus
that, in her graver times, she won over me an ascendancy, and inspired
an interest which, had I been other than a mere boy, had certainly been
love.

Perhaps I should not have been even conscious, as I was of this
sentiment, if it were not for the indignation I felt at Cleremont's
treatment of her. Over and over again my temper was pushed to its last
limit by his brutality and coarseness. His tone was a perpetual sneer,
and his wife seldom spoke before him without his directing towards her
a sarcasm or an impertinence. This was especially remarkable if she
uttered any sentiment at all elevated, when his banter would be ushered
in with a burst of derisive laughter.

Nothing could be more perfect than the way she bore these trials. There
was no assumed martyrdom, no covert appeal for sympathy, no air of
suffering asking for protection. No! whether it came as ridicule or
rebuke, she accepted it gently and good-humoredly; trying, when she
could, to turn it off with a laugh, or when too grave for that, bearing
it with quiet forbearance.

I often wondered why my father did not check these persecutions, for
they were such, and very cruel ones too; but he scarcely seemed to
notice them, or if he did, it would be by a smile, far more like
enjoyment of Cleremont's coarse wit than reprehending or reproving it.

“I wonder how that woman stands it?” I once overheard Hotham say to
Eccles; and the other replied,--

“I don't think she _does_ stand it. I mistake her much if she is as
forgiving as she looks.”

Why do I recall these things? Why do I dwell on incidents and passages
which had no actual bearing on my own destiny? Only because they serve
to show the terrible school in which I was brought up; the mingled
dissipation, splendor, indolence, and passion in which my boyhood was
passed. Surrounded by men of reckless habits, and women but a mere shade
better, life presented itself to me as one series of costly pleasures,
dashed only with such disappointments as loss at play inflicted, or some
project of intrigue baffled or averted.

“If that boy of Norcott's isn't a scamp, he must be a most unteachable
young rascal,” said an old colonel once to Eccles on the croquet ground.

“He has had great opportunities,” said Eccles, as he sent off his ball,
“and, so far as I see, neglected none of them.”

“You were his tutor, I think?” said the other, with a laugh.

“Yes, till Madame Cleremont took my place.”

“I 'll not say it was the worst thing could have happened him. I wish
it had been a woman had spoiled _me_. Eh, Eccles, possibly you may have
some such misgivings yourself?”

“I was never corrupted,” said the other, with a sententious gravity
whose hypocrisy was palpable.

I meditated many and many a time over these few words, and they
suggested to me the first attempt I ever made to know something about
myself and my own nature.

Those stories of Balzac's, those wonderful pictures of passionate life,
acquired an immense hold upon me, from the very character of my own
existence. That terrific game of temper against temper, mind against
mind, and heart against heart, of which I read in these novels, I was
daily witnessing in what went on around me, and I amused myself by
giving the names of the characters in these fictions to the various
persons of our society.

“It is a very naughty little world we live in at this house, Digby,”
 said Madame to me one day; “but you'd be surprised to find what a very
vulgar thing is the life of people in general, and that if you want the
sensational, or even the pictorial in existence, you 'll have to pay for
it in some compromise of principle.”

“I know mamma wouldn't like to live here,” said I, half sullenly.

“Oh, mamma!” cried she, with a laugh, and then suddenly checking
herself: “No, Digby, you are quite right. Mamma would be shocked at our
doings; not that they are so very wicked in themselves as that, to one
of her quiet ways, they would seem so.”

“Mamma is very good. I never knew any one like her,” stammered I out.

“That's quite true, my dear boy. She is all that you say, but one may
be too good, just as he may be too generous or too confiding; and it is
well to remember that there are a number of excellent things one would
like to be if they could afford them; but the truth is, Digby, the most
costly of all things are virtues.”

“Oh, do not say that!” cried I, eagerly.

“Yes, dear, I must say it. Monsieur Cleremont and I have always been
very poor, and we never permitted ourselves these luxuries, any more
than we kept a great house and a fine equipage, and so we economize
in our morals, as in our means, doing what rich folk might call little
shabbinesses; but, on the whole, managing to live, and not unhappily
either.”

“And papa?”

“Papa has a fine estate, wants for nothing, and can give himself every
good quality he has a fancy for.”

“By this theory, then, it is only rich people are good?”

“Not exactly. I would rather state it thus,--the rich are as good as
they like to be; the poor are as good as they 're able.”

“What do you say, then, to Mr. Eccles: he 's not rich, And I 'm sure
he's good?”

“Poor Mr. Eccles!” said she, with a merry laughter, in which a something
scornful mingled, and she hurried away.




CHAPTER X. PLANNING PLEASURE.

It was my father's pleasure to celebrate my sixteenth birthday with
great splendor. The whole house was to be thrown open; and not only the
house, but the conservatory and the grounds were to be illuminated. The
festivities were to comprise a grand dinner and a reception afterwards,
which was to become a ball, as if by an impromptu.

As the society of the Villa habitually was made up of a certain number
of intimates, relieved, from time to time, by such strangers as
were presented, and as my father never dined out, or went into the
fashionable world of the place, it was somewhat of a bold step at once
to invite a number of persons with whom we had no more than bowing
acquaintance, and to ask to his table ministers, envoys, court
officials, and grand chamberlains for the first time. It was said, I
know not how truthfully, that Cleremont did his utmost to dissuade him
from the project at first, by disparaging the people for whom he was
putting himself to such cost, and, finding this line of no avail, by
openly saying that what between the refusals of some, the excuses of
others, and the actual absence of many whose presence he was led to
expect, my father was storing up for himself an amount of disappointment
and outrage that would drive him half desperate. It was not, of course,
very easy to convey this to my father. It could only be done by a
dropping word or a half-expressed doubt. And when the time came to make
out the lists and issue the invitations, no real step had been taken to
turn him from his plan.

The same rumor which ascribed to Cleremont the repute of attempting to
dissuade my father from his project, attributed to Madame Cleremont a
most eager and warm advocacy of the intended _fête_. From the marked
coldness and reserve, however, which subsisted between my father and
her, it was too difficult to imagine in what way her influence could be
exercised.

And for my own part, though I heard the list of the company canvassed
every day at luncheon, and discussed at dinner, I don't remember
an occasion where Madame ever uttered a word of remark, or even a
suggestion in the matter. Hotham, who had come back on a short leave,
was full of the scheme. With all a sailor's love of movement and bustle,
he mixed himself up with every detail of it. He wrote to Paris and
London for all the delicacies of the “comestible” shops. He established
“estafettes” on every side to bring in fresh flowers and fruit; with
his own hands he rigged out tents and marquees for the regimental bands,
which were to be stationed in different parts of the grounds; and all
the devices of Bengal lights and fireworks he took into his especial
charge.

Indeed, Nixon told me that his functions did not stop here, but that he
had charged himself with the care of Madame Cleremont's toilette, for
whom he had ordered the most splendid ball-dress Paris could produce.
“Naturally, Master Digby, it is Sir Roger pays,” added he; “and perhaps
one of these days he'll be surprised to find that diamond loops and
diamond bouquets should figure in a milliner's bill. But as she is to
receive the company, of course it's all right.”

“And why does Mr. Cleremont seem to dislike it all so much?” asked I.

“Chiefly, I believe, because _she_ likes it.” And then, as though he had
said more than he intended, he added: “Oh, it's easy to see he likes to
keep this house as much his own as he can. He does n't want Sir Roger
to have other people about him. He's almost the master here now; but
if your father begins to mix with the world, and have strangers here,
Cleremont's reign would soon be over.”

Though there was much in this speech to suggest thought and speculation,
nothing in it struck me so forcibly as the impertinence of calling Mr.
Cleremont Cleremont, and it was all I could do to suppress the rebuke
that was on my lips.

“If your father comes through for a thousand pounds, sir,” continued he,
“I 'll say he's lucky. If Sir Roger would leave it to one person to give
the orders,--I don't mean myself,--though by right it is my business;
instead of that, there's the Captain sending for this, and Cleremont for
the other, and you 'll see there will be enough for three entertainments
when it's all over. Could you just say a word to him, sir?”

“Not for the world, Nixon. Papa is very kind to me and good-natured,
but I 'll not risk any liberty with him; and what's more, I 'd be right
sorry to call Mr. Cleremont Cleremont before him, as you have done twice
within the last five minutes.”

“Lord bless you, Master Digby! I 've known him these fifteen years. I
knew him when he came out, just a boy like, to Lord Colthorpe's embassy.
He and I is like pals.”

“You have known _me_ also as a boy, Nixon,” said I, haughtily; “and yet,
I promise you, I 'll not permit you to speak of me as Norcott, when I am
a man.”

“No fear of that, sir, you may depend on 't,” said he, with humility;
but there was a malicious twinkle in his eye, and a firm compression of
the lip as he withdrew, that did not leave my mind the whole day after.
Indeed, I recognized that his face had assumed the selfsame look of
insolent familiarity it wore when he spoke of Cleremont.

The evening of that day was passed filling up the cards of
invitation,--a process which amused me greatly, affording, as it did, a
sort of current critique on the persons whose names came up for notice,
and certainly, if I were to judge of their eligibility only by what
I heard of their characters, I might well feel amazed why they were
singled out for attentions. They were marquises and counts, however,
chevaliers of various orders, grand cordons and “hautes charges,” so
that their trespasses or their shortcomings had all been enacted in the
world of good society, and with each other as accomplices or victims.
There were a number of contingencies, too, attached to almost every
name. There must be high play for the Russian envoy, flirting for the
French minister's wife, iced drinks for the Americans, and scandal and
Ostend oysters for everybody. There was scarcely a good word for any
one, and yet the most eager anxiety was expressed that they would all
come. Immense precautions had been taken to fix a day when there was
nothing going on at court or in the court circle. It was difficult
to believe that pleasure could be planned with such heart-burning and
bitterness. There was scarcely a detail that did not come associated
with something that reflected on the morals or the manners of the dear
friends we were entreating to honor us; and for the life of me I did not
know why such pains were taken to secure the presence of people for whom
none had a good wish nor a single kindly thought.

My father took very little part in the discussion; he sat there with a
sort of proud indifference, as though the matter had little interest for
him, and if a doubt were expressed as to the likelihood of this or that
person's acceptance, he would superciliously break in with, “He 'll
come, sir: I 'll answer for that. I have never yet played to empty
benches.”

This vain and haughty speech dwelt in my mind for many a day, and showed
me how my father deemed that it was not his splendid style of living,
his exquisite dinners, and his choice wines that drew guests around him,
but his own especial qualities as host and entertainer.

“But that it involves the bore of an audience, I'd ask the king; I could
give him some Château d'Yquem very unlike his own, and such as, I'll
venture to say, he never tasted,” said he, affectedly.

“So you are going to bring out the purple seal?” cried Cleremont.

“I might for royalty, sir; but not for such people as I read of in that
list there.”

“Why, here are two Dukes with their Duchesses, Marquises and Counts by
the score, half-a-dozen ministers plenipotentiary, and a perfect cloud
of chamberlains and court swells.”

“They 'd cut a great figure, I 've no doubt, Hotham, on the quarter-deck
of the 'Thunder Bomb,' where you eke out the defects of a bad band with
a salute from your big guns, and give your guests the national anthem
when they want champagne. Oh dear, there's no snob like a sailor!”

“Well, if they 're not good enough for you, why the devil do you ask
them?” cried Hotham, sturdily.

“Sir, if I were to put such a question to myself, I might shut up my
house to-morrow!” And with this very uncourteous speech he arose and
left the room.

We continued, however, to fill in the cards of invitation and address
the envelopes, but with little inclination to converse, and none
whatever to refer to what had passed.

“There,” cried Cleremont, as he checked off the list. “That makes very
close on seven hundred. I take it I may order supper for six hundred.”
 Then turning half fiercely to me, he added: “Do you know, youngster,
that all this tomfoolery is got up for _you?_ It is by way of
celebrating your birthday we're going to turn the house out of the
windows!”

“I suppose my father has that right, sir.”

“Of course he has, just as he would have the right to make a ruin of the
place to-morrow if he liked it; but I don't fancy his friends would be
the better pleased with him for his amiable eccentricity: your father
pushes our regard for him very far sometimes.”

“I 'll tell him to be more cautious, sir, in future,” said I, moving
towards the door.

“Do so,” said he. “Good-night.”

I had scarcely taken my bedroom candle when I felt a hand on my
shoulder: I turned and saw Madame Cleremont standing very pale and in
great agitation at my side. “Oh, Digby,” said she, “don't make that man
your enemy whatever you do; he is more than a match for you, poor
child!” She was about to say more when we heard voices in the corridor,
and she hurried away and left me.




CHAPTER XI. A BIRTHDAY DINNER

The eventful day arrived at last, and now, as I write, I can bring up
before me the whole of that morning, so full of exciting sensations
and of pleasurable surprises. I wandered about from room to room,
never sated with the splendors around me. Till then I had not seen the
gorgeous furniture uncovered, nor had I the faintest idea of the beauty
and richness of the silk hangings, or the glittering elegance of those
lustres of pure Venetian glass. Perhaps nothing, however, astonished me
so much as the array of gold and silver plate in the dining-room. Our
every-day dinners had been laid out with what had seemed to me a
most costly elegance; but what were they to this display of splendid
centrepieces and massive cups and salvers large as shields! Of flowers,
the richest and rarest, wagon-loads poured in; and at last I saw the
horses taken out, and carts full of carnations and geraniums left
unloaded in the stable-yard. Ice, too, came in the same profusion: those
squarely cut blocks, bright as crystal, and hollowed out to serve as
wine-coolers, and take their place amidst the costlier splendors of gold
and silver.

It is rare to hear the servant class reprove profusion; but here I
overheard many a comment on the reckless profligacy of outlay which had
provided for this occasion enough for a dozen such. It was easy to see,
they said, that Mr. Clere-mont did not pay; and this sneer sunk deep
into my mind, increasing the dislike I already felt for him.

Nor was it the house alone was thus splendidly prepared for reception;
but kiosks and tents were scattered through the grounds, in each of
which, as if by magic, supper could be served on the instant. Upwards of
thirty additional servants were engaged, all of whom were dressed in
our state livery, white, with silver epaulettes, and the Norcott crest
embroidered on the arm. These had been duly drilled by Mr. Cleremont,
and were not, he said, to be distinguished by the most critical eye from
the rest of the household.

Though there was movement everywhere, and everywhere activity, there
was little or no confusion. Cleremont was an adept in organization, and
already his skill and cleverness had spread discipline through the mass.
He was a despot, however, would not permit the slightest interference
with his functions, nor accept a suggestion from any one. “Captain
Hotham gives no orders here,” I heard him say; and when standing under
my window, and I am almost sure seeing me, he said, “Master Digby has
nothing to do with, the arrangements any more than yourself.”

I had determined that day to let nothing irritate or vex me; that I
would give myself up to unmixed enjoyment, and make this birthday a
memorable spot in life, to look back on with undiluted delight. I could
have been more-certain to carry out this resolve if I could only have
seen and spoken with Madame Cleremont; but she did not leave her room
the whole day. A distinguished hairdresser had arrived with a mysterious
box early in the morning, and after passing two hours engaged with her,
had returned for more toilet requirements. In fact, from the coming and
going of maids and dressmakers, it was evident that the preparations
of beauty were fully equal to those that were being made by cooks and
confectioners.

My father, too, was invisible; his breakfast was served in his own room;
and when Cleremont wished to communicate with him, he had to do so in
writing: and these little notes passed unceasingly between them till
late in the afternoon.

“What's up now?” I heard Hotham say, as Cleremont tore up a note in
pieces and flung the fragments from him with impatience.

“Just like him. I knew exactly how it would be,” cried the other. “He
sent a card of invitation to the Duc de Bredar without first making a
visit; and here comes the Duc's chasseur to say that his Excellency has
not the honor of knowing the gentleman who has been so gracious as to
ask him to dinner.”

“Norcott will have him out for the impertinence,” said Hotham.

“And what will that do? Will the shooting him or the being shot make
this dinner go off as we meant it, eh? Is that for me, Nixon? Give it
here.” He took a note as he spoke, and tore it open. 'La Marquise de
Carnac is engaged,' not a word more. The world is certainly progressing
in politeness. Three cards came back this day with the words 'Sent by
mistake' written on them. Norcott does not know it yet, nor shall he
till to-morrow.”

“Is it true that the old Countess de Joievillars begged to know who was
to receive the ladies invited?”

“Yes, it is true; and I told her a piece of her own early history in
return, to assure her that no accident of choice should be any bar to
the hope of seeing her.”

“What was the story?”

“I'd tell it if that boy of Norcott's was not listening there at that
window.”

“Yes, sir,” cried I; “I have heard every word, and mean to repeat it to
my father when I see him.” “Tell him at the same time, then, that his
grand dinner of twenty-eight has now come down to seventeen, and I 'm
not fully sure of three of these.”

I went down into the dining-room, and saw that places had been laid for
twenty-eight, and as yet no alteration had been made in the table, so
that it at once occurred to me this speech of Cleremont's was a mere
impertinence,--one of those insolent sallies he was so fond of. Nixon,
too, had placed the name of each guest on his napkin, and he, at least,
had not heard of any apologies.

Given in my honor, as this dinner was, I felt a most intense interest in
its success. I was standing, as it were, on the threshold of life, and
regarded the mode in which I should be received as an augury of good or
evil. My father's supremacy at home, the despotism he wielded, and the
respect and deference he exacted, led me to infer that he exercised the
same influence on the world at large; and that, as I had often heard,
the only complaint against him in society was his exclusiveness. I
canvassed these thoughts with myself for hours, as I sat alone in my
room waiting till it was time to dress.

At last eight o'clock struck, and I went down into the drawing-room.
Hotham was there, in a window recess, conversing in whispers with an
Italian count,--one of our intimates, but of whom I knew nothing. They
took no notice of me, so that I took up a paper and began to read.
Cleremont came in soon after with a bundle of notes in his hand. “Has
your father come down?” asked he, hastily; and then, without waiting for
my reply, he turned and left the room. Madame next appeared. I have no
words for my admiration of her, as, splendidly dressed and glittering
with diamonds, she swept proudly in. That her beauty could have been
so heightened by mere toilette seemed incredible, and as she read my
wonderment in my face she smiled, and said:--

“Yes, Digby, I am looking my very best to _fête_ your birthday.”

I would have liked to have told her how lovely she appeared to me, but I
could only blush and gaze wonder-ingly on her.

“Button this glove, dear,” said she, handing to me her wrist all
weighted and jingling with costly bracelets; and while, with trembling
fingers, I was trying to obey her, my father entered and came towards
us. He made her a low but very distant bow, tapped me familiarly on the
shoulder, and then moved across to an arm-chair and sat down.

Cleremont now came in, and, drawing a chair beside my father's, leaned
over and said something in a whisper. Not seeming to attend to what he
was saying, my father snatched, rather than took, the bundle of letters
he held in his hand, ran his eyes eagerly over some of them, and then,
crushing the mass in his grasp, he threw it into the fire.

“It is forty minutes past eight,” said he, calmly, but with a deadly
pallor in his face. “Can any one tell me if that clock be right?”

“It is eight or ten minutes slow,” said Hotham.

“Whom do we wait for, Cleremont?” asked my father again.

“Steinmetz was _de service_ with the King, but would come if he got
free; and there's Rochegude, the French Secretary, was to replace his
chief. I 'm not quite sure about the Walronds, but Craydon told me
positively to expect _him_.”

“Do me the favor to ring the bell and order dinner,” said my father; and
he spoke with measured calm.

“Won't you wait a few minutes?” whispered Cleremont. “The Duke de
Frialmont, I'm sure, will be here.”

“No, sir; we live in a society that understands and observes
punctuality. No breach of it is accidental. Dinner, Nixon!” added he as
the servant appeared.

The folding-doors were thrown wide almost at once, and dinner announced.
My father gave his arm to Madame Cleremont, who actually tottered as she
walked beside him, and as she sat down seemed on the verge of fainting.
Just as we took our places, three young men, somewhat overdressed,
entered hurriedly, and were proceeding to make their apologies for being
late; but my father, with a chilling distance, assured them they were in
excellent time, and motioned them to be seated.

Of the table laid for twenty-eight guests, nine places were occupied;
and these, by some mischance, were scattered here and there with wide
intervals. Madame Cleremont sat on my father's right, and three empty
places flanked his left hand.

I sat opposite my father, with two vacant seats on either side of
me; Hotham nearest to me, and one of the strangers beside him. They
conversed in a very low tone, but short snatches and half sentences
reached me; and I heard the stranger say, “It was too bold a step; women
are sure to resent such attempts.” Madame Cleremont's name, too, came up
three or four times; and the stranger said, “It's my first dinner here,
and the Bredars will not forgive me for coming.”

“Well, there's none of them has such a cook as Norcott,” said Hotham.

“I quite agree with you; but I 'd put up with a worse dinner for better
company.”

I looked round at this to show I had heard the remark, and from that
time they conversed in a whisper.

My father never uttered a word during the dinner. I do not know if he
ate, but he helped himself and affected to eat. As for Madame, how she
sat out those long two hours, weak and fainting as she was, I cannot
tell. I saw her once try to lift her glass to her lips, but her hand
trembled so, she set it down untasted, and lay back in her chair, like
one dying out of exhaustion.

A few words and a faint attempt to laugh once or twice broke the dead
silence of the entertainment, which proceeded, however, in all its
stately detail, course after course, till the dessert was handed round,
and Tokay, in small gilt glasses, was served; then my father rose
slowly, and, drawing himself up to his full height, looked haughtily
around him. “May I ask my illustrious friends,” said he, “who have this
day so graciously honored me with their presence, to drink the health
of my son, whose birthday we celebrate. There is no happier augury on
entering life than to possess the friendship and good-will of those who
stand foremost in the world's honor. It is his great privilege to be
surrounded this day by beauty and by distinction. The great in the arts
of peace and war, and that loveliness which surpasses in its fascination
all other rewards, are around me, and I call upon these to drink to the
health of Digby Norcott.”

All rose and drank; Hotham lifted his glass high in air and tried a
cheer, but none joined him; his voice died away, and he sat down; and
for several minutes an unbroken silence prevailed.

My father at last leaned over towards Madame, and I. heard the word
“coffee.” She arose and took his arm, and we all followed them to the
drawing-room.

“I 'm right glad it's over,” said Hotham, as he poured his brandy over
his coffee. “I've sat out a court-martial that wasn't slower than that
dinner.”

“But what's the meaning of it all?” asked another. “Why and how came all
these apologies?”

“You 'd better ask Cleremont, or rather his wife,” muttered Hotham, and
moved away.

“You ought to get into the open air; that's the best thing for you,”
 I heard Cleremont say to his wife; but there was such a thorough
indifference in the tone, it sounded less like a kindness than a
sarcasm. She, however, drew a shawl around her, and moved down the
steps into the garden. My father soon after retired to his own room, and
Cleremont laughingly said, “There are no women here, and we may have
a cigar;” and he threw his case across the table. The whole party were
soon immersed in smoke.

I saw that my presence imposed some restraint on the conversation, and
soon sought my room with a much sadder spirit and a heavier heart than I
had left it two hours before.




CHAPTER XII. THE BALL

Musing and thinking and fretting together, I had fallen asleep on my
sofa, and was awakened by Mr. Nixon lighting my candles, and asking me,
in a very mild voice, if I felt unwell.

“No, nothing of the kind.”

“Won't you go down, sir, then? It's past eleven now, and there 's a good
many people below.”

“Who have come?” asked I, eagerly.

“Well, sir,” said he, with a certain degree of hesitation, “they 're
not much to talk about There's eight or nine young gentlemen of the
embassies--attachés like--and there's fifteen or twenty officers of
the Guides, and there's some more that look like travellers out of the
hotels; they ain't in evening-dress.”

“Are there no ladies?”

“Yes; I suppose we must call them ladies, sir. There's Madame Rigault
and her two daughters.”

“The pastrycook?”

“Yes, sir; and there are the Demoiselles Janson, of the cigar-shop,
and stunningly dressed they are too! Amber satin with black lace, and
Spanish veils on their heads. And there's that little Swedish girl--I
believe she's a Swede--that sells the iced drinks.”

“But what do you mean? These people have not been invited. How have they
come here?”

“Well, sir, I must n't tell you a lie; but I hope you 'll not betray
me if I speak in confidence to you. Here's how it all has happened.
The swells all refused: they agreed together that they 'd not come to
dinner, nor come in the evening. Mr. Cleremont knows why; but it ain't
for me to say it.”

“But _I_ don't know, and I desire to know!” cried I, haughtily.

“Well, indeed, sir, it's more than I can tell you. There 'a people here
not a bit correcter than herself that won't meet her.”

“Meet whom?”

“Madame, sir,--Madame Cleremont.”

“Don't dare to say another word,” cried I, passionately. “If you utter a
syllable of disrespect to that name, I 'll fling you out of the window.”

“Don't be afraid, Master Digby, I know my station, and I never forget
it, sir. I was only telling you what you asked me, not a word more.
The swells sent back your father's cards, and there's more than three
hundred of them returned.”

“And where's papa now?' *

“In bed, sir. He told his valet he was n't to be disturbed, except the
house took fire.”

“Is Madame Cleremont below?”

“No, sir; she's very ill. The doctor has been with her, and he's coming
again to-night.”

“And are these people--this rabble that you talk of--received as my
papa's guests?”

“Only in a sort of a way, sir,” said he, smiling. “You see that when
Mr. Cleremont perceived that there was nothing but excuses and apologies
pouring in, he told me to close the house, and that we 'd let all the
bourgeois people into the grounds, and give them a jolly supper and
plenty of champagne; and he sent word to a many of the young officers
to come up and have a lark; and certainly, as the supper was there, they
might as well eat it. The only puzzle is now, won't there be too many,
for he sent round to all Sir Roger's tradespeople,--all at least
that has good-looking daughters,--and they're pourin' in by tens and
fifteens, and right well dressed and well got up too.”

“And what will papa say to all this to-morrow?”

“Don't you know, sir, that Sir Roger seldom looks back,” said he, with
a cunning look; “he'll not be disturbed to-night, for the house is shut
up, and the bands are playing, one at the lake, the other at the end of
the long walk, and the suppers will be served here and there, where they
can cheer and drink toasts without annoying any one.”

“It's a downright infamy!” cried I.

“It ain't the correct thing, sure enough, sir, there's none of us could
say that, but it will be rare fun; and, as Captain Hotham said, 'the
women are a precious sight better looking than the countesses.'”

“Where is Mr. Eccles?”

“I saw him waltzing, sir, or maybe it was the polka, with Madame
Robineau just as I was coming up to you.”

“I'll go down and tell Mr. Cleremont to dismiss his friends,” cried
I, boiling over with anger. “Papa meant this _fête_ to celebrate my
birthday. I 'll not accept such rabble congratulations. If Mr. Cleremont
must have an orgie, let him seek for another place to give it in.”

“Don't go, master, don't, I entreat you,” cried he, imploringly. “You
'll only make a row, sir, and bring down Sir Roger, and then who's to
say what will happen? He 'll have a dozen duels on his hands in half as
many minutes. The officers won't stand being called to account, and Sir
Roger is not the man to be sweet-tempered with them.”

“And am I to see my father's name insulted, and his house dishonored by
such a canaille crew as this?”

“Just come down and see them, Master Digby; prettier, nicer girls you
never saw in your life, and pretty behaved, too. Ask Mr. Eccles if he
ever mixed with a nicer company. There, now, sir, slip on your velvet
jacket,--it looks nicer than that tail-coat,--and come down. They 'll be
all proud and glad to see you, and won't she hold her head high that you
ask to take a turn of a waltz with you!”

“And how should I face my father to-morrow?” said I, blushing deeply.

“Might I tell you a secret, Master Digby?” said he, leaning over the
table, and speaking almost in my ear.

“Go on,” said I, dryly.

“I know well, sir, you 'll never throw me over, and what I 'm going to
tell you is worth gold to you.”

“Go on,” cried I, for he had ceased to speak.

“Here it is, then,” said he, with an effort “The greatest sorrow your
father has, Master Digby, is that he thinks you have no spirit in
you,--that you 're a mollyoot. As he said one day to Mr. Cleremont, 'You
must teach him everything, he has no “go” in himself; there 's nothing
in his nature but what somebody else put into it.'”

“He never said that!”

“I pledge you my oath he did.”

“Well, if he did, he meant it very differently from what you do.”

“There's no two meanings to it. There's a cheer!” cried he, running over
to the window and flinging it wide. “I wonder who's come now? Oh, it's
the fireworks are beginning.”

“I 'll go down,” said I; but out of what process of reasoning came that
resolve I am unable to tell.

“Maybe they won't be glad to see you!” cried he, as he helped me on with
my jacket and arranged the heron's feathers in my velvet cap. I was
half faltering in my resolution, when I bethought me of that charge of
feebleness of character Nixon had reported to me, and I determined, come
what might, I would show that I had a will and could follow it. In less
than five minutes after, I was standing under the trees in the garden,
shaking hands with scores of people I never saw before, and receiving
the very politest of compliments and good wishes from very pretty lips,
aided by very expressive eyes.

“Here's Mademoiselle Pauline Delorme refuses to dance with me,” cried
Eccles, “since she has seen the head of the house. Digby, let me present
you.” And with this he led me up to a very beautiful girl, who, though
only the daughter of a celebrated restaurateur of Brussels, might
have been a princess, so far as look and breeding and elegance were
concerned.

“This is to be the correct thing,” cried Cleremont “We open with a
quadrille; take your partners, gentlemen, and to your places.”

Nothing could be more perfectly proper and decorous than this dance.
It is possible, perhaps, that we exceeded a little on the score of
reverential observances: we bowed and courtesied at every imaginable
opportunity, and with an air of homage that smacked of a court; and if
we did raise our eyes to each other, as we recovered from the obeisance,
it was with a look of the softest and most subdued deference. I really
began to think that the only hoydenish people I had ever seen
were ladies and gentlemen. As for Eccles, he wore an air of almost
reverential gravity, and Hotham was sternly composed. At last, however,
we came to the finish, and Cleremont, clapping his hands thrice, called
out “_grand rond_,” and, taking his partner's arm within his own, led
off at a galop; the music striking up one of Strauss's wildest, quickest
strains. Away he went down an alley, and we all after him, stamping and
laughing like mad. The sudden revulsion from the quiet of the moment
before was electric; no longer arm-in-arm, but with arms close clasped
around the waist, away we went over the smooth turf with a wild delight
to which the music imparted a thrilling ecstasy. Now through the dense
shade we broke into a blaze of light, where a great buffet stood;
and round this we all swarmed at once, and glasses were filled with
champagne, and vivas shouted again and again, and I heard that my health
was toasted, and a very sweet voice--the lips were on my ear--whispered
I know not what, but it sounded very like wishing me joy and love, while
others were deafening me about long life and happiness.

I do not remember--I do not want to remember--all the nonsense I talked,
and with a volubility quite new to me; my brain felt on fire with a sort
of wild ecstasy, and as homage and deference met me at every step, my
every wish acceded to, and each fancy that struck me hailed at once as
bright inspiration, no wonder was it if I lost myself in a perfect ocean
of bliss. I told Pauline she should be the queen of the _fête_, and
ordered a splendid wreath of flowers to be brought, which I placed upon
her brow, and saluted her with her title, amidst the cheering shouts of
willing toasters. Except to make a tour of a waltz or a polka with some
one I knew, I would not permit her to dance with any but myself; and
she, I must say, most graciously submitted to the tyranny, and seemed to
delight in the extravagant expressions of my admiration for her.

[Illustration: 526]

If I was madly jealous of her, I felt the most overwhelming delight in
the praises bestowed upon her beauty and her gracefulness. Perhaps the
consciousness that I was a mere boy, and that thus a freedom might be
used towards me that would have been reprehensible with one older,
led her to treat me with a degree of intimacy that was positively
captivating; and before our third waltz was over, I was calling her
Pauline, and she calling me Digby, like old friends.

“Isn't that boy of Norcott's going it to-night?” I heard a man say as I
swung past in a polka, and I turned fiercely to catch the speaker's eye,
and show him I meant to call him to book.

“Eccles, your pupil is a credit to you!” cried another.

“I'm a Dutchman if that fellow does n't rival his father.”

“He 'll be far and away beyond him,” muttered another; “for he has none
of Norcott's crotchets,--he's a scamp 'ur et simple.'”

“Where are you breaking away from me, Digby?” said Pauline, as I tried
to shake myself free of her.

“I want to follow those men. I have a word to say to them.”

“You shall do no such thing, dearest,” muttered she. “You have just told
me I am to be your little wife, and I 'm not going to see my husband
rushing into a stupid quarrel.”

“And you are mine, then,” cried I, “and you will wear this ring as a
betrothal? Come, let me take off your glove.”

“That will do, Digby; that's quite enough for courtesy and a little too
much for deference,” whispered Eccles in my ear; for I was kissing her
hand about a hundred times over, and she laughing at my raptures as an
excellent joke. “I think you 'd better lead the way to supper.”

Secretly resolving that I would soon make very short work of Mr.
Eccles and his admonitions, I gave him a haughty glance and moved on.
I remember very little more than that I walked to the head of the table
and placed Pauline on my right I know I made some absurd speech
in return for their drinking my health, and spoke of us and what
_we_--Pauline and myself--felt, and with what pleasure we should see
our friends often around us, and a deal of that tawdry trash that conies
into a brain addled with noise and heated with wine. I was frequently
interrupted; uproarious cheers at one moment would break forth, but
still louder laughter would ring out and convulse the whole assembly.
Even addled and confused as I was, I could see that some were my
partisans and friends, who approved of all I said, and wished me to give
a free course to my feelings; and there were others--two or three--who
tried to stop me; and one actually said aloud, “If that boy of
Nor-cott's is not suppressed, we shall have no supper.”

Recalled to my dignity as a host by this impertinence, I believe I put
some restraint on my eloquence, and I now addressed myself to do the
honors of the table. Alas, my attentions seldom strayed beyond my lovely
neighbor, and I firmly believed that none could remark the rapture with
which I gazed on her, or as much as suspected that I had never quitted
the grasp of her hand from the moment we sat down.

“I suspect you 'd better let Mademoiselle dance the cotillon with the
Count Vauglas,” whispered Eccles in my ear.

“And why, sir?” rejoined I, half fiercely.

“I think you might guess,” said he, with a smile; “at least, you could
if you were to get up.”

“And would she--would Pauline--I mean, would Mademoiselle
Delorme--approve of this arrangement?”

“No, Monsieur Digby, not if it did not come from you. We shall sit in
the shade yonder for half an hour or so, and then, when you are rested,
we 'll join the cotillon.”

“Get that boy off to bed, Eccles,” said Cleremont, who did not scruple
to utter the words aloud.

I started up to make an indignant rejoinder; some fierce insult was on
my lips; but passion and excitement and wine mastered me, and I sank
back on my seat overcome and senseless.




CHAPTER XIII. A NEXT MORNING

I could not awake on the day after the _fête_, I was conscious that
Nixon was making a considerable noise,--that he shut and opened doors
and windows, splashed the water into my bath, and threw down my
boots with an unwonted energy; but through all this consciousness of
disturbance I slept on, and was determined to sleep, let him make what
uproar he pleased.

“It 's nigh two o'clock, sir!” whispered he in my ear, and I replied by
a snort.

“I 'm very sorry to be troublesome, sir; but the master is very
impatient: he was getting angry when I went in last time.”

These words served to dispel my drowsiness at once, and the mere thought
of my father's displeasure acted on me like a strong stimulant.

“Does papa want me?” cried I, sitting up in bed; “did you say papa
wanted me?”

“Yes, sir,” said a deep voice; and my father entered the room, dressed
for the street, and with his hat on.

“You may leave us,” said he to Nixon; and as the man withdrew, my father
took a chair and sat down close to my bedside.

“I have sent three messages to you this morning,” said he, gravely, “and
am forced at last to come myself.”

I was beginning my apologies, when he stopped me, and said, “That will
do; I have no wish to be told why you overslept yourself; indeed, I have
already heard more on that score than I care for.”

He paused, and though perhaps he expected me to say something, I was too
much terrified to speak.

“I perceive.” said he, “you understand me; you apprehend that I know of
your doings of last night, and that any attempt at excuse is hopeless.
I have not come here to reproach you for your misconduct; I reproach
myself for a mistaken estimate of you; I ought to have known--and if you
had been a horse I would have known--that your crossbreeding would tell
on you. The bad drop was sure to betray itself. I will not dwell on
this, nor have I time. Your conduct last night makes my continued
residence here impossible. I cannot continue in a city where my
tradespeople have become my guests, and where the honors of my house
have been extended to my tailor and my butcher. I shall leave this,
therefore, as soon as I can conclude my arrangements to sell this place:
you must quit it at once. Eccles will be ready to start with you this
evening for the Rhine, and then for the interior of Germany,--I suspect
Weimar will do. He will be paymaster, and you will conform to his wishes
strictly as regards expense. Whether you study or not, whether you
employ your time profitably and creditably, or whether you pass it in
indolence, is a matter that completely regards yourself. As for me,
my conscience is acquitted when I provide you with the means of
acquirement, and I no more engage you to benefit by these advantages
than I do to see you eat the food that is placed before you. The compact
that unites us enjoins distinct duties from each. You need not write
to me till I desire you to do so; and when I think it proper we should
meet, I will tell you.”

If, while he spoke these harsh words to me, the slightest touch of
feeling--had one trace of even sorrow crossed his face, my whole heart
would have melted at once, and I would have thrown myself at his feet
for forgiveness. There was, however, a something so pitiless in his
tone, and a look so full of scorn in his steadfast eye, that every
sentiment of pride within me--that same pride I inherited from
himself--stimulated me to answer him, and I said boldly: “If the people
I saw here last night were not as well born as your habitual guests,
sir, I 'll venture to say there was nothing in their manner or
deportment to be ashamed of.”

“I am told that Mademoiselle Pauline Delorme was charming,” said he; and
the sarcasm of his glance covered me with shame and confusion. He had no
need to say more: I could not utter a word.

“This is a topic I will not discuss with you, sir,” said he, after a
pause. “I intended you to be a gentleman, and to live with gentlemen.
_Your_ tastes incline differently, and I make no opposition to them. As
I have told you already, I was willing to launch you into life; I 'll
not engage to be your pilot. Any interest I take or could take in you
must be the result of your own qualities. These have not impressed me
strongly up to this; and were I to judge by what I have seen, I should
send you back to those you came from.”

“Do so, then, if it will only give me back the nature I brought away
with me!” cried I, passionately; and my throat swelled till I felt
almost choked with emotion.

“That nature,” said he, with a sneer on the word, “was costumed, if I
remember right, in a linen blouse and a pair of patched shoes; and I
believe they have been preserved along with some other family relics.”

I bethought me at once of the tower and its humble furniture, and a
sense of terror overcame me, that I was in presence of one who could
cherish hate with such persistence.

“The fumes of your last night's debauch are some excuse for your bad
manners, sir,” said he, rising. “I leave you to sleep them off; only
remember that the train starts at eight this evening, and it is my
desire you do not miss it.”

With this he left me. I arose at once and began to dress. It was a slow
proceeding, for I would often stop, and sit down to think what course
would best befit me to take at this moment. At one instant it seemed to
me I ought to follow him, and declare that the splendid slavery in
which I lived had no charm for me,--that the faintest glimmering of
self-respect and independence was more my ambition than all the luxuries
that surrounded me; and when I had resolved I would do this, a sudden
dread of his presence,--his eye that I could never face without
shrinking,--the tones of his voice that smote me like a lash,--so
abashed me that I gave up the effort with despair.

Might he not consent to give me some pittance--enough to save her from
the burden of my support--and send me back to my mother? Oh, if I could
summon courage to ask this! This assistance need be continued only for a
few years, for I hoped and believed I should not always have to live as
a dependant What if I were to write him a few lines to this purport? I
could do this even better than speak it.

I sat down at once and began:--

“Dear papa,”--he would never permit me to use a more endearing word.
“Dear papa, I hope you will forgive me troubling you about myself and my
future. I would like to fit myself for some career or calling by which I
might become independent. I could work very hard and study very closely
if I were back with my mother.”

As I reached this far, the door opened, and Eccles appeared.

“All right!” cried he; “I was afraid I should catch you in bed still,
and I 'm glad you 're up and preparing for the road. Are you nearly
ready?”

“Not quite; I wanted to write a letter before I go. I was just at it.”

“Write from Verviers or Bonn; you'll have lots of time on the road.”

“Ay, but my letter might save me from the journey if I sent it off now.”

He looked amazed at this, and I at once told him my plan and showed him
what I had written.

“You don't mean to say you 'd have courage to send this to your
father?”

“And why not?”

“Well, all I have to say is, don't do it till I 'm off the premises; for
I 'd not be here when he reads it for a trifle. My dear Digby,” said
he, with a changed tone, “you don't know Sir Roger; you don't know the
violence of his temper if he imagines himself what he calls outraged,
which sometimes means questioned. Take your hat and stick, and go seek
your fortune, in Heaven's name, if you must; but don't set out on your
life's journey with a curse or a kick, or possibly both. If I preach
patience, my dear boy, I have had to practise it too. Put up your traps
in your portmanteau; come down and take some dinner: we 'll start with
the night-train; and take my word for it, we 'll have a jolly ramble and
enjoy ourselves heartily. If I know anything of life, it is that there's
no such mistake in the world as hunting up annoyances. Let them find us
if they can, but let us never run after them.”

“My heart is too heavy for such enjoyment as you talk of.”

“It won't be so to-morrow, or, at all events, the day after. Come, stir
yourself now with your packing; a thought has just struck me that you
'll be very grateful to me for, when I tell it you.”

“What is it?” asked I, half carelessly.

“You must ask with another guess-look in your eye if you expect me to
tell you.”

“You could tell me nothing that would gladden me.”

“Nor propose anything that you'd like?” asked he.

“Nor that, either,” said I, despondingly.

“Oh, if that be the case, I give up my project; not that it was much of
a project, after all. What I was going to suggest was that instead
of dining here we should put our traps into a cab, and drive down to
Delorme's and have a pleasant little dinner there, in the garden;
it's quite close to the railroad, so that we could start at the last
whistle.”

“That does sound pleasantly,” said I; “there's nothing more irksome in
its way than hanging about a station waiting for departure.”

“So, then, you agree?” cried he, with a malicious twinkle in his eye
that I affected not to understand.

“Yes,” said I, indolently; “I see little against it; and if nothing
else, it saves me a leave-taking with Captain Hotham and Cleremont.”

“By the way, you are not to ask to see Madame; your father reminded
me to tell you this. The doctors say she is not to be disturbed on any
account. What a chance that I did not forget this!”

Whether it was that I was too much concerned for my own misfortunes to
have a thought that was not selfish, or that another leave-taking that
loomed in the distance was uppermost in my thoughts, certain it is, I
felt this privation far less acutely than I might.

“She's a nice little woman, and deserves a better lot than she has met
with.”

“What sort of dinner will Delorme give us?” said I, affecting the air of
a man about town, but in reality throwing out the bait to lead the talk
in that direction.

“First-rate, if we let him; that is, if we only say, 'Order dinner for
us, Monsieur Pierre.' There's no man understands such a mandate more
thoroughly.”

“Then that's what I shall say,” cried I, “as I cross his threshold.”

“He'll serve you Madeira with your soup, and Stein-berger with your
fish, thirty francs a bottle, each of them.”

“Be it so. We shall drink to our pleasant journey,” said I; and I
actually thought my voice had caught the tone and cadence of my father's
as I spoke.




CHAPTER XIV. A GOOD-BYE

While I strolled into the garden to select a table for our dinner,
Eccles went in search of Mr. Delorme; and though he had affected to say
that the important duty of devising the feast should be confided to the
host, I could plainly see that my respected tutor accepted his share in
that high responsibility.

I will only say of the feast in question, that, though I was daily
accustomed to the admirable dinners of my father's table, I had no
conception of what exquisite devices in cookery could be produced by the
skill of an accomplished restaurateur, left free to his own fancy, and
without limitation as to the bill.

One thing alone detracted from the perfect enjoyment of the banquet It
was the appearance of Mr. Delorme himself, white-cravated and gloved,
carrying in the soup. It was an attention that he usually reserved for
great personages, royalties, or high dignitaries of the court; and I was
shocked that he should have selected me for the honor, not the less as
it was only a few hours before he and I had been drinking champagne
with much clinking of glasses together, and interchanging the most
affectionate vows of eternal friendship.

I arose from my chair to salute him; but, as he deposited the tureen
upon the table, he stepped back and bowed low, and retreated in this
fashion, with the same humble reverence at every step, till he was lost
in the distance.

“Sit down,” said Eccles, with a peculiar look, as though to warn me that
I was forgetting my dignity; and then, to divert my attention, he added,
“That green seal is an attention Delorme offers you,--a very rare
favor, too,--a bottle of his own peculiar Johannisberg. Let us drink his
health. Now, Digby, I call this something very nigh perfection.”

It was a theme my tutor understood thoroughly, and there was not a dish
nor a wine that he did not criticise.

“I was always begging your father to take this cook, Digby,” said
he, with half sigh. “Even with a first-rate artist you need change,
otherwise your dinners become manneristic, as ours have become of late.”

He then went on to show me that the domestic cook, always appealing to
the small public of the family, gets narrowed in his views and bounded
in his resources. He compared them, I remember, to the writers in
certain religious newspapers, who must always go on spicing higher and
higher as the palates of their clients grow more jaded. How he worked
out his theme afterwards I cannot tell, for I was watching the windows
of the house, and stealing glances down the alleys in the garden,
longing for one look, ever so fleeting, of my lovely partner of the
night before.

“I see, young gentleman,” said he, evidently nettled at my inattention,
“your thoughts are not with me.”

“How long have we to stay, sir?” said I, reverting to the respect I
tendered him at my lessons.

“You have thirty-eight minutes,” said he, examining his watch: “which I
purpose to apportion in this wise,--eight for the douceur, five for the
cheese, fifteen for the dessert, five for coffee and a glass of curaçoa.
The bill and our parting compliments will take the rest, giving us three
minutes to walk across to the station.”

These sort of pedantries were a passion with him, and I did not
interpose a word as he spoke.

“What a pineapple!” cried a young fellow from an adjoining table, as
a waiter deposited a magnificent pine in the midst of the bouquet that
adorned our table.

“Monsieur Delorme begs to say, sir, this has just arrived from Laeken.”

“Don't you know who that is?” said a companion, in a low voice; but my
hearing, ever acute, caught the words, “He's that boy of Norcott's.”
 I started as if I had received a blow. It was time to resent these
insolences, and make an end of them forever.

“You heard what that man yonder has called me?” said I to Eccles.

“No; I was not minding him.”

“The old impertinence,--'That boy of Norcott's.'”

I arose, and took the cane I had laid against a chair. What I was about
to do I knew not. I felt I should launch some insolent provocation. As
for what should follow, the event might decide _that_.

“I'd not mind him, Digby,” said Eccles, carelessly, as he lit his
cigarette, and stretched his legs on a vacant chair. I took no notice
of his words, but walked on. Before, however, I had made three steps
my eyes caught the flutter of a dress at the end of the alley. It was
merely the last folds of some floating muslin, but it was enough to rout
all other thoughts from my head, and I flew down the walk with lightning
speed. I was right; it was Pauline. In an instant I was beside her.

“Dearest, darling Pauline,” I cried, seizing her round the waist and
kissing her cheek, before she well knew, “how happy it makes me to see
you even for a few seconds.”

“Ah, milord, I did not expect to see you here,” said she, half
distantly.

“I am not milord; I am your own Digby--Digby Nor-cott, who loves you,
and will make you his wife.”

“Ma foi! children don't marry,--at least demoiselles don't marry them,”
 said she, with a saucy laugh.

“I am no more an 'enfant,'” said I, with a passionate stress on the
word, “than I was last night, when you never left my arm except to sit
at my side at supper.”

“But you are going away,” said she, pouting; “else why that
travelling-dress, and that sack strapped at your side?”

“Only for a few weeks. A short tour up the Rhine, Pauline, to see the
world, and complete my education; and then I will come back and marry
you, and you shall be mistress of a beautiful house, and have everything
you can think of.”

“Vrai?” asked she, with a little laugh.

“I swear it by this kiss.”

“Pardie, Monsieur? you are very adventurous,” said she, repulsing me;
“you will make me not regret that you are going so soon.”

“Oh, Pauline! when you know that I adore you, that I only value wealth
to share it with you; that all I ask of life is to devote it to you.”

“And that you have n't got full thirty seconds left for that admirable
object,” broke in Eccles. “We must run for it like fury, boy, or we
shall be late.”

“I'll not go.”

“Then I 'll be shot if I stay here and meet your father,” said he,
turning away.

“Oh, Pauline, dearest, dearest of my heart!” I sobbed out, as I fell
upon her neck; and the vile bell of the railway rang out with its
infernal discord as I clasped her to my heart.

“Come along, and confound you,” cried Eccles; and with a porter on
one side and Eccles on the other, I was hurried along down the garden,
across a road, and along a platform, where the station-master, wild with
passion, stamped and swore in a very different mood from that in which
he smiled at me across the supper-table the night before.

“We're waiting for that boy of Norcott's, I vow,” said an old fellow
with a gray moustache; and I marked him out for future recognition.

Unlike my first journey, where all seemed confusion, trouble, and
annoyance, I now saw only pleasant faces, and people bent on enjoyment.
We were on the great tourist road of Europe, and it seemed as though
every one was bound on some errand of amusement. Eccles, too, was a
pleasant contrast to the courier who took charge of me on my first
journey. Nothing could be more genial than his manner. He treated me
with a perfect equality, and by that greatest of all flatteries to one
of my age, induced me to believe that I was actually companionable to
himself.

I will not pretend that he was an instructive companion.

He had neither knowledge of history nor feeling for art, and rather
amused himself with sneering at both, and quizzing such of our
fellow-travellers as the practice was safe with. But he was always
gay, always in excellent spirits, ready to make light of the passing
annoyances of the road, and, as he said himself, he always carried a
quart-bottle of condensed sunshine with him against a rainy day; and, of
my own knowledge, I can say his supply seemed inexhaustible.

His cheery manner, his bright good looks, and his invariable good-humor
won upon every one, and the sourest and least genial people thawed into
some show of warmth under his contagious pleasantry.

He did not care in what direction we went, and would have left
it entirely to me to decide, had I been able to determine. All he
stipulated for was: “No barbarism, no Oberland or glacier humbug. No
Saxon Switzerland abominations. So long as we travel in a crowd, and
meet good cookery every day, you 'll find me charming.”

Into this philosophy he inducted me. “Make life pleasant, Digby;
never go in search of annoyances. Duns and disagreeables will come of
themselves, and it's no bad fun dodging them. It's only a fool ever
keeps their company.”

A more shameless immorality might have revolted me, but this peddling
sort of wickedness, this half-jesting with right and wrong,--giving
to morals the aspect of a game in which a certain kind of address was
practicable,--was very seductive to one of my age and temper. I fancied,
too, that I was becoming a consummate man of the world, and his praises
of my proficiency were unsparingly bestowed.

Attaching ourselves to this or that party of travellers, we would go
off here or there, in any direction, for four or five days; and though I
usually found myself growing fond of those I became more intimate
with, and sorry to part from them, Eccles invariably wearied of
the pleasant-est people after a day or two. Incessant change seemed
essential to him, and his nature and his spirits flagged when denied it.

What I least liked about him, however, was a habit he had of “trotting”
 me out--his own name for it--before strangers. My knowledge of
languages, my skill at games, my little musical talents, he would parade
in a way that I found positively offensive. Nor was this all, for I
found he represented me as the son of a man of immense wealth and of a
rank commensurate with his fortune.

One must have gone through the ordeal of such a representation to
understand its vexations, to know all the impertinences it can evoke
from some, all the slavish attentions from others. I feel a hot flush
of shame on my cheek now, after long years, as I think of the
mortifications I went through, as Eccles would suggest that I should
buy some princely chateau that we saw in passing, or some lordly park
alongside of which our road was lying.

As to remonstrating with him on this score, or, indeed, on any other,
it was utterly hopeless; not to say that it was just as likely he would
amuse the first group of travellers we met by a ludicrous version of my
attempt to coerce him into good behavior.

One day he pushed my patience beyond all limit, and I grew downright
angry with him. I had been indulging in that harmless sort of
half-flirtation with a young lady, a fellow-traveller; which, not
transgressing the bounds of small attentions, does not even excite
remark or rebuke.

“Don't listen to that young gentleman's blandishments,” said he,
laughing; “for, young as he looks, he is already engaged. Come, come,
don't look as though you'd strike me, Digby, but deny it if you can.”

We were, fortunately for me, coming into a station as he spoke. I sprang
out, and travelled third-class the rest of the day to avoid him, and
when we met at night, I declared that with one such liberty more I 'd
part company with him forever.

The hearty good-humor with which he assured me I should not be offended
again almost made me ashamed of my complaint. We shook hands over our
reconciliation, and vowed we were better friends than ever.

What it cost him to abandon this habit of exalting me before strangers,
how nearly it touched one of the chief pleasures of his life, I was, as
I thought, soon to see in the altered tone of his manner. In fact, it
totally destroyed the easy flippancy he used to wield, and a facility
with strangers that once seemed like a special gift with him. I tried in
vain to rally him out of this half depression; but it was clear he was
not a man of many resources, and that I had already sapped a principal
one.

While we thus journeyed, he said to me one day, “I find, Digby, our
money is running short; we must make for Zurich: it is the nearest of
the places on our letter of credit.”

I assented, of course, and we bade adieu to a pleasant family with whom
we had been travelling, and who were bound for Dresden, assuring them we
should meet them on the Elbe.

Eccles had grown of late more and more serious: not alone had his gayety
deserted him, but he grew absent and forgetful to an absurd extent;
and it was evident some great preoccupation had hold of him. During
the entire of the last day before we reached Zurich he scarcely spoke a
word, and as I saw that he had received some letters at Schaffhausen, I
attributed his gloom to their tidings. As he had not spoken to me of
bad news, I felt ashamed to obtrude myself on his confidence and kept
silent, and not a word passed between us as we went. He had telegraphed
to the banker, a certain Mr. Heinfetter, to order rooms for us at the
hotel; and as we alighted at the door, the gentleman himself was there
to meet us.

“Herr Eccles?” said he, eagerly, lifting his hat as we descended; and
Eccles moved towards him, and, taking his arm, walked away to some
distance, leaving me alone and unnoticed. For several minutes they
appeared in closest confab, their heads bent close together, and at last
I saw Eccles shake himself free from the other's arm, and throw up both
his hands in the air with a gesture of wild despair. I began to suspect
some disaster had befallen our remittances, that they were lost or
suppressed, and that Eccles was overwhelmed by the misfortune. I own
I could not participate in the full measure of the misery it seemed to
cause him, and I lighted a cigar and sat down on a stone bench to wait
patiently his return.

“I believe you are right; it is the best way, after all,” said Ecoles,
hurriedly. “You say you'll look after the boy, and I 'll start by the
ten o'clock train.”

“Yes, I'll take the boy,” said the other; “but you'll have to look sharp
and lose no time. They will be sequestering the moment they hear of it,
and I half suspect old Engler will be before you.”

“But my personal effects? I have things of value.”

“Hush, hush! he 'll overhear you. Come, young gentleman,” said he to
me,--“come home and sup with me. The hotel is so full, they 've no
quarters for you. I 'll try if I can't put you up.”

Eccles stood with his head bent down as we moved away, then lifted his
eyes, waved his hand a couple of times, and said, “By-bye.”

“Isn't he coming with us?” asked I.

“Not just yet: he has some business to detain him,” said the banker; and
we moved on.




CHAPTER XV. A TERRIBLE SHOCK

Herb Heinfetter was a bachelor, and lived in a very modest fashion over
his banking-house; and as he was employed from morning to night, I
saw next to nothing of him. Eccles, he said, had been called away, and
though I eagerly asked where, by whom, and for how long, I got no other
answer than “He is called away,” in very German English, and with a
stolidity of look fully as Teutonic.

The banker was not talkative: he smoked all the evening, and drank beer,
and except an occasional monosyllabic comment on its excellence, said
little.

“Ach, ja!” he would say, looking at me fixedly, as though assenting
to some not exactly satisfactory conclusion his mind had come to about
me,--“ach, ja!” And I would have given a good deal at the time to
know to what peculiar feature of my fortune or my fate this
half-compassionate exclamation extended.

“Is Eccles never coming back?” cried I, one day, as the post came in,
and no tidings of him appeared; “is he never coming at all?”

“Never, no more.”

“Not coming back?” cried I.

“No; not come back no more.”

“Then what am I staying here for? Why do I wait for him?”

“Because you have no money to go elsewhere,” said he; and for once he
gave way to something he thought was a laugh.

“I don't understand you, Herr Heinfetter,” said I; “our letter of
credit, Mr. Eccles told me, was on your house here. Is it exhausted, and
must I wait for a remittance?”

“It is exhaust; Mr. Eccles exhaust it.”

“So that I must write for money; is that so?”

“You may write and write, mien lieber, but it won't come.”

Herr Heinfetter drained his tall glass, and, leaning his arms on the
table, said: “I will tell you in German, you know it well enough.” And
forthwith he began a story, which lost nothing of the pain and misery
it caused me by the unsympathizing tone and stolid look of the narrator.
For my reader's sake, as for my own, I will condense it into the fewest
words I can, and omit all that Herr Heinfetter inserted either as
comment or censure. My father had eloped with Madame Cleremont! They had
fled to Inn-spruck, from which my father returned to the neighborhood of
Belgium, to offer Cleremont a meeting. Cleremont, however, possessed in
his hands a reparation he liked better,--my father's check-book, with a
number of signed but unfilled checks. These he at once filled up to the
last shilling of his credit, and drew out the money, so that my father's
first draft on London was returned dishonored. The villa and all its
splendid contents were sequestrated, and an action for divorce, with ten
thousand pounds laid as damages, already commenced. Of three thousand
francs, which our letter assured us at Zurich, Eccles had drawn two
thousand: he would have taken all, but Heinfetter, who prudently foresaw
I must be got rid of some day, retained one thousand to pay my way.
Eccles had gone, promising to return when he had saved his own effects,
or what he called his own, from the wreck; but a few lines had come from
him to say the smash was complete, the “huissiers” in possession, seals
on everything, and “not even the horses watered without a gendarme
present in full uniform.”

“Tell Digby, if we travel together again, he 'll not have to complain of
my puffing him off for a man of fortune; and, above all, advise him to
avoid Brussels in his journey-ings. He 'll find his father's creditors,
I 'm afraid, far more attached to him than Mademoiselle Pauline.”

His letter wound up with a complaint over his own blighted prospects,
for, of course, his chance of the presentation was now next to hopeless,
and he did not know what line of life he might be driven to.

And now, shall I own that, ruined and deserted as I was, overwhelmed
with sorrow and shame, there was no part of all the misery I felt more
bitterly than the fate of her who had been so kindly affectionate to
me,--who had nursed me so tenderly in sickness, and been the charming
companion of my happiest hours? At first it seemed incredible. My
father's manner to her had ever been coldness itself, and I could only
lead myself to believe the story by imagining how the continued cruelty
of Cleremont had actually driven the unhappy woman to entreat protection
against his barbarity. It was as well I should think so, and it served
to soften the grief and assuage the intensity of the sorrow the event
caused me. I cried over it two entire days and part of a third; and so
engrossed was I with this affliction that not a thought of myself, or of
my own destitution, ever crossed me.

“Do you know where my father is?” asked I of the banker.

“Yes,” said he, dryly.

“May I have his address? I wish to write to him.”

“This is what he send for message,” said he, producing a telegram, the
address of which he had carefully torn off. “It is of you he speak: 'Do
what you like with him except bother me. Let him have whatever money
is in your hands to my credit, and let him understand he has no more to
expect from Roger Norcott.'”

“May I keep this paper, sir?” asked I, in a humble tone.

“I see no reason against it. Yes,” muttered he. “As to the moneys,
Eccles have drawn eighty pound; there is forty remain to you.”

I sat down and covered my face with my hands. It was a habit with me
when I wanted to apply myself fully to thought; but Herr Heinfetter
suspected that I had given way to grief, and began to cheer me up. I at
once undeceived him, and said, “No, I was not crying, sir; I was only
thinking what I had best do. If you allow me, I will go up to my room,
and think it over by myself. I shall be calmer, even if I hit on nothing
profitable.”

I passed twelve hours alone, occasionally dropping off to sleep out of
sheer weariness, for my brain worked hard, travelling over a wide space,
and taking in every contingency and every accident I could think of. I
might go back and seek out my mother; but to what end, if I should only
become a dependant on her? No; far better that I should try and obtain
some means of earning a livelihood, ever so humble, abroad, than spread
the disgrace of my family at home. Perhaps Herr Heinfetter might accept
my services in some shape; I could be anything but a servant.

When I told him I wished to earn my bread, he looked doubtingly at me
in silence, shaking his head, and muttering, “Nein, niemals, nein,” in
every cadence of despair.

“Could you not try me, sir?” pleaded I, earnestly; but his head moved
sadly in refusal.

“I will think of it,” he said at last, and he left me.

He was as good as his word; he thought of it for two whole days, and
then said that he had a correspondent on the shore of the Adriatic, in
a little-visited town, where no news of my father's history was like to
reach, and that he would write to him to take me into his counting-house
in some capacity: a clerk, or possibly a messenger, till I should prove
myself worthy of being advanced to the desk. It would be hard work,
however, he said; Herr Oppovich was a Slavic, and they were people who
gave themselves few indulgences, and their dependants still fewer.

He went on to tell me that the house of Hodnig and Oppovich had been a
wealthy firm formerly, but that Hodnig had over-speculated, and died
of a broken heart; that now, after years of patient toil and thrift,
Oppovich had restored the credit of the house, and was in good repute in
the world of trade. Some time back he had written to Heinfetter to send
him a young fellow who knew languages and was willing to work.

“That's all,” he said; “shall I venture to tell him that I recommend you
for these?”

“Let me have a trial,” said I, gravely.

“I will write your letter to-night, then, and you shall set out
to-morrow for Vienna; thence you'll take the rail to Trieste, and by sea
you 'll reach Fiume, where Herr Oppovich lives.”

I thanked him heartily, and went to my room.

On the morning that followed began my new life. I was no longer to
be the pampered and spoiled child of fortune, surrounded with every
appliance of luxury, and waited on by obsequious servants. I was now to
travel modestly, to fare humbly, and to ponder over the smallest outlay,
lest it should limit me in some other quarter of greater need. But of
all the changes in my condition, none struck me so painfully at first
as the loss of consideration from strangers that immediately followed
my fallen state. People who had no concern with my well-to-do condition,
who could take no possible interest in my prosperity, had been courteous
to me hitherto, simply because I was prosperous, and were now become
something almost the reverse for no other reason, that I could see, than
that I was poor.

Where before I had met willingness to make my acquaintance, and an
almost cordial acceptance, I was now to find distance and reserve. Above
all, I discovered that there was a general distrust of the poor man, as
though he were one more especially exposed to rash influences, and more
likely to yield to them.

I got some sharp lessons in these things the first few days of my
journey, but I dropped down at last into the third-class train, and
found myself at ease. My fellow-travellers were not very polished
or very cultivated, but in one respect their good breeding had the
superiority over that of finer folk. They never questioned my right to
be saving, nor seemed to think the worse of me for being poor.

Herr Heinfetter had counselled me to stay a few days at Vienna, and
provide myself with clothes more suitable to my new condition than those
I was wearing.

“If old Ignaz Oppovich saw a silk-lined coat, he 'd soon send you about
your business,” said he; “and as to that fine watch-chain and its gay
trinkets, you have only to appear with it once to get your dismissal.”

It was not easy, with my little experience of life, to see how these
things should enter into an estimate of me, or why Herr Ignaz should
concern him with other attributes of mine than such as touched my
clerkship; but as I was entering on a world where all was new, where
not only the people, but their prejudices and their likings, were all
strange to me, I resolved to approach them in an honest spirit, and with
a desire to conform to them as well as I was able.

Lest the name Norcott appearing in the newspapers in my father's case
should connect me with his story, Hein-fetter advised me to call myself
after my mother's family, which sounded, besides, less highly born; and
I had my passport made out in the name of Digby Owen.

“Mind, lad,” said the banker, as he parted with me, “give yourself no
airs with Ignaz Oppovich; do not turn up your nose at his homely fare,
or handle his coarse napkin as if it hurt your skin, as I have seen you
do here. From his door to destitution there is only a step, and bethink
yourself twice before you take it. I have done all I mean to do by you,
more than I shall ever be paid for. And now, goodbye.”

This sort of language grated very harshly on my ears at first; but I had
resolved to bear my lot courageously, and conform, where I could, to the
tone of those I had come down to.

I thanked him, then, respectfully and calmly, for his hospitality to me,
and went my way.




CHAPTER XVI. FIUME

“I saw a young fellow, so like that boy of Norcott's in a third-class
carriage,” I overheard a traveller say to his companion, as we stopped
to sup at Gratz.

“He 'll have scarcely come to that, I fancy,” said the other, “though
Norcott must have run through nearly everything by this time.”

It was about the last time I was to hear myself called in this fashion.
They who were to know me thenceforward were to know me by another name,
and in a rank that had no traditions; and I own I accepted this humble
fortune with a more contented spirit and with less chagrin than it cost
me to hear myself spoken of in this half-contemptuous fashion.

I was now very plainly, simply dressed. I made no display of studs or
watch-chain; I even gave up the ring I used to wear, and took care that
my gloves--in which I once was almost puppyish--should be the commonest
and the cheapest.

If there was something that at moments fell very heavily on my heart
in the utter destitution of my lot, there was, on the other hand, what
nerved my heart and stimulated me in the thought that there was some
heroism in what I was doing. I was, so to say, about to seek my fortune;
and what to a young mind could be more full of interest and anticipation
than such a thought? To be entirely self-dependent; to be thrown into
situations of difficulty, with nothing but one's own resources to rely
on; to be obliged to trust to one's head for counsel, and one's heart
for courage; to see oneself, as it were, alone against the world,--is
intensely exciting.

In the days of romance there were personal perils to confront, and
appalling dangers to be surmounted; but now it was a game of life, to be
played, not merely with a stout heart and a ready hand, but with a cool
head and a steady eye. Young as I was, I had seen a great deal. In that
strange comedy of which my father's guests were the performers,
there was great insight into character to be gained, and a marvellous
knowledge of that skill by which they who live by their wits cultivate
these same wits to live.

If I was not totally corrupted by the habits and ways of that life, I
owe it wholly to those teachings of my dear mother which, through all
the turmoil and confusion of this ill-regulated existence, still held
a place in my heart, and led me again and again to ask myself how _she_
would think of this, or what judgment she would pass on that; and
even in this remnant of a conscience there was some safety. I tried to
persuade myself that it was well for me that all this was now over, and
that an honest existence was now about to open to me,--an existence in
which my good mother's lessons would avail me more, stimulate me to
the right and save me from the wrong, and give to the humblest cares of
daily labor a halo that had never shone on my life of splendor.

It was late at night when I reached Trieste, and I left it at daybreak.
The small steamer in which I had taken my passage followed the coast
line, calling at even the most insignificant little towns and villages,
and winding its track through that myriad of islands which lie scattered
along this strange shore. The quiet, old-world look of these quaint
towns, the simple articles they dealt in, the strange dress, and the
stranger sounds of the language of these people, all told me into what
a new life I had just set foot, and how essential it was to leave all my
former habits behind me as I entered here.

The sun had just gone below the sea, as we rounded the great promontory
of the north and entered the bay of Fiume. Scarcely had we passed in
than the channel seemed to close behind us, and we were moving along
over what looked like a magnificent lake bounded on every side by lofty
mountains,--for the islands of the bay are so placed that they conceal
the openings to the Adriatic. If the base of the great mountains was
steeped in a blue, deep and mellow as the sea itself, their summits
glowed in the carbuncle tints of the setting sun, and over these again
long lines of cloud, golden and azure streaks marked the sky, almost on
fire, as it were, with the last parting salute of the glorious orb that
was setting. It was not merely that I had never seen, but I could not
have imagined such beauty of landscape, and as we swept quietly along
nearer the shore, and I could mark the villas shrouded in the deep woods
of chestnut and oak, and saw the olive and the cactus, with the orange
and the oleander, bending their leafy branches over the blue water,
I thought to myself, would not a life there be nearer Paradise than
anything wealth and fortune could buy elsewhere?

“There, yonder,” said the captain, pointing to the ornamented chimneys
of a house surrounded by a deep oak-wood, and the terrace of which
overhung the sea, “that's the villa of old Ignaz Oppovich. They say
the Emperor tempted him with half a million of florins to sell it, but,
miser as he was and is, the old fellow refused it.”

“Is that Oppovich of the firm of Hodnig and Oppovich?” asked I.

“Yes; the house is all Oppovich's now, and half Fiume too, I believe.”

“There are worse fellows than old Ignaz,” said another, gravely. “I
wonder what would become of the hospital, or the poor-house, or the
asylum for the orphans here, but for him.”

“He 's a Jew,” said another, spitting out with contempt.

“A Jew that could teach many a Christian the virtues of his own faith,”
 cried the former. “A Jew that never refused an alms to the poor, no
matter of what belief, and that never spoke ill of his neighbor.”

“I never heard as much good of him before, and I have been a member of
the town council with him these thirty years.”

The other touched his hat respectfully in recognition of the speaker's
rank, and said no more.

I took my little portmanteau in my hand as we landed, and made for a
small hotel which faced the sea. I had determined not to present myself
to the Herr Oppovich till morning, and to take that evening to see the
town and its-neighborhood.

As I strolled about, gazing with a stranger's curiosity at all that was
new and odd to me in this quiet spot, I felt coming over me that
deep depression which almost invariably falls upon him who, alone and
friendless, makes first acquaintance with the scene wherein he is to
live. How hard it is for him to believe that the objects he sees can
ever become of interest to him; how impossible it seems that he will
live to look on this as home; that he will walk that narrow street as
a familiar spot; giving back the kindly greetings that he gets, and
feeling that strange, mysterious sense of brotherhood that grows out of
daily intercourse with the same people!

I was curious to see where the Herr Oppovich lived, and found the place
after some search. The public garden of the town, a prettily planted
spot, lies between two mountain streams, flanked by tall mountains, and
is rather shunned by the inhabitants from its suspicion of damp. Through
this deserted spot--for I saw not one being as I went--I passed on to
a dark copse at the extreme end, and beyond which a small wooden bridge
led over to a garden wildly overgrown with evergreens and shrubs, and so
neglected that it was not easy at first to select the right path amongst
the many that led through the tangled brushwood. Following one of
these, I came out on a little lawn in front of a long low house of two
stories. The roof was high-pitched, and the windows narrow and defended
by strong iron shutters, which lay open on the outside wall, displaying
many a bolt and bar, indicative of strength and resistance. No smoke
issued from a chimney, not a sound broke the stillness, nor was there a
trace of any living thing around,--desolation like it I had never seen.
At last, a mean, half-starved dog crept coweringly across the lawn, and,
drawing nigh the door, stood and whined plaintively. After a brief pause
the door opened, the animal stole in; the door then closed with a bang,
and all was still as before. I turned back towards the town with a heavy
heart; a gloomy dread of those I was to be associated with on the morrow
was over me, and I went to the inn and locked myself into my room, and
fell upon my bed with a sense of desolation that found vent at last in a
torrent of tears.

As I look back on the night that followed, it seems to me one of the
saddest passages of my life. If I fell asleep, it was to dream of the
past, with all its exciting pleasures and delights, and then, awaking
suddenly, I found myself in this wretched, poverty-stricken room,
where every object spoke of misery, and recalled me to the thought of a
condition as ignoble and as lowly.

I remember well how I longed for day-dawn, that I might get up and
wander along the shore, and taste the fresh breeze, and hear the plash
of the sea, and seek in that greater, wider, and more beautiful world
of nature a peace that my own despairing thoughts would not suffer me
to enjoy. And, at the first gleam of light, I did steal down, and issue
forth, to walk for hours along the bay in a sort of enchantment from
the beauty of the scene, that filled me at last with a sense of almost
happiness. I thought of Pauline, too, and wondered would _she_ partake
of the delight this lovely spot imparted to _me?_ Would _she_ see these
leafy woods, that bold mountain, that crystal sea, with its glittering
sands many a fathom deep, as I saw them? And if so, what a stimulus to
labor and grow rich was in the thought.

In pleasant reveries, that dashed the future with much that had
delighted me in the past, the hours rolled on till it was time to
present myself at Herr Oppovich's. Armed with my letter of introduction,
I soon found myself at the door of a large warehouse, over which his
name stood in big letters. A narrow wooden stair ascended steeply from
the entrance to a long low room, in which fully twenty clerks were
busily engaged at their desks. At the end of this, in a smaller room,
I was told Herr Ignaz--for he was always so called--held his private
office.

Before I was well conscious of it, I was standing in this room before a
short, thick-set old man, with heavy eyebrows and beard, and whose long
coat of coarse cloth reached to his feet.

He sat and examined me as he read the note, pausing at times in the
reading as if to compare me with the indications before him.

“Digby Owen,--is that the name?” asked he.

“Yes, sir.”

“Native of Ireland, and never before employed in commercial pursuits?”

I nodded to this interrogatory.

“Ikam not in love with Ireland, nor do I feel a great liking
for ignorance, Herr Owen,” said he, slowly; and there was a deep
impressiveness in his tone, though the words came with the thick
accentuation of the Jew. “My old friend and correspondent should have
remembered these prejudices of mine. Herr Jacob Heinfetter should not
have sent you here.”

I knew not what reply to make to this, and was silent

“He should not have sent you here;” and he repeated the words with
increased solemnity. “What do you want me to do with you?” said he,
sharply, after a brief pause.

“Anything that will serve to let me earn my bread,” said I, calmly.

“But I can get scores like you, young man, for the wages we give
servants here; and would you be content with that?”

“I must take what you are pleased to give me.”

He rang a little bell beside him, and cried out, “Send Harasch here.”
 And, at the word, a short, beetle-browed, ill-favored young fellow
appeared at the door, pen in hand.

“Bring me your ledger,” said the old man. “Look here now,” said he to
me, as he turned over the beautifully clean and neatly kept volume:
“this is the work of one who earns six hundred florins a year. You began
with four, Harasch?”

“Three hundred, Herr Ignaz,” said the lad, bowing.

“Can you live and wear such clothes as these,” said the old man,
touching my tweed coat, “for three hundred florins a year,--paper
florins, mind, which in your money would make about twenty-five pounds?”

“I will do my best with it,” said I, determined he should not deter me
by mere words.

“Take him with you, Harasch; let him copy into the waste-book. We shall
see in a few days what he's fit for.”

At a sign from the youth I followed him out, and soon found myself in
the outer room, where a considerable number of the younger clerks were
waiting to acknowledge me.

Nothing could well be less like the manners and habits I was used
to than the coarse familiarity and easy impertinence of these young
fellows. They questioned me about my birth, my education, my means,
what circumstance had driven me to my present step, and why none of my
friends had done anything to save me from it Not content with a number
of very searching inquiries, they began to assure me that Herr Ignaz
would not put up with my incapacity for a week. “He 'll send you into
the yard,” cried one; and the sentence was chorused at once. “Ja! ja!
he'll be sent into the yard.” And though I was dying to know what that
might mean, my pride restrained my curiosity, and I would not condescend
to ask.

“Won't he be fine in the yard!” I heard one whisper to another, and they
both began laughing at the conceit; and I now sat down on a bench and
lost myself in thought.

“Come; we are going to dinner, Englander,” said Harasch to me at last;
and I arose and followed him.




CHAPTER XVII. HANSERL OF THE YARD

I was soon to learn what being “sent into the yard” meant. Within a week
that destiny was mine. Being so sent was the phrase for being charged
to count the staves as they arrived in wagon-loads from Hungary,--oaken
staves being the chief “industry” of Fiume, and the principal source of
Herr Oppovich's fortune.

My companion, and, indeed, my instructor in this intellectual
employment, was a strange-looking, dwarfish creature, who, whatever the
season, wore a suit of dark yellow leather, the jerkin being fastened
round the waist by a broad belt with a heavy brass buckle. He had been
in the yard three-and-forty years, and though his assistants had been
uniformly promoted to the office, he had met no advancement in life, but
was still in the same walk and the same grade in which he had started.

Hans Sponer was, however, a philosopher, and went on his road
uncomplainingly. He said that the open air and the freedom were better
than the closeness and confinement within-doors, and if his pay was
smaller, his healthier appetite made him able to relish plainer food;
and this mode of reconciling things--striking the balance between good
and ill--went through all he said or did, and his favorite phrase, “Es
ist fast einerley,” or “It comes to about the same,” comprised his whole
system of worldly knowledge.

If at first I felt the occupation assigned to me as an insult and a
degradation, Hanserl's companionship soon reconciled me to submit to
it with patience. It was not merely that he displayed an invariable
good-humor and pleasantry, but there was a forbearance about him, and a
delicacy in his dealing with me, actually gentlemanlike. Thus, he never
questioned me as to my former condition, nor asked by what accident I
had fallen to my present lot; and, while showing in many ways that he
saw I was unused to hardship, he rather treated my inexperience as a
mere fortuitous circumstance than as a thing to comment or dwell on.
Han-serl, besides this, taught me how to live on my humble pay of a
florin and ten kreutzers--about two shillings--daily. I had a small
room that led out into the yard, and could consequently devote my modest
salary to my maintenance. The straitened economy of Hans himself had
enabled him to lay by about eight hundred florins, and he strongly
advised me to arrange my mode of life on a plan that would admit of such
a prudent saving.

Less for this purpose than to give my friend a strong proof of the full
confidence I reposed in his judgment and his honor, I confided to his
care all my earnings, and only begged he would provide for me as for
himself; and thus Hans and I became inseparable. We took our coffee
together at daybreak, our little soup and boiled beef at noon, and our
potato-salad, with perhaps a sardine or such like, at night for supper;
the “Viertelwein”--the fourth of a bottle--being equitably divided
between us to cheer our hearts and cement good-fellowship on certainly
as acrid a liquor as ever served two such excellent ends.

None of the clerks would condescend to know us. Herr Fripper, the
cashier, would nod to us in the street, but the younger men never
recognized us at all, save in some expansive moment of freedom by a wink
or a jerk of the head. We were in a most subordinate condition, and they
made us feel it.

From Hans I learned that Herr Oppovich was a widower with two children,
a son and a daughter. The former was an irreclaimable scamp and
vagabond, whose debts had been paid over and over again, and who had
been turned out of the army with disgrace, and was now wandering about
Europe, living on his father's friends, and trading for small loans
on his family name. This was Adolph Oppovich. The girl--Sara she was
called--was, in Hanserl's judgment, not much more to be liked than her
brother. She was proud and insolent to a degree that would have been
remarkable in a princess of a reigning house. From the clerks she
exacted a homage that was positively absurd. It was not alone that
they should always stand uncovered as she passed, but that if any had
occasion to address her he should prelude what he had to say by kissing
her hand, an act of vassalage that in Austria is limited to persons of
the humblest kind.

“She regards me as a wild beast, and I am therefore spared this piece of
servitude,” said Hans; and he laughed his noiseless uncouth laugh as he
thought of his immunity.

“Is she handsome?” asked I.

“How can she be handsome when she is so overbearing?” said he. “Is not
beauty gentleness, mildness, softness? How can it agree with eyes that
flash disdain, and a mouth that seems to curl with insolence? The old
proverb says, 'Schönheit ist Sanftheit;' and that's why Our Lady is
always so lovely.”

Hanserl was a devout Catholic; and not impossibly this sentiment made
his judgment of the young Jewess all the more severe. Of Herr Oppovich
himself he would say little. Perhaps he deemed it was not loyal to
discuss him whose bread he ate; perhaps he had not sufficient experience
of me to trust me with his opinion; at all events, he went no further
than an admission that he was wise and keen in business,--one who made
few mistakes himself, nor forgave them easily in another.

“Never do more than he tells you to do, younker,” said Hans to me one
day; “and he 'll trust you, if you do that well.” And this was not the
least valuable hint he gave me.

Hans had a great deal of small worldly wisdom, the fruit rather of a
long experience than of any remarkable gift of observation. As he said
himself, it took him four years to learn the business of the yard; and
as I acquired the knowledge in about a week, he regarded me as a perfect
genius.

We soon became fast and firm friends. The way in which I had surrendered
myself to his guidance--giving him up the management of my money, and
actually submitting to his authority as though I were his son--had
won upon the old man immensely; while I, on my side,--friendless and
companionless, save with himself,--drew close to the only one who seemed
to take an interest in me. At first,--I must own it,--as we wended our
way at noon towards the little eating-house where we dined, and I saw
the friends with whom Hans exchanged greetings, and felt the class and
condition he belonged to reflected in the coarse looks and coarser ways
of his associates, I was ashamed to think to what I had fallen. I
had, indeed, no respect nor any liking for the young fellows of the
counting-house. They were intensely, offensively vulgar; but they had
the outward semblance, the dress, and the gait of their betters, and
they were privileged by appearance to stroll into a _café_ and sit
down, from which I and my companion would speedily have been ejected. I
confess I envied them that mere right of admission into the well-dressed
world, and sorrowed over my own exclusion as though it had been
inflicted on me as a punishment.

This jealous feeling met no encouragement from Hans. The old man had no
rancour of any kind in his nature. He had no sense of discontent with
his condition, nor any desire to change it. Counting staves seemed
to him a very fitting way to occupy existence; and he knew of many
occupations that were less pleasant and less wholesome. Rags, for
instance, for the paper-mill, or hides, in both of which Herr Ignaz
dealt, Hans would have seriously disliked; but staves were cleanly, and
smelt fresh and sweetly of the oak-wood they came from; and there was
something noble in their destiny--to form casks and hogsheads for the
rich wines of France and Spain--which he was fond of recalling; and so
would he say, “Without you and me, boy, or those like us, they 'd have
no vats nor barrels for the red grape-juice.”

While he thus talked to me, trying to invest our humble calling with
what might elevate it in my eyes, I struggled often with myself whether
I should not tell him the story of my life,--in what rank

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