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The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)

by Charles Lever · English · Gutenberg #35144 · 768,544 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)

Author: Charles Lever

Illustrator: Hablot Knight Browne


        
Release date: February 2, 2011 [eBook #35144]
                Most recently updated: February 28, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35144

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN, VOL. II (OF II) ***




Produced by David Widger






THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN

By Charles Lever

With Illustrations By Phiz.

In Two Volumes

Vol. II.

Boston: Little, Brown, And Company.

1906




THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN.



CHAPTER I. MR. HERMAN MERL

This much-abused world of ours, railed at by divines, sneered down by
cynics, slighted by philosophers, has still some marvellously pleasant
things about it, amongst which, first and foremost, _facile princeps_,
is Paris! In every other city of Europe there is a life to be learned
and acquired just like a new language. You have to gain the acquaintance
of certain people, obtain admission to certain houses, submit yourself
to ways, habits, hours, all peculiar to the locality, and conform to
usages in which--at first, at least--you rarely find anything beyond
penalties on your time and your patience. But Paris demands no such
sacrifices. To enjoy it, no apprenticeship is required. You become
free of the guild at the Porte St. Denis. By the time you reach the
Boulevards you have ceased to be a stranger. You enter the “Frères” at
dinner hour like an old habitué. The atmosphere of light, elastic gayety
around you, the tone of charming politeness that meets your commonest
inquiry, the courtesy bestowed upon your character as a foreigner, are
all as exhilarating in their own way as your sparkling glass of Moët,
sipped in the window, from which you look down on plashing fountains,
laughing children, and dark-eyed grisettes! The whole thing, in its
bustle and movement, its splendor, sunlight, gilded furniture,
mirrors, and smart toilettes, is a piece of natural magic, with this
difference,--that its effect is ever new, ever surprising!

Sad and sorrowful faces are, of course, to be met with, since grief has
its portion everywhere; but that air of languid indifference, that
look of wearied endurance, which we characterize by the classic term of
“boredom,” is, indeed, a rare spectacle in this capital; and yet now
at the window of a splendid apartment in the Place Vendôme, listlessly
looking down into the square beneath, stood a young man, every line
of whose features conveyed this same expression. He had, although not
really above twenty-four or twenty-five, the appearance of one ten
years older. On a face of singular regularity, and decidedly handsome,
dissipation had left its indelible traces. The eyes were deep sunk,
the cheeks colorless, and around the angles of the mouth were those
tell-tale circles which betray the action of an oft-tried temper, and
the spirit that has gone through many a hard conflict. In figure he was
very tall, and seemed more so in the folds of a long dressing-gown
of antique brocade, which reached to his feet; a small, dark green
skull-cap, with a heavy silver tassel, covered one side of his head, and
in his hand he held a handsome meerschaum, which, half mechanically, he
placed from time to time to his lips, although its bowl was empty.

At a breakfast-table covered with all that could provoke appetite, sat a
figure as much unlike him as could be. He was under the middle size,
and slightly inclined to flesh, with a face which, but for some strange
resemblance to what one has seen in pictures by the older artists, would
have been unequivocally vulgar. The eyes were small, keen, and furtive;
the nose, slightly concave in its outline, expanded beneath into
nostrils wide and full; but the mouth, thick-lipped, sensual, and
coarse, was more distinctive than all, and showed that Mr. Herman Merl
was a gentleman of the Jewish persuasion,--a fact well corroborated by
the splendor of a very flashy silk waistcoat, and various studs, gold
chain, rings, and trinkets profusely scattered over his costume. And
yet there was little of what we commonly recognize as the Jew in the
character of his face. The eyes were not dark, the nose not aquiline;
the hair, indeed, had the wavy massiveness of the Hebrew race; but Mr.
Merl was a “Red Jew,” and the Red Jew, like the red partridge, is a
species _per se_.

[Illustration: 018]

There was an ostentatious pretension in the “get up” of this gentleman.
His moustache, his beard, his wrist-buttons, his shirt-studs, the
camellia in his coat,--all, even to the heels of his boots, had been
made studies, either to correct a natural defect, or show off what he
fancied a natural advantage. He seemed to have studied color like a
painter, for his dark brown frock was in true keeping with the tint
of his skin; and yet, despite these painstaking efforts, the man was
indelibly, hopelessly vulgar. Everything about him was imitation, but it
was imitation that only displayed its own shortcomings.

“I wonder how you can resist these oysters, Captain,” said he, as he
daintily adjusted one of these delicacies on his fork; “and the Chablis,
I assure you, is excellent.”

“I never eat breakfast,” said the other, turning away from the window,
and pacing the room with slow and measured tread.

“Why, you are forgetting all the speculations that used to amuse us
on the voyage,--the delicious little dinners we were to enjoy at the
'Rocher,' the tempting dejeuners at 'Véfour's.' By Jove! how hungry you
used to make me, with your descriptions of the appetizing fare before
us; and here we have it now: Ardennes ham, fried in champagne; Ostend
oysters, salmi of quails with truffles--and such truffles! Won't that
tempt you?”

But his friend paid no attention to the appeal, and walking again to the
window, looked out.

“Those little drummers yonder have a busy day of it,” said he, lazily;
“that's the fourth time they have had to beat the salute to Generals
this morning.”

“Is there anything going on, then?”

But he never deigned an answer, and resumed his walk.

“I wish you'd send away that hissing teakettle, it reminds me of a
steamboat,” said the Captain, peevishly; “that is, if you have done with
it.”

“So it does,” said the other, rising to ring the bell; “there's the same
discordant noise, and the--the--the--” But the rest of the similitude
would n't come, and Mr. Merl covered his retreat with the process of
lighting a cigar,--an invaluable expedient that had served to aid many a
more ready debater in like difficulty.

It would be a somewhat tedious, perhaps not a very profitable task, to
inquire how two men, so palpably dissimilar, had thus become what the
world calls friends. Enough if we say that Captain Martin,--the heir of
Cro' Martin,--when returning from India on leave, passed some time at
the Cape, where, in the not very select society of the place, he met Mr.
Merl. Now Mr. Merl had been at Ceylon, where he had something to do with
a coffee plantation; and he had been at Benares, where opium interested
him; and now again, at the Cape, a question of wine had probably some
relation to his sojourn. In fact, he was a man travelling about the
world with abundance of leisure, a well-stocked purse, and what our
friends over the Strait would term an “industrial spirit.” Messes had
occasionally invited him to their tables. Men in society got the habit
of seeing him “about,” and he was in the enjoyment of that kind of
tolerance which made every man feel, “He's not _my_ friend,--_I_ didn't
introduce him; but he seems a good sort of fellow enough!” And so he
was,--very good-tempered, very obliging, most liberal of his cigars,
his lodgings always open to loungers, with pale ale, and even iced
champagne, to be had |for asking. There was play, too; and although Merl
was a considerable winner, he managed never to incur the jealous enmity
that winning so often imposes. He was the most courteous of gamblers; he
never did a sharp thing; never enforced a strict rule upon a novice of
the game; tolerated every imaginable blunder of his partner with bland
equanimity; and, in a word, if this great globe of ours had been a
green-baize cloth, and all the men and women whist-players, Mr. Herman
Merl had been the first gentleman in it, and carried off “all the
honors” in his own hand.

If he was highly skilled in every game, it was remarked of him that he
never proposed play himself, nor was he ever known to make a wager: he
always waited to be asked to make up a party, or to take or give the
odds, as the case might be. To a very shrewd observer, this might have
savored a little too much of a system; but shrewd observers are, after
all, not the current coin in the society of young men, and Merl's
conduct was eminently successful.

Merl suited Martin admirably. Martin was that species of man which,
of all others, is most assailable by flattery. A man of small
accomplishments, he sang a little, rode a little, played, drew, fenced,
fished, shot--all, a little--that is, somewhat better than others in
general, and giving him that dangerous kind of pre-eminence from which,
though the tumble never kills, it occurs often enough to bruise and
humiliate. But, worse than this, it shrouds its possessor in a triple
mail of vanity, that makes him the easy prey of all who minister to it.

We seldom consider how much locality influences our intimacies, and how
impossible it had been for us even to know in some places the people we
have made friends of in another. Harry Martin would as soon have thought
of proposing his valet at “Brookes's,” as walk down Bond Street with Mr.
Merl. Had he met him in London, every characteristic of the man would
there have stood out in all the strong glare of contrast, but at the
Cape it was different. Criticism would have been misplaced where all was
irregular, and the hundred little traits--any one of which would have
shocked him in England--were only smiled at as the eccentricities of a
“good-natured poor fellow, who had no harm in him.”

Martin and Merl came to England in the same ship. It was a sudden
thought of Merl's, only conceived the evening before she sailed; but
Martin had lost a considerable sum at piquet to him on that night, and
when signing the acceptances for payment, since he had not the ready
money, somewhat peevishly remarked that it was hard he should not have
his revenge. Whereupon Merl, tossing off a bumper of champagne, and
appearing to speak under the influence of its stimulation, cried out,
“Hang me, Captain, if you shall say that! I 'll go and take my passage
in the 'Elphinstone.'” And he did so, and he gave the Captain his
revenge! But of all the passions, there is not one less profitable to
indulge in. They played morning, noon, and night, through long days of
sickening calm, through dreary nights of storm and hurricane, and they
scarcely lifted their heads at the tidings that the Needles were in
sight, nor even questioned the pilot for news of England, when he
boarded them in the Downs. Martin had grown much older during that same
voyage; his temper, too, usually imbued with the easy indolence of his
father's nature, had grown impatient and fretful. A galling sense of
inferiority to Merl poisoned every minute of his life. He would not
admit it; he rejected it, but back it came; and if it did not enter into
his heart, it stood there knocking,--knocking for admission. Each time
they sat down to play was a perfect duel to Martin.

As for Merl, his well-schooled faculties never were ruffled nor excited.
The game had no power to fascinate _him_, its vicissitudes had nothing
new or surprising to him; intervals of ill-luck, days even of dubious
fortune might occur, but he knew he would win in the end, just as
he knew that though there might intervene periods of bad weather and
adverse winds, the good ship “Elphinstone” would arrive at last, and, a
day sooner or a day later, discharge passengers and freight on the banks
of the Thames.

You may forgive the man who has rivalled you in love, the banker whose
“smash” has engulfed all your fortune, the violent political antagonist
who has assailed you personally, and in the House, perhaps, answered the
best speech you ever made by a withering reply. You may extend feelings
of Christian charity to the reviewer who has “slashed” your new novel,
the lawyer whose vindictive eloquence has exposed, the artist in “Punch”
 who has immortalized, you; but there is one man you never forgive, of
whom you will never believe one good thing, and to whom you would wish a
thousand evil ones,--he is your natural enemy, brought into the world
to be your bane, born that he may be your tormentor; and this is the man
who _always_ beats you at play! Happily, good reader, you may have no
feelings of the gambler,--you may be of those to whom this fatal vice
has never appealed, or appealed in vain; but if you _have_ “played,” or
even mixed with those who have, you could n't have failed to be struck
with the fact that there is that one certain man from whom you never
win! Wherever he is, there, too, is present your evil destiny! Now,
there is no pardoning this,--the double injury of insult to your skill
and damage to your pocket. Such a man as this becomes at last your
master. You may sneer at his manners, scoff at his abilities, ridicule
his dress, laugh at his vulgarity,--poor reprisals these! In his
presence, the sense of that one superiority he possesses over you makes
you quail! In the stern conflict, where your destiny and your capacity
seem alike at issue, he conquers you,--not to-day or to-morrow, but ever
and always! There he sits, arbiter of your fate,--only doubtful how long
he may defer the day of your sentence!

It is something in the vague indistinctness of this power--something
that seems to typify the agency of the Evil One himself--that at once
tortures and subdues you; and you ever hurry into fresh conflict with
the ever-present consciousness of fresh defeat! We might have spared our
reader this discursive essay, but that it pertains to our story. Such
was the precise feeling entertained by Martin towards Merl. He hated
him with all the concentration of his great hatred, and yet he could not
disembarrass himself of his presence. He was ashamed of the man amongst
his friends; he avoided him in all public places; he shrunk from
his very contact as though infected; but he could not throw off his
acquaintance, and he nourished in his heart a small ember of hope that
one day or other the scale of fortune would turn, and he might win back
again all he had ever lost, and stand free and unembarrassed as in the
first hour he had met him! Fifty times had he consulted Fortune, as
it were, to ask if this moment had yet arrived; but hitherto ever
unsuccessfully,--Merl won on as before. Martin, however, invariably
ceased playing when he discovered that his ill-luck continued. It was
an experiment,--a mere pilot balloon to Destiny; and when he saw the
direction adverse, he did not adventure on the grand ascent. It was
impossible that a man of Merl's temperament and training should not have
detected this game. There was not a phase of the gambler's mind with
which he was not thoroughly familiar.

Close intimacies, popularly called friendships, have always their
secret motive, if we be but skilful enough to detect it. We see people
associate together of widely different habits, and dispositions the most
opposite, with nothing in common of station, rank, object, or pursuit.
In such cases the riddle has always its key, could we only find it.

Mr. Martin had been some weeks in Paris with his family, when a brief
note informed him that Merl had arrived there. He despatched an answer
still briefer, asking him to breakfast on the following morning; and it
was in the acceptance of this same invitation we have now seen him.

“Who's here just now?” said Merl, throwing down his napkin, and pushing
his chair a little back from the table, while he disposed his short, fat
legs into what he fancied was a most graceful attitude.

“Here? Do you mean in Paris?” rejoined Martin, pettishly,--for he never
suffered so painfully under this man's intimacy as when his manners
assumed the pretension of fashion.

“Yes,--of course,--I mean, who's in Paris?”

“There are, I believe, about forty-odd thousand of our countrymen and
countrywomen,” said the other, half contemptuously.

“Oh, I've no doubt; but my question took narrower bounds. I meant, who
of _our_ set,--who of us?”

Martin turned round, and fixing his eyes on him, scanned him from head
to foot with a gaze of such intense insolence as no words could have
equalled. For a while the Jew bore it admirably; but these efforts,
after all, are only like the brief intervals a man can live under water,
and where the initiated beats the inexperienced only by a matter of
seconds. As Martin continued his stare, Merl's cheek tingled, grew red,
and finally his whole face and forehead became scarlet.

With an instinct like that of a surgeon who feels he has gone deep
enough with his knife, Martin resumed his walk along the room without
uttering a word.

Merl opened the newspaper, and affected to read; his hand, however,
trembled, and his eyes wandered listlessly over the columns, and then
furtively were turned towards Martin as he paced the chamber in silence.

“Do you think you can manage that little matter for me, Captain?” said
he at last, and in a voice attuned to its very humblest key.

“What little matter? Those two bills do you mean?” said Martin,
suddenly.

“Not at all. I 'm not the least pressed for cash. I alluded to the Club;
you promised you 'd put me up, and get one of your popular friends to
second me.”

“I remember,” said Martin, evidently relieved from a momentary terror.
“Lord Claude Willoughby or Sir Spencer Cavendish would be the men if we
could find them.”

“Lord Claude, I perceive, is here; the paper mentions his name in the
dinner company at the Embassy yesterday.”

“Do you know him?” asked Martin, with an air of innocence that Merl well
comprehended as insult.

“No. We 've met,--I think we 've played together; I remember once at
Baden--”

“Lord Claude Willoughby, sir,” said a servant, entering with a card,
“desires to know if you 're at home?”

“And won't be denied if you are not,” said his Lordship, entering at the
same instant, and saluting Martin with great cordiality.



CHAPTER II. MR. MERL

The French have invented a slang word for a quality that deserves a
more recognized epithet, and by the expression _chic_ have designated
a certain property by which objects assert their undoubted superiority
over all their counterfeits. Thus, your coat from Nugee's, your carriage
from Leader's, your bracelet from Storr's, and your bonnet from Madame
Palmyre, have all their own peculiar _chic_, or, in other words, possess
a certain invisible, indescribable essence that stamps them as the best
of their kind, with an excellence unattainable by imitation, and a charm
all their own!

Of all the products in which this magical property insinuates itself,
there is not one to which it contributes so much as the man of fashion.
He is the very type of _chic_. To describe him you are driven to
a catalogue of negatives, and you only arrive at anything like a
resemblance by an enumeration of the different things he is not.

The gentleman who presented himself to Martin at the close of our
last chapter was in many respects a good specimen of his order. He had
entered the room, believing Martin to be there alone; but no sooner had
he perceived another, and that other one not known to him, than all
the buoyant gayety of his manner was suddenly toned down into a
quiet seriousness; while, taking his friend's arm, he said in a low
voice,--“If you 're busy, my dear Martin, don't hesitate for a moment
about sending me off; I had not the slightest suspicion there was any
one with you.”

“Nor is there,” said Martin, with a supercilious glance at Merl, who
was endeavoring in a dozen unsuccessful ways to seem unaware of the new
arrival's presence.

“I want to introduce him to you,” said Martin.

“No, no, my dear friend, on no account.”

“I must; there's no help for it,” said Martin, impatiently, while he
whispered something eagerly in the other's ear.

“Well, then, some other day; another time--”

“Here and now, Claude,” said Martin, peremptorily; while, without
waiting for reply, he said aloud, “Merl, I wish to present you to Lord
Claude Willoughby,--Lord Claude, Mr. Herman Merl.”

Merl bowed and smirked and writhed as his Lordship, with a bland smile
and a very slight bow, acknowledged the presentation.

“Had the pleasure of meeting your Lordship at Baden two summers ago,”
 said the Jew, with an air meant to be the ideal of fashionable ease.

“I was at Baden at the time you mention,” said he, coldly.

“I used to watch your Lordship's game with great attention; you won
heavily, I think?”

“I don't remember, just now,” said he, carelessly; not, indeed, that
such was the fact, or that he desired it should be thought so; he only
wished to mark his sense of what he deemed an impertinence.

“The man who can win at rouge-et-noir can do anything, in my opinion,”
 said Merl.

“What odds are you taking on Rufus?” said Martin to Willoughby, and
without paying the slightest attention to Merl's remark.

“Eleven to one; but I'll not take it again. Hecuba is rising hourly, and
some say she 'll be the favorite yet.”

“Is Rufus your Lordship's horse?” said the Jew, insinuatingly.

Willoughby bowed, and continued to write in his note-book.

“And you said the betting was eleven to one on the field, my Lord?”

“It ought to be fourteen to one, at least.”

“I 'll give you fourteen to one, my Lord, just for the sake of a little
interest in the race.”

Willoughby ceased writing, and looked at him steadfastly for a second or
two. “I have not said that the odds were fourteen to one.”

“I understand you perfectly, my Lord; you merely thought that they would
be, or, at least, ought to be.”

“Merl wants a bet with you, in fact,” said Martin, as he applied alight
to his meerschaum; “and if you won't have him, I will.”

“What shall it be, sir,” said Lord Claude, pencil in hand; “in
ponies--fifties?”

“Oh, ponies, my Lord. I only meant it, just as I said, to give me
something to care for in the race.”

“Will you put him up at the 'Cercle' after that?” whispered Martin, with
a look of sly malice.

“I'll tell you when the match is over,” said Willoughby, laughing;
“but if I won't, here 's one that will. That's a neat phaeton of
Cavendish's.” And at the same instant Martin opened the window, and made
a signal with his handkerchief.

“That's the thing for _you_, Merl,” said Martin, pointing down to a
splendid pair of dark chestnuts harnessed to a handsome phaeton. “It's
worth five hundred pounds to any fellow starting an equipage to chance
upon one of Cavendish's. He has not only such consummate taste in
carriage and harness, but he makes his nags perfection.”

“He drives very neatly,” said Willoughby.

“What was it he gave for that near-side horse?--a thousand pounds, I
think.”

“Twelve hundred and fifty, and refused a hundred for my bargain,” said
a very diminutive, shrewd-looking man of about five-and-thirty, who
entered the room with great affectation of juvenility. “I bought him for
a cab, never expecting to 'see his like again,' as Shakspeare says.”

“And you offered the whole concern yesterday to Damre-mont for fifty
thousand francs?”

“No, Harry, that's a mistake. I said I 'd play him a match at piquet,
whether he gave seventy thousand for the equipage or nothing. It was he
that proposed fifty thousand. Mine was a handsome offer, I think.”

“I call it a most munificent one,” said Martin. “By the way, you don't
know my friend here, Mr. Merl, Sir Spencer Cavendish.” And the baronet
stuck his glass in his eye, and scanned the stranger as unscrupulously
as though he were a hack at Tattersairs.

“Where did he dig him up, Claude?” whispered he, after a second.

“In India, I fancy; or at the Cape.”

“That fellow has something to do with the hell in St. James's Street; I
'll swear I know his face.”

[Illustration: 029]

“I 've been telling Merl that he 's in rare luck to find such a turn-out
as that in the market; that is, if you still are disposed to sell.”

“Oh, yes, I'll sell it; give him the tiger, boots, cockade, and
all,--everything except that Skye terrier. You shall have the whole,
sir, for two thousand pounds; or, if you prefer it--”

A certain warning look from Lord Claude suddenly arrested his words, and
he added, after a moment,--“But I 'd rather sell it off, and think no
more of it.”

“Try the nags; Sir Spencer, I'm sure, will have no objection,” said
Martin. But the baronet's face looked anything but concurrence with the
proposal.

“Take them a turn round the Bois de Boulogne, Merl,” said Martin,
laughing at his friend's distress.

“And he may have the turn-out at his own price after the trial,”
 muttered Lord Claude, with a quiet smile.

“Egad! I should think so,” whispered Cavendish; “for, assuredly, I
should never think of being seen in it again.”

“If Sir Spencer Cavendish has no objection,--if he would permit his
groom to drive me just down the Boulevards and the Rue Rivoli--”

The cool stare of the baronet did not permit him to finish. It was
really a look far more intelligible than common observers might have
imagined, for it conveyed something like recognition,--a faint approach
to an intimation that said, “I 'm persuaded that we have met before.”

“Yes, that is the best plan. Let the groom have the ribbons,” said
Martin, laughing with an almost schoolboy enjoyment of a trick. “And
don't lose time, Merl, for Sir Spencer would n't miss his drive in the
Champs Elysees for any consideration.”

“Gentlemen, I am your very humble and much obliged servant!” said
Cavendish, as soon as Merl had quitted the room. “If that distinguished
friend of yours should not buy my carriage--”

“But he will,” broke in Martin; “he must buy it.”

“He ought, I think,” said Lord Claude. “If I were in his place, there's
only one condition I 'd stipulate for.”

“And that is--”

“That you should drive with him one day--one would be enough--from the
Barrière de l'Étoile to the Louvre.”

“This is all very amusing, gentlemen, most entertaining,” said
Cavendish, tartly; “but who is he?--I don't mean that,--but what is he?”

“Martin's banker, I fancy,” said Lord Claude.

“Does he lend any sum from five hundred to twenty thousand on equitable
terms on approved personal security?” said Cavendish, imitating the
terms of the advertisements.

“He 'll allow all he wins from you to remain in your hands at sixty per
cent interest, if he doesn't want cash!” said Martin, angrily.

“Oh, then, I 'm right. It is my little Moses of St. James's Street. He
was n't always as flourishing as we see him now. Oh dear, if any man,
three years back, had told me that this fellow would have proposed
seating himself in my phaeton for a drive round Paris, I don't
believe--nay, I 'm sure--my head couldn't have stood it.”

“You know him, then?” said Willoughby.

“I should think every man about town a dozen years ago must know him.
There was a kind of brood of these fellows; we used to call them Joseph
and his brethren. One sold cigars, another vended maraschino; this
discounted your bills, that took your plate or your horses--ay, or your
wardrobe--on a bill of sale, and handed you over two hundred pounds to
lose at his brother's hell in the evening. Most useful scoundrels they
were,--equally expert on 'Change and in the Coulisses of the Opera!”

“I will say this for him,” said Martin, “he 's not a hard fellow to deal
with; he does not drive a bargain ungenerously.”

“Your hangman is the tenderest fellow in the world,” said Cavendish,
“till the final moment. It's only in adjusting the last turn under the
ear that he shows himself 'ungenerous.'”

“Are you deep with him, Harry?” said Willoughby, who saw a sudden
paleness come over Martin's face.

“Too deep!” said he, with a bitter effort at a laugh,--“a great deal too
deep.”

“We 're all too deep with those fellows,” said Cavendish, as, stretching
out his legs, he contemplated the shape and lustre of his admirably
fitting boots. “One begins by some trumpery loan or so; thence you go
on to a play transaction or a betting-book with them, and you end--egad,
you end by having the fellow at dinner!”

“Martin wants his friend to be put up for the Club,” said Willoughby.

“Eh, what? At the 'Cercle,' do you mean?”

“Why not? Is it so very select?”

“No, not exactly that; there are the due proportions of odd reputations,
half reputations, and no reputations; but remember, Martin, that however
black they be now, they all began white. When they started, at least,
they were gentlemen.”

“I suspect that does not make the case much better.”

“No; but it makes _ours_ better, in associating with them. Come, come,
you know as well as any one that this is impossible, and that if you
should do it to-day, I should follow the lead to-morrow, and our
Club become only an asylum for unpayable tailors and unappeasable
bootmakers!”

“You go too fast, sir,” exclaimed Martin, in a tone of anger. “I never
intended to pay my debts by a white ball in the ballot-box, nor do I
think that Mr. Merl would relinquish his claim on some thousand
pounds, even for the honor of being the club colleague of Sir Spencer
Cavendish.”

“Then I know him better,” said the other, tapping his-boot with his
cane; “he would, and he 'd think it a right good bargain besides. From
seeing these fellows at racecourses and betting-rooms, always cold,
calm, and impassive, never depressed by ill-luck, as little elated
by good, we fall into the mistake of esteeming them as a kind of
philosophers in life, without any of those detracting influences that
make you and Willoughby, and even myself, sometimes rash and headstrong.
It is a mistake, though; they have a weakness,--and a terrible
weakness,--which is, their passion to be thought in fashionable society.
Yes, they can't resist that! All their shrewd calculations, all their
artful schemes, dissolve into thin air, at the bare prospect of being
recognized 'in society.' I have studied this flaw in them for many a
year back. I 'll not say I haven't derived advantage from it.”

“And yet you 'd refuse him admission into a club,” cried Martin.

“Certainly. A club is a Democracy, where each man, once elected, is
the equal of his neighbor. Society is, on the other hand, an absolute
monarchy, where your rank flows from the fountain of honor,--the host.
Take him along with you to her Grace's 'tea,' or my Lady's reception
this evening, and see if the manner of the mistress of the house does
not assign him his place, as certainly as if he were marshalled to it by
a lackey. All his mock tranquillity and assumed ease of manner will not
be proof against the icy dignity of a grande dame; but in the Club he's
as good as the best, or he'll think so, which comes to the same thing.”

“Cavendish is right,--that is, as much so as he can be in anything,”
 said Willoughby, laughing. “Don't put him up, Martin.”

“Then what am I to do? I have given a sort of a pledge. He is not easily
put off; he does not lightly relinquish an object.”

“Take him off the scent. Introduce him at the Embassy. Take him to the
Courcelles.”

“This is intolerable,” broke in Martin, angrily. “I ask for advice, and
you reply by a sneer and a mockery.”

“Not at all. I never was more serious. But here he comes! Look only how
the fellow lolls back in the phaeton. Just see how contemptuously he
looks down on the foot-travellers. I'd lay on another hundred for that
stare; for, assuredly, he has already made the purchase in his own
mind.”

“Well, Merl, what do you say to Sir Spencer's taste in horseflesh?” said
Martin, as he entered.

“They 're nice hacks; very smart.”

“Nice hacks!” broke in Cavendish, “why, sir, they're both thoroughbred;
the near horse is by Tiger out of a Crescent mare, and the off one won
the Acton steeple-chase. When you said hacks, therefore, you made a
cruel blunder.”

“Well, it's what a friend of mine called them just now,” said Merl;
“and remarked, moreover, that the large horse had been slightly fired on
the--the--I forget the name he gave it.”

“You probably remember your friend's name better,” said Cavendish,
sneeringly. “Who was he, pray?”

“Massingbred,--we call him Jack Massingbred; he's the Member for
somewhere in Ireland.”

“Poor Jack!” muttered Cavendish, “how hard up he must be!”

“But you like the equipage, Merl?” said Martin, who had a secret
suspicion that it was now Cavendish's turn for a little humiliation.

“Well, it's neat. The buggy--”

“The buggy! By Jove, sir, you have a precious choice of epithets! Please
to let me inform you that full-blooded horses are not called hacks, nor
one of Leader's park-phaetons is not styled a buggy.”

Martin threw himself into a chair, and after a moment's struggle, burst
out into a fit of laughter.

“I think we may make a deal after all, Sir Spencer,” said Merl, who
accepted the baronet's correction with admirable self-control.

“No, sir; perfectly impossible; take my word for it, any transaction
would be difficult between us. Good-bye, Martin; adieu, Claude.” And
with this brief leave-taking the peppery Sir Spencer left the room, more
flushed and fussy than he had entered it.

“If you knew Sir Spencer Cavendish as long as we have known him, Mr.
Merl,” said Lord Claude, in his blandest of voices, “you'd not be
surprised at this little display of warmth. It is the only weakness in a
very excellent fellow.”

“I 'm hot, too, my Lord,” said Merl, with the very slightest
accentuation of the “initial H,” “and he was right in saying that
dealings would be difficult between us.”

“You mentioned Massingbred awhile ago, Merl. Why not ask him to second
you at the Club?” said Martin, rousing himself suddenly from a train of
thought.

“Well, somehow, I thought that he and you did n't exactly pull together;
that there was an election contest,--a kind of a squabble.”

“I 'm sure that _he_ never gave you any reason to suspect a coldness
between us; I know that _I_ never did,” said Martin, calmly. “We are but
slightly acquainted, it is true, but I should be surprised to learn that
there was any ill-feeling between us.”

“One's opponent at the hustings is pretty much the same thing as one's
adversary at a game,--he is against you to-day, and may be your partner
to-morrow; so that, putting even better motives aside, it were bad
policy to treat him as an implacable enemy,” said Lord Claude, with his
accustomed suavity. “Besides, Mr. Merl, you know the crafty maxim of the
French moralist, 'Always treat your enemies as though one day they were
to become your friends.'” And with this commonplace, uttered in a tone
and with a manner that gave it all the semblance of a piece of special
advice, his Lordship took his hat, and, squeezing Martin's hand, moved
towards the door.

“Come in here for a moment,” said Martin, pushing open the door into an
adjoining dressing-room, and closing it carefully after them. “So much
for wanting to do a good-natured thing,” cried he, peevishly. “I thought
to help Cavendish to get rid of those 'screws,' and the return he makes
me is to outrage this man.”

“What are your dealings with him?” asked Willoughby» anxiously.

“Play matters, play debts, loans, securities, post-obits, and every
other blessed contrivance you can think of to swamp a man's present
fortune and future prospects. I don't think he is a bad fellow; I mean,
I don't suspect he 'd press heavily upon me, with any fair treatment on
my part. My impression, in short, is that he'd forgive my not meeting
his bill, but he 'd never get over my not inviting him to a dinner!”

“Well,” said Willoughby, encouragingly, “we live in admirable times for
such practices. There used to be a vulgar prejudice in favor of men
that one knew, and names that the world was familiar with. It is gone
by entirely; and if you only present your friend--don't wince at the
title--your friend, I say--as the rich Mr. Merl, the man who owns shares
in mines, canals, and collieries, whose speculations count by tens of
thousands, and whose credit rises to millions, you'll never be called on
to apologize for his parts of speech, or make excuse for his solecisms
in good breeding.”

“Will you put up his name, then, at the Club?” asked Martin, eagerly.
“It would not do for _me_ to do so.”

“To be sure I will, and Massingbred shall be his seconder.” And with
this cheering pledge Lord Claude bade him good-bye, and left him free
to return to Mr. Merl in the drawing-room. That gentleman had, however,
already departed, to the no small astonishment of Martin, who now threw
himself lazily down on a sofa, to ponder over his difficulties and weave
all manner of impracticable schemes to meet them.

They were, indeed, very considerable embarrassments. He had raised
heavy sums at most exorbitant rates, and obtained money--for the
play-table--by pledging valuable reversions of various kinds, for Merl
somehow was the easiest of all people to deal with; one might have
fancied that he lent his money only to afford himself an occasion of
sympathy with the borrower, just as he professed that he merely
betted “to have a little interest in the race.” Whatever Martin, then,
suggested in the way of security never came amiss; whether it were a
farm, a mill, a quarry, or a lead mine, he accepted it at once, and, as
Martin deemed, without the slightest knowledge or investigation, little
suspecting that there was not a detail of his estate, nor a resource
of his property, with which the wily Jew was not more familiar than
himself. In fact, Mr. Merl was an astonishing instance of knowledge on
every subject by which money was to be made, and he no more advanced
loans upon an encumbered estate than he backed the wrong horse or
bid for a copied picture. There is a species of practical information
excessively difficult to describe, which is not connoisseurship, but
which supplies the place of that quality, enabling him who possesses
it to estimate the value of an object, without any admixture of those
weakening prejudices which beset your mere man of taste. Now, Mr. Merl
had no caprices about the color of the horse he backed, no more than
for the winning seat at cards; he could not be warped from his true
interests by any passing whim, and whether he cheapened a Correggio or
discounted a bill, he was the same calm, dispassionate calculator of the
profit to come of the transaction.

Latterly, however, he had thrown out a hint to Martin that he was
curious to see some of that property on which he had made such large
advances; and this wish--which, according to the frame of mind he
happened to be in at the moment, struck Martin as a mere caprice or a
direct menace--was now the object of his gloomy reveries. We have
not tracked his steps through the tortuous windings of his moneyed
difficulties; it is a chapter in life wherein there is wonderfully
little new to record; the Jew-lender and his associates, the renewed
bill and the sixty per cent, the non-restored acceptances flitting about
the world, sold and resold as damaged articles, but always in the end
falling into the hands of a “most respectable party,” and proceeded
on as a true debt; then, the compromises for time, for silence, for
secrecy,--since these transactions are rarely, if ever, devoid of some
unhappy incident that would not bear publicity; and there are invariably
little notes beginning “Dear Moses,” which would argue most ill-chosen
intimacies. These are all old stories, and the “Times” and the
“Chronicle” are full of them. There is a terrible sameness about them,
too. The dupe and the villain are stock characters that never change,
and the incidents are precisely alike in every case. Humble folk, who
are too low for fashionable follies, wonder how the self-same artifices
have always the same success, and cannot conceal their astonishment at
the innocence of our young men about town; and yet the mystery is
easily solved. The dupe is, in these cases, just as unprincipled as
his betrayer, and their negotiation is simply a game of skill, in which
Israel is not always the winner.

If we have not followed Martin's steps through these dreary labyrinths,
it is because the path is a worn one; for the same reason, too, we
decline to keep him company in his ponderings over them. All that his
troubles had taught him was an humble imitation of the tricky natures of
those he dealt with; so that he plotted and schemed and contrived, till
his very head grew weary with the labor. And so we leave him.



CHAPTER III. A YOUNG DUCHESS AND AN OLD FRIEND

Like a vast number of people who have passed years in retirement, Lady
Dorothea was marvellously disappointed with “the world” when she went
back to it. It was not at all the kind of thing she remembered, or
at least fancied it to be. There were not the old gradations of class
strictly defined; there was not the old veneration for rank and station;
“society” was invaded by hosts of unknown people, “names one had never
heard of.” The great stars of fashion of her own day had long since set,
and the new celebrities had never as much as heard of her. The great
houses of the Faubourg were there, it is true; but with reduced
households and dimly lighted salons, they were but sorry representatives
of the splendor her memory had invested them with.

Now the Martins were installed in one of the finest apartments of the
finest quarter in Paris. They were people of unquestionable station,
they had ample means, lacked for none of the advantages which the world
demands from those who seek its favors; and yet there they were, just as
unknown, unvisited, and unsought after, as if they were the Joneses or
the Smiths, “out” for a month's pleasuring on the Continent.

A solitary invitation to the Embassy to dinner was not followed by any
other attention; and so they drove along the Boulevards and through the
Bois de Boulogne, and saw some thousands of gay, bright-costumed people,
all eager for pleasure, all hurrying on to some scheme of amusement or
enjoyment, while they returned moodily to their handsome quarter, as
much excluded from all participation in what went on around them as
though they were natives of Hayti.

Martin sauntered down to the reading-room, hoping vainly to fall in with
some one he knew. He lounged listlessly along the bright streets, till
their very glare addled him; he stared at the thousand new inventions of
luxury and ease the world had discovered since he had last seen it, and
then he plodded gloomily homeward, to dine and listen to her Ladyship's
discontented criticism upon the tiresome place and the odious people who
filled it. Paris was, indeed, a deception and a snare to them! So
far from finding it cheap, the expense of living--as they lived--was
considerably greater than at London. It was a city abounding in
luxuries, but all costly. The details which are in England reserved for
days of parade and display, were here daily habits, and these were now
to be indulged in with all the gloom of solitude and isolation.

What wonder, then, if her Ladyship's temper was ruffled, and her
equanimity unbalanced by such disappointments? In vain she perused the
list of arrivals to find out some distinguished acquaintance; in vain
she interrogated her son as to what was going on, and who were there.
The Captain only frequented the club, and could best chronicle the names
that were great at whist or illustrious at billiards.

“It surely cannot be the season here,” cried she, one morning,
peevishly, “for really there isn't a single person one has ever heard of
at Paris.”

“And yet this is a strong catalogue,” cried the Captain, with a
malicious twinkle in his eye. “Here are two columns of somebodies,
who were present at Madame de Luygnes' last night.”

“You can always fill salons, if that be all,” said she, angrily.

“Yes, but not with Tour du Pins, Tavannes, Rochefoucaulds, Howards
of Maiden, and Greys of Allington, besides such folk as Pahlen,
Lichtenstein, Colonna, and so forth.”

“How is it then, that one never sees them?” cried she, more eagerly.

“Say, rather, how is it one doesn't know them,” cried Martin, “for here
we are seven weeks, and, except to that gorgeous fellow in the cocked
hat at the porter's lodge, I have never exchanged a salute with a human
being.”

“There are just three houses, they say, in all Paris, to one or other of
which one must be presented,” said the Captain--“Madame de Luygnes, the
Duchesse de Cour-celles, and Madame de Mirecourt.”

“That Madame de Luygnes was your old mistress, was she not, Miss
Henderson?” asked Lady Dorothea, haughtily.

“Yes, my Lady,” was the calm reply.

“And who are these other people?”

“The Duc de Mirecourt was married to 'Mademoiselle,' the daughter of the
Duchesse de Luygnes.”

“Have you heard or seen anything of them since you came here?” asked her
Ladyship.

“No, my Lady, except a hurried salute yesterday from a carriage as we
drove in. I just caught sight of the Duchesse as she waved her hand to
me.”

“Oh, I saw it. I returned the salutation, never suspecting it was meant
for _you_. And she was your companion--your dear friend--long ago?”

“Yes, my Lady,” said Kate, bending down over her work, but showing in
the crimson flush that spread over her neck how the speech had touched
her.

“And you used to correspond, I think?” continued her Ladyship.

“We did so, my Lady.”

“And she dropped it, of course, when she married,--she had other things
to think of?”

“I 'm afraid, my Lady, the lapse was on _my_ side,” said Kate, scarcely
repressing a smile at her own hardihood.

“_Your_ side! Do you mean to say that you so far forgot what was due
to the station of the Duchesse de Mirecourt, that you left her letter
unreplied to?”

“Not exactly, my Lady.”

“Then, pray, what do you mean?”

Kate paused for a second or two, and then, in a very calm and collected
voice, replied,--“I told the Duchesse, in my last letter, that I should
write no more,--that my life was thrown in a wild, unfrequented region,
where no incident broke the monotony, and that were I to continue our
correspondence, my letters must degenerate into a mere selfish record of
my own sentiments, as unprofitable to read as ungraceful to write; and
so I said good-bye--or _au revoir_, at least--till other scenes might
suggest other thoughts.”

“A most complimentary character of our Land of the West, certainly!
I really was not aware before that Cro' Martin was regarded as an
'oubliette.'”

Kate made no answer,--a silence which seemed rather to irritate than
appease her Ladyship.

“I hope you included the family in your dreary picture. I trust it was
not a mere piece of what artists call still life, Miss Henderson?”

“No, my Lady,” said she, with a deep sigh; but the tone and manner of
the rejoinder were anything but apologetic.

“Now I call that as well done as anything one sees in Hyde Park,” cried
the Captain, directing attention as he spoke to a very handsome chariot
which had just driven up to the door. “They're inquiring for somebody
here,” continued he, as he watched the Chasseur as he came and went from
the carriage to the house.

“There's a Grandee of Spain, or something of that kind, lives on the
fourth floor, I think,” said Martin, dryly.

“The Duchesse de Mirecourt, my Lady,” said a servant, entering, “begs to
know if your Ladyship will receive her?”

Kate started at the words, and her color rose till her cheeks were
crimsoned.

“A visit, I suspect, rather for you than me, Miss Henderson,” said Lady
Dorothea, in a half-whisper; and then turning to her servant, nodded her
acquiescence.

“I 'm off,” said Martin, rising suddenly to make his escape.

“And I too,” said the Captain, as he made his exit by an opposite door.

The folding-doors of the apartment were at the same moment thrown wide,
and the Duchess entered. Very young,--almost girlish, indeed,--she
combined in her appearance the charming freshness of youth with that
perfection of gracefulness which attaches to the higher classes
of French society, and although handsome, more striking from the
fascination of manner than for any traits of beauty. Courtesying
slightly, but deferentially, to Lady Dorothea, she apologized for her
intrusion by the circumstance of having, the day before, caught sight of
her “dear governess and dear friend--” And as she reached thus far, the
deep-drawn breathing of another attracted her. She turned and saw Kate,
who, pale as a statue, stood leaning on a chair. In an instant she
was in her arms, exclaiming, in a rapture of delight, “My dear, dear
Kate,--my more than sister! You would forgive me, madam,” said she,
addressing Lady Dorothea, “if you but knew what we were to each other.
Is it not so, Kate?”

A faint tremulous motion of the lips--all colorless as they were--was
the only reply to the speech; but the young Frenchwoman needed none, but
turning to her Ladyship, poured forth with native volubility a story of
their friendship, the graceful language in which she uttered it lending
those choice phrases which never seem exaggerations of sentiment till
they be translated into other tongues. Mingling her praises with half
reproaches, she drew a picture of Kate so flattering that Lady Dorothea
could not help a sense of shrinking terror that one should speak in such
terms of the governess.

“And now, dearest,” added she, turning to Kate, “are we to see a great
deal of each other? When can you come to me? Pardon me, madam, this
question should be addressed to you.”

“Miss Henderson is my secretary, Madame la Duchesse; she is also my
companion,” said Lady Dorothea, haughtily; “but I can acknowledge claims
which take date before my own. She shall be always at liberty when you
wish for her.”

“How kind, how good of you!” cried the Duchess. “I could have been
certain of that. I knew that my dear Kate must be loved by all around
her. We have a little _fête_ on Wednesday at St. Germain. May I bespeak
her for that day?”

“Her Ladyship suffers her generosity to trench upon her too far,” said
Kate, in a low voice. “I am in a manner necessary to her,--that is, my
absence would be inconvenient.”

“But her Ladyship will doubtless be in the world herself that evening.
There is a ball at the Duchesse de Sargance, and the Austrian Minister
has something,” rattled on the lively Duchess. “Paris is so gay just
now, so full of pleasant people, and all so eager for enjoyment. Don't
you find it so, my Lady?”

“I go but little into society!” said Lady Dorothea, stiffly.

“How strange! and I--I cannot live without it. Even when we go to our
Château at Roche-Mire I carry away with me all my friends who will
consent to come. We try to imitate that delightful life of your country
houses, and make up that great family party which is the _beau idéal_ of
social enjoyment.”

“And you like a country life, then?” asked her Ladyship.

“To be sure. I love the excursions on horseback, the forest drives, the
evening walks in the trellised vines, the parties one makes to see a
thousand things one never looks at afterwards; the little dinners on the
grass, with all their disasters, and the moonlight drive homewards, half
joyous, half romantic,--not to speak of that charming frankness by which
every one makes confession of his besetting weakness, and each has some
little secret episode of his own life to tell the others. All but Kate
here,” cried she, laughingly, “who never revealed anything.”

“Madame la Duchesse will, I 'm sure, excuse my absence; she has
doubtless many things she would like to say to her friend alone,” said
Lady Dorothea, rising and courtesying formally; and the young Duchess
returned the salutation with equal courtesy and respect.

“My dear, dear Kate,” cried she, throwing her arms around her as the
door closed after her Ladyship, “how I have longed for this moment,
to tell you ten thousand things about myself and hear from you as many
more! And first, dearest, are you happy? for you look more serious, more
thoughtful than you used,--and paler, too.”

“Am I so?” asked Kate, faintly.

“Yes. When you're not speaking, your brows grow stern and your lips
compressed. Your features have not that dear repose, as Giorgevo used to
call it. Poor fellow! how much in love he was, and you 've never asked
for him!”

“I never thought of him!” said she, with a smile.

“Nor of Florian, Kate!”

“Nor even of him.”

[Illustration: 044]

“And yet that poor fellow was really in love,--nay, don't laugh, Kate,
I know it. He gave up his career, everything he had in life,--he was
a Secretary of Legation, with good prospects,--all to win your favor,
becoming a 'Carbonaro,' or a 'Montagnard,' or something or other that
swears to annihilate all kings and extirpate monarchy.”

“And after that?” asked Kate, with more of interest.

“After that, ma chère, they sent him to the galleys; I forget exactly
where, but I think it was in Sicily. And then there was that Hungarian
Count Nemescz, that wanted to kill somebody who picked up your bouquet
out of the Grand Canal at Venice.”

“And whom, strangely enough, I met and made acquaintance with in
Ireland. His name is Massingbred.”

“Not the celebrity, surely,--the young politician who made such a
sensation by a first speech in Parliament t'other day? He's all the rage
here. Could it be him?”

“Possibly enough,” said she, carelessly. “He had very good abilities,
and knew it.”

“He comes to us occasionally, but I scarcely have any acquaintance with
him. But this is not telling me of yourself, child. Who and what are
these people you are living with? Do they value my dear Kate as they
ought? Are they worthy of having her amongst them?”

“I 'm afraid not,” said Kate, with a smile. “They do not seem at all
impressed with the blessing they enjoy, and only treat me as one of
themselves.”

“But, seriously, child, are they as kind as they should be? That old
lady is, to my thinking, as austere as an Archduchess.”

“I like her,” said Kate; “that is, I like her cold, reserved manner,
unbending as it is, which only demands the quiet duties of servitude,
and neither asks nor wishes for affection. She admits me to no
friendship, but she exacts no attachment.”

“And you like this?”

“I did not say I should like it from _you!_ said Kate, pressing the hand
she held fervently to her lips, while her pale cheek grew faintly red.

“And you go into the world with her,--at least _her_ world?”

“She has none here. Too haughty for second-rate society, and unknown to
those who form the first class at Paris, she never goes out.”

“But she would--she would like to do so?”

“I 'm sure she would.”

“Then mamma shall visit her. You know she is everything here; her house
is the rendezvous of all the distinguished people, and, once seen in her
salons, my Lady--how do you call her?”

“Lady Dorothea Martin.”

“I can't repeat it--but no matter--her Ladyship shall not want for
attentions. Perhaps she would condescend to come to me on Wednesday?
Dare I venture to ask her?”

Kate hesitated, and the Duchess quickly rejoined,--“No, dearest, you are
quite right; it would be hazardous, too abrupt, too unceremonious. You
will, however, be with us; and I long to present you to all my friends,
and show them one to whom I owe so much, and ought to be indebted to
for far more. I 'll send for you early, that we may have a long morning
together.” And so saying, she arose to take leave.

“I feel as though I 'll scarcely believe I had seen you when you have
gone,” said Kate, earnestly. “I'll fancy it all a dream--or rather, that
my life since we met has been one, and that we had never parted.”

“Were we not very happy then, Kate?” said the Duchess, with a half-sigh;
“happier, perhaps, than we may ever be again.”

“_You_ must not say so, at all events,” said Kate, once more embracing
her. And they parted.

Kate arose and watched the splendid equipage as it drove away, and then
slowly returned to her place at the work-table. She did not, however,
resume her embroidery, but sat deep in reflection, with her hands
clasped before her.

“Poor fellow!” said she, at length, “a galley-slave, and Massingbred a
celebrity! So much for honesty and truth in this good world of ours! Can
it always go on thus? That is the question I'm curious to hear solved.
A little time may, perhaps, reveal it!” So saying to herself, she leaned
her head upon her hand, deep lost in thought.



CHAPTER IV. A VERY GREAT FAVOR

Amongst the embarrassments of story-telling there is one which, to be
appreciated, must have been experienced; it is, however, sufficiently
intelligible to claim sympathy even by indicating,--we mean the
difficulty a narrator has in the choice of those incidents by which
his tale is to be marked out, and the characters who fill it adequately
depicted.

It is quite clear that a great number of events must occur in the story
of every life of which no record can be made; some seem too trivial,
some too irrelevant for mention, and yet, when we come to reflect upon
real life itself, how many times do we discover that what appeared to be
but the veriest trifles were the mainsprings of an entire existence,
and the incidents which we deemed irrelevant were the hidden links
that connected a whole chain of events? How easy, then, to err in the
selection! This difficulty presents itself strongly to us at present; a
vast number of circumstances rise before us from which we must refrain,
lest they should appear to indicate a road we are not about to travel;
and, at the same time, we feel the want of those very events to
reconcile what may well seem contradictions in our history.

It not unfrequently happens that an apology is just as tiresome as
the offence it should excuse; and so, without further explanation, we
proceed. Lady Dorothea soon found herself as much sought after as she
had previously been neglected. The Duchesse de Luygnes was the great
leader of fashion at Paris; and the marked attentions by which she
distinguished her Ladyship at once established her position. Of course
her unquestionable claim to station, and her own high connections
rendered the task less difficult; while it imparted to Lady Dorothea's
own manner and bearing that degree of dignity and calm which never
accompany an insecure elevation.

With such refinement of delicacy, such exquisite tact, was every step
managed that her Ladyship was left to suppose every attention she
received sprung out of her own undeniable right to them, and to the
grace and charm of a manner which really had had its share of success
some five-and-thirty years before. The gloomy isolation she had passed
through gave a stronger contrast to the enjoyment of her present life;
and for the first time for years she regained some of that courtly
elegance of address which in her youth had pre-eminently distinguished
her. The change had worked favorably in her temper also; and Martin
perceived, with astonishment, that she neither made injurious
comparisons between the present and the past, nor deemed the age they
lived in one of insufferable vulgarity. It would scarcely have been
possible for Lady Dorothea not to connect her altered position with the
friendship between Kate Henderson and her former pupil; she knew it, and
she felt it. All her self-esteem could not get over this consciousness;
but it was a humiliation reserved for her own heart, since nothing in
Kate's manner indicated even a suspicion of the fact. On the contrary,
never had she shown herself more submissive and dependent. The duties
of her office, multiplied as they were tenfold by her Ladyship's
engagements, were all punctually acquitted, and with a degree of tact
and cleverness that obtained from Lady Dorothea the credit of a charming
note-writer. Nor was she indifferent to the effect Kate produced in
society, where her beauty and fascination had already made a deep
impression.

Reserving a peculiar deference and respect for all her intercourse with
Lady Dorothea, Kate Henderson assumed to the world at large the ease and
dignity of one whose station was the equal of any. There was nothing in
her air or bearing that denoted the dependant; there was rather a dash
of haughty superiority, which did not scruple to avow itself and bid
defiance to any bold enough to question its claims. Even this was a
secret flattery to Lady Dorothea's heart; and she saw with satisfaction
the success of that imperious tone which to herself was subdued to
actual humility.

Lady Dorothea Martin and her beautiful companion were now celebrities
at Paris; and, assuredly, no city of the world knows how to shower
more fascinations on those it favors. Life became to them a round of
brilliant festivities. They received invitations from every quarter, and
everywhere were met with that graceful welcome so sure to greet those
whose airs and whose dress are the ornaments of a salon. They “received”
 at home, too; and her Ladyship's Saturdays were about the most exclusive
of all Parisian receptions. Tacitly, at least, the whole management and
direction of these “Evenings” was committed to Kate. Martin strictly
abstained from a society in every way distasteful to him. The Captain
had come to care for nothing but play, so that the Club was his only
haunt; and it was the rarest of all events to see him pass even a few
minutes in the drawing-room. He had, besides, that degree of shrinking
dislike to Kate Henderson which a weak man very often experiences
towards a clever and accomplished girl. When he first joined his family
at Paris, he was struck by her great beauty and the elegance of a manner
that might have dignified any station, and he fell partly in love,--that
is to say, as much in love as a captain of hussars could permit himself
to feel for a governess. He condescended to make small advances, show
her petty attentions, and even distinguish her by that flattering stare,
with his glass to his eye, which he had known to be what the poet calls
“blush-compelling” in many a fair cheek in provincial circles.

To his marvellous discomfiture, however, these measures were not
followed by any success. She never as much as seemed aware of them, and
treated him with the same polite indifference, as though he had been
neither a hussar nor a lady-killer. Of course he interpreted this as a
piece of consummate cunning; he had no other measure for her capacity
than would have been suited to his own. She was a deep one, evidently
bent on drawing him on, and entangling him in some stupid declaration,
and so he grew cautious. But, somehow, his reserve provoked as little
as his boldness. She did not change in the least; she treated him with a
quiet, easy sort of no-notice,--the most offensive thing possible to one
bent upon being impressive, and firmly persuaded that he need only wish,
to be the conqueror.

Self-worship was too strong in him to suffer a single doubt as to his
own capacity for success, and therefore the only solution to the mystery
of her manner was its being an artful scheme, which time and a little
watching would surely explain. Time went on, and yet he grew none the
wiser; Kate continued the same impassive creature as at first. She never
sought,--never avoided him. She met him without constraint,--without
pleasure, too. They never became intimate, while there was no distance
in their intercourse; till at last, wounded in his self-esteem, he
began to feel that discomfort in her presence which only waits for the
slightest provocation to become actual dislike.

With that peevishness that belongs to small minds, he would have been
glad to have discovered some good ground for hating her; and a dozen
times a day did he fancy that he had “hit the blot,” but somehow he
always detected his mistake erelong; and thus did he live on in that
tantalizing state of uncertainty and indecision which combines about as
much suffering as men of his stamp are capable of feeling.

If Lady Dorothea never suspected the degree of influence Kate silently
exercised over her, the Captain saw it palpably, and tried to nourish
the knowledge into a ground for dislike. But somehow she would no more
suffer herself to be hated than to be loved, and invariably baffled
all his attempts to “get up” an indignation against her. By numberless
devices--too slight, too evanescent to be called regular coquetry--she
understood how to conciliate him, even in his roughest moods, while she
had only to make the very least possible display of her attractions to
fascinate him in his happier moments. The gallant hussar was not much
given to self-examination. It was one of the last positions he would
have selected; and yet he had confessed to his own heart that, though he
'd not like to marry her himself, he 'd be sorely tempted to shoot any
man who made her his wife.

Lady Dorothea and Kate Henderson were seated one morning engaged in the
very important task of revising the invitation-book,--weeding out the
names of departed acquaintance, and canvassing the claims of those who
should succeed them. The rigid criticism as to eligibility showed how
great an honor was the card for her Ladyship's “Tea.” While they were
thus occupied, Captain Martin entered the room with an open letter in
his hand, his air and manner indicating flurry, if not actual agitation.

“Sorry to interrupt a privy council,” said he, “but I've come to ask
a favor,--don't look frightened; it's not for a woman, my Lady,--but I
want a card for your next Saturday, for a male friend of mine.”

“Kate has just been telling me that 'our men' are too numerous.”

“Impossible. Miss Henderson knows better than any one that the success
of these things depends on having a host of men,--all ages, all classes,
all sorts of people,” said he, indolently.

“I think we have complied with your theory,” said she, pointing to the
book before her. “If our ladies are chosen for their real qualities, the
men have been accepted with a most generous forbearance.”

“One more, then, will not damage the mixture.”

“Of course, Captain Martin, it is quite sufficient that he is a friend
of yours--that you wish it--”

“But it is no such thing, Miss Henderson,” broke in Lady Dorothea. “We
have already given deep umbrage in many quarters--very high quarters,
too--by refusals; and a single mistake would be fatal to us.”

“But why need this be a mistake?” cried Captain Martin, peevishly. “The
man is an acquaintance of mine,--a friend, if you like to call him so.”

“And who is he?” asked my Lady, with all the solemnity of a judge.

“A person I met at the Cape. We travelled home together--saw a great
deal of each other--in fact--I know him as intimately as I do--any
officer in my regiment,” said the Captain, blundering and faltering at
every second word.

“Oh! then he is one of your own corps?” said her Ladyship.

“I never said so,” broke he in. “If he had been, I don't fancy I should
need to employ much solicitation in his behalf; the--they are not
usually treated in that fashion!”

“I trust we should know how to recognize their merits,” said Kate,
with a look which sorely puzzled him whether it meant conciliation or
raillery.

“And his name?” asked my Lady. “His name ought to be decisive, without
anything more!”

“He's quite a stranger here, knows nobody, so that you incur no risk as
to any impertinent inquiries, and when he leaves this, to-morrow or next
day, you 'll never see him again.” This the Captain said with all the
confusion of an inexpert man in a weak cause.

“Shall I address his card, or will you take it yourself, Captain
Martin?” said Kate, in a low voice.

“Write Merl,--Mr. Herman Merl,” said he, dropping his own voice to the
same tone.

“Merl!” exclaimed Lady Dorothea, whose quick hearing detected the words.
“Why, where on earth could you have made acquaintance with a man called
Merl?”

“I have told you already where and how we met; and if it be
any satisfaction to you to know that I am under considerable
obligations--heavy obligations--to this same gentleman, perhaps it might
incline you to show him some mark of attention.”

“You could have him to dinner at your Club,--you might even bring him
here, when we're alone, Harry; but really, to receive him at one of
our Evenings! You know how curious people are, what questions they will
ask:--'Who is that queer-looking man?'--I 'm certain he is so.--'Is he
English?'--'Who does he belong to?'--'Does he know any one?'”

“Let them ask me, then,” said Martin, “and I may, perhaps, be able to
satisfy them.” At the same moment he took up from the table the card
which Kate had just written, giving her a look of grateful recognition
as he did so.

“You 've done this at your own peril, Miss Henderson,” said Lady
Dorothea, half upbraidingly.

“At _mine_, be it rather,” said the Captain, sternly.

“I accept my share of it willingly,” said Kate, with a glance which
brought a deep flush over the hussar's cheek, and sent through him a
strange thrill of pleasure.

“Then I am to suppose we shall be honored with your own presence on this
occasion,--rare favor that it is,” said her Ladyship.

“Yes, I 'll look in. I promised Merl to present him.”

“Oh, you need n't!” said she, peevishly. “Half the men merely make their
bow when they meet me, and neither expect me to remember who they are
or to notice them. I may leave your distinguished friend in the same
category.”

A quick glance from Kate--fleeting, but full of meaning--stopped Martin
as he was about to make a hasty reply. And, crumpling up the card with
suppressed passion, he turned and left the room.

“Don't put that odious name on our list, Miss Henderson,” said Lady
Dorothea; “we shall never have him again.”

“I 'm rather curious to see him,” said Kate. “All this discussion has
imparted a kind of interest to him, not to say that there would seem
something like a mystery in Captain Martin's connection with him.”

“I confess to no such curiosity,” said my Lady, haughtily. “The taste
to be amused by vulgarity is like the passion some people have to see an
hospital; you may be interested by the sight, but you may catch a malady
for your pains.” And with this observation of mingled truth and fallacy
her Ladyship sailed proudly out of the room in all the conscious
importance of her own cleverness.



CHAPTER V. A LETTER FROM HOME

While this discussion was going on, Martin was seated in his own room,
examining the contents of his letter-bag, which the post had just
delivered to him. A very casual glance at his features would have
discovered that the tidings which met his eye were very rarely of a
pleasant character. For the most part the letters were importunate
appeals for money, subscriptions, loans, small sums to be repaid when
the borrower had risen above his present difficulties, aids to effect
some little enterprise on whose very face was failure. Then there were
the more formal demands for sums actually due, written in the perfection
of coercive courtesy, subjecting the reader to all the tortures of a
moral surgical operation, a suffering actually increased by the very
dexterity of the manipulator. Then came, in rugged hand and gnarled
shape, urgent entreaties for abatements and allowances, pathetic
pictures of failing crops, sickness and sorrow! Somewhat in contrast to
these in matter--most strikingly unlike them in manner--was a short note
from Mr. Maurice Scanlan. Like a rebutting witness in a cause, he spoke
of everything as going on favorably; prices were fair, the oat crop a
reasonable one. There was distress, to be sure, but who ever saw the
West without it? The potatoes had partially failed; but as there was a
great deal of typhus and a threat of cholera, there would be fewer to
eat them. The late storms had done a good deal of mischief, but as the
timber thrown down might be sold without any regard to the entail, some
thousand pounds would thus be realized; and as the gale had carried away
the new pier at Kilkieran, there would be no need to give a bounty to
the fishermen who could not venture out to sea. The damage done to the
house and the conservatories at Cro' Martin offered an opportunity to
congratulate the owner on the happiness of living in a milder climate;
while the local squabbles of the borough suggested a pleasant contrast
with all the enjoyments of a life abroad.

On the whole, Mr. Scanlan's letter was rather agreeable than the
reverse, since he contrived to accompany all the inevitable ills of
fortune by some side-wind consolations, and when pushed hard for these,
skilfully insinuated in what way “things might have been worse.” If the
letter did not reflect very favorably on either the heart or brain that
conceived it, it well suited him to whom it was addressed. To screen
himself from whatever might irritate him, to escape an unpleasant
thought or unhappy reflection, to avoid, above all things, the slightest
approach of self-censure, was Martin's great philosophy; and he esteemed
the man who gave him any aid in this road. Now newspapers might croak
their dark predictions about the coming winter, prophesy famine, fever,
and pestilence; Scanlan's letter, “written from the spot,” by “one who
enjoyed every opportunity for forming a correct opinion,” was there,
and _he_ said matters were pretty much as usual. The West of Ireland had
never been a land of milk and honey, and nobody expected it ever would
be,--the people could live in it, however, and pay rents too; and as
Martin felt that he had no undue severity to reproach himself with,
he folded up the epistle, saying that “when a man left his house and
property for a while, it was a real blessing to have such a fellow as
Scanlan to manage for him;” and truly, if one could have his conscience
kept for a few hundreds a year, the compact might be a pleasant one. But
even to the most self-indulgent this plan is impracticable; and so might
it now be seen in Martin's heightened color and fidgety manner, and
that even _he_ was not as much at ease within as he wished to persuade
himself he was.

Amid the mass of correspondence, pamphlets and newspapers, one note,
very small and neatly folded, had escaped Martin's notice till the very
last; and it was only as he heaped up a whole bundle to throw into the
fire that he discovered this, in Mary's well-known hand. He held it
for some time ere he broke the seal, and his features assumed a sadder,
graver cast than before. His desertion of her--and he had not blinked
the word to himself--had never ceased to grieve him; and however
disposed he often felt to throw upon others the blame which attached to
himself here, he attempted no casuistry, but stood quietly, without one
plea in his favor, before his own heart.

The very consciousness of his culpability had prevented him writing to
her as he ought; his letters were few, short, and constrained. Not all
the generous frankness of hers could restore to him the candid ease of
his former intercourse with her; and every chance expression he used was
conned over and canvassed by him, lest it might convey some sentiment,
or indicate some feeling foreign to his intention. At length so painful
had the task become that he had ceased writing altogether, contenting
himself with a message through Kate Henderson,--some excuse about his
health, fatigue,-and so forth, ever coupled with a promise that he
would soon be himself again, and as active a correspondent as she could
desire.

To these apologies Mary always replied in a kindly spirit. Whatever
sorrow they might have cost her she kept for herself; they never
awakened one expression of impatience, not a word of reproach. She
understood him thoroughly,--his easy indolence of disposition, his
dislike to a task, his avoidance of whatever was possible to defer;
more even than all these, his own unforgiveness of himself for his part
towards her. To alleviate, so far as she might, the poignancy of the
last, was for a while the great object of all her letters; and so
she continued to expatiate on the happy life she was leading, her
contentment with the choice she had made of remaining there, throwing
in little playful sallies of condolence at her uncle's banishment, and
jestingly assuring him how much happier he would be at home!

In whatever mood, however, she wrote, there was a striking absence of
whatever could fret or grieve her uncle throughout all her letters. She
selected every pleasant topic and the favorable side of every theme to
tell of. She never forgot any little locality which he had been partial
to, or any of the people who were his favorites; and, in fact, it might
have seemed that the great object she had in view was to attach him more
and more to the home he had left, and strengthen every tie that bound
him to his own country. And all this was done lightly and playfully, and
with a pleasant promise of the happiness he should feel on the day of
his return.

These letters were about the pleasantest incidents in Martin's present
life; and the day which brought him one was sure to pass agreeably,
while he made vigorous resolutions about writing a reply, and sometimes
got even so far as to open a desk and ruminate over an answer. It so
chanced that now a much longer interval had occurred since Mary's last
letter, and the appearance of the present note, so unlike the voluminous
epistle she usually despatched, struck him with a certain dismay. “Poor
Molly,” said he, as he broke the seal, “she is growing weary at last;
this continued neglect is beginning to tell upon her. A little more,
and she 'll believe--as well she may--that we have forgotten her
altogether.”

The note was even briefer than he had suspected. It was written, too,
in what might seem haste, or agitation, and the signature forgotten.
Martin's hand trembled, and his chest heaved heavily as he read the
following lines:--

“Cro' Martin, Wednesday Night

“Dearest Uncle,--You will not suffer these few lines to remain
unanswered, since they are written in all the pressure of a great
emergency. Our worst fears for the harvest are more than realized; a
total failure in the potatoes--a great diminution in the oat crop; the
incessant rains have flooded all the low meadows, and the cattle are
almost without forage, while from the same cause no turf can be cut, and
even that already cut and stacked cannot be drawn away from the bogs.
But, worse than all these, typhus is amongst us, and cholera, they say,
coming. I might stretch out this dreary catalogue, but here is enough,
more than enough, to awaken your sympathies and arouse you to action.
There is a blight on the land; the people are starving--dying. If every
sense of duty was dead within us, if we could harden our hearts against
every claim of those from whose labor we derive ease, from whose toil we
draw wealth and leisure, we might still be recalled to better things
by the glorious heroism of these poor people, so nobly courageous, so
patient are they in their trials. It is not now that I can speak of
the traits I have witnessed of their affection, their charity, their
self-denial, and their daring--but now is the moment to show them that
we, who have been dealt with more favorably by fortune, are not devoid
of the qualities which adorn their nature.

“I feel all the cruelty of narrating these things to you, too far away
from the scene of sorrow to aid by your counsel and encourage by your
assistance; but it would be worse than cruelty to conceal from you
that a terrible crisis is at hand, which will need all your energy to
mitigate.

“Some measures are in your power, and must be adopted at once. There
must be a remission of rent almost universally, for the calamity has
involved all; and such as are a little richer than their neighbors
should be aided, that they may be the more able to help them. Some
stores of provisions must be provided to be sold at reduced rates, or
even given gratuitously. Medical aid must be had, and an hospital
of some sort established. The able-bodied must be employed on some
permanent work; and for these, we want power from you and some present
moneyed assistance. I will not harrow your feelings with tales of
sufferings. You have seen misery here--enough, I say--you have witnessed
nothing like this, and we are at but the beginning.

“Write to me at once yourself--this is no occasion to employ a
deputy--and forgive me, dearest uncle, for I know not what faults of
presumption I may have here committed. My head is confused; the crash
of misfortunes has addled me, and each succeed so rapidly on each other,
that remedies are scarcely employed than they have to be abandoned.
When, however, I can tell the people that it is their own old friend and
master that sends them help, and bids them to be of good cheer,--when
I can show them that, although separated by distance, your heart never
ceases to live amongst them,--I know well the magic working of such a
spell upon them, and how, with a bravery that the boldest soldier never
surpassed, they will rise up against the stern foes of sickness and
famine, and do battle with hard fortune manfully.

“You have often smiled at what you deemed my exaggerated opinion of
these poor people,--my over-confidence in their capacity for good.
Oh--take my word for it--I never gave them credit for one half the
excellence of their natures. They are on their trial now, and nobly do
they sustain it!

“I have no heart to answer all your kind questions about myself,--enough
that I am well; as little can I ask you about all your doings in Paris.
I 'm afraid I should but lose temper if I heard that they were pleasant
ones; and yet, with my whole soul, I wish you to be happy; and with
this,

“Believe me your affectionate

“Mr. Repton has written me the kindest of letters, full of good advice
and good sense; he has also enclosed me a check for £100, with an offer
of more if wanted. I was low and depressed when his note reached me,
but it gave me fresh energy and hope. He proposed to come down here if
I wished; but how could I ask such a sacrifice,--how entreat him to face
the peril?”

“Tell Captain Martin I wish to speak to him,” said Martin, as he
finished the perusal of this letter. And in a few minutes after, that
gallant personage appeared, not a little surprised at the summons.

“I have got a letter from Mary here,” said Martin, vainly endeavoring
to conceal his agitation as he spoke, “which I want to show you. Matters
are in a sad plight in the West. She never exaggerates a gloomy story,
and her account is very afflicting. Read it.”

The Captain lounged towards the window, and, leaning listlessly against
the wall, opened the epistle.

“You have not written to her lately, then?” asked he, as he perused the
opening sentence.

“I am ashamed to say I have not; every day I made a resolution; but
somehow--”

“Is all this anything strange or new?” broke in the Captain. “I 'm
certain I have forty letters from my mother with exactly the same story.
In fact, before I ever broke the seal, I 'd have wagered an equal
fifty that the potatoes had failed, the bogs were flooded, the roads
impassable, and the people dying in thousands; and yet, when spring came
round, by some happy miracle they were all alive and merry again!”

“Read on,” said Martin, impatiently, and barely able to control himself
at this heartless commentary.

“Egad! I 'd have sworn I had read all this before, except these same
suggestions about not exacting the rents, building hospitals, and so
forth; that _is_ new. And why does she say, 'Don't write by deputy'? Who
_was_ your deputy?”

“Kate Henderson has written for me latterly.”

“And I should say she 's quite equal to that sort of thing; she dashes
off my mother's notes at score, and talks away, too, all the time she 's
writing.”

“That is not the question before us,” said Martin, sternly.

“When I sent for you to read that letter, it was that you might advise
and counsel me what course to take.”

“If you can afford to give away a year's income in the shape of rent,
and about as much more in the shape of a donation, of course you 're
quite free to do it. I only wish that your generosity would begin at
home, though; for I own to you I 'm very hard-up at this moment.” This
the Captain spoke with an attempted jocularity which decreased with
every word, till it subsided into downright seriousness ere he finished.

“So far from being in a position to do an act of munificence, I am
sorely pressed for money,” said Martin.

The Captain started; the half-smile with which he had begun to receive
this speech died away on his lips as he asked, “Is this really the
case?”

“Most truly so,” said Martin, solemnly.

“But how, in the name of everything absurd--how is this possible? By
what stratagem could you have spent five thousand a year at Cro' Martin,
and your estate was worth almost three times as much? Giving a very wide
margin for waste and robbery, I 'd say five thousand could not be made
away with there in a twelvemonth.”

“Your question only shows me how carelessly you must have read my
letters to you, in India,” said Martin; “otherwise you could not have
failed to see the vast improvements we have been carrying out on the
property,--the roads, the harbors, the new quarries opened, the extent
of ground covered by plantation,--all the plans, in fact, which Mary had
matured--”

“Mary! Mary!” exclaimed the Captain. “And do you tell me that all these
things were done at the instigation of a young girl of nineteen or
twenty, without any knowledge, or even advice--”

“And who said she was deficient in knowledge?” cried Martin. “Take up
the map of the estate; see the lands she has reclaimed; look at the
swamps you used to shoot snipe over bearing corn crops; see the thriving
village, where once the boatmen were starving, for they dared not
venture out to sea without a harbor against bad weather.”

“Tell me the cost of all this. What's the figure?” said the Captain;
“that's the real test of all these matters, for if _your_ income could
only feed this outlay, I pronounce the whole scheme the maddest thing
in Christendom. My mother's taste for carved oak cabinets and historical
pictures is the quintessence of wisdom in comparison.”

Martin was overwhelmed and silent, and the other went on,--“Half the
fellows in 'ours' had the same story to tell,--of estates wasted,
and fine fortunes squandered in what are called improvements. If the
possession of a good property entails the necessity to spend it all in
this fashion, one is very little better than a kind of land-steward to
one's own estate; and, for my part, I 'd rather call two thousand a year
my own, to do what I pleased with, than have a nominal twenty, of which
I must disburse nineteen.”

“Am I again to remind you that this is not the question before us?” said
Martin, with increased sternness.

“That is exactly the very question,” rejoined the Captain. “Mary here
coolly asks you, in the spirit of this same improvement-scheme, to
relinquish a year's income, and make a present of I know not how much
more, simply because things are going badly with them, just as if
everybody has n't their turn of ill-fortune. Egad, I can answer for it,
_mine_ has n't been flourishing latterly, and yet I have heard of no
benevolent plan on foot to aid or release me!”

To this heartless speech, uttered, however, in most perfect sincerity,
Martin made no reply whatever, but sat with folded arms, deep in
contemplation. At length, raising his head, he asked, “And have you,
then, no counsel to give,--no suggestion to make me?”

“Well,” said he, suddenly, “if Mary has not greatly overcharged all this
story--”

“That she has not,” cried Martin, interrupting him. “There 's not a
line, not a word of her letter, I 'd not guarantee with all I 'm worth
in the world.”

“In that case,” resumed the Captain, in the same indolent tone, “they
must be in a sorry plight, and _I_ think ought to cut and run as fast as
they can. I know that's what _we_ do in India; when the cholera comes,
we break up the encampment, and move off somewhere else. Tell Mary,
then, to advise them to keep out of 'the jungle,' and make for the hill
country.'”

Martin stared at the speaker for some seconds, and it was evident how
difficult he found it to believe that the words he had just listened to
were uttered in deliberate seriousness.

“If you have read that letter, you certainly have not understood it,”
 said he at last, in a voice full of melancholy meaning.

“Egad, it's only too easy of comprehension,” replied the Captain; “of
all things in life, there's no mistaking a demand for money.”

“Just take it with you to your own room, Harry,” said Martin, with
a manner of more affection than he had yet employed. “It is my firm
persuasion that when you have re-read and thought over it, your
impression will be a different one. Con it over in solitude, and then
come back and give me your advice.”

The Captain was not sorry to adopt a plan which relieved him so speedily
from a very embarrassing situation, and, folding up the note, he turned
and left the room.

There are a great number of excellent people in this world who believe
that “Thought,” like “Écarté,” is a game which requires two people to
play. The Captain was one of these; nor was it within his comprehension
to imagine how any one individual could suffice to raise the doubts he
was called on to canvass or decide. “Who should he now have recourse
to?” was his first question; and he had scarcely proposed it to himself
when a soft low voice said, “What is puzzling Captain Martin?--can I be
of any service to him?” He turned and saw Kate Henderson.

“Only think how fortunate!” exclaimed he. “Just come in here to this
drawing-room, and give me your advice.”

“Willingly,” said she, with a courtesy the more marked because his
manner indicated a seriousness that betokened trouble.

“My father has just dismissed me to cogitate over this epistle; as
if, after all, when one has read a letter, that any secret or mystical
interpretation is to come by all the reconsideration and reflection in
the world.”

“Am I to read it?” asked Kate, as he placed it in her hand.

“Of course you are,” said he.

“There is nothing confidential or private in it which I ought not to
see?”

“Nothing; and if there were,” added he, warmly, “_you_ are one of
ourselves, I trust,--at least _I_ think you so.”

Kate's lips closed with almost stern % impressiveness, but her color
never changed at this speech, and she opened the letter in silence. For
some minutes she continued to read with the same impassive expression;
but gradually her cheek became paler, and a haughty, almost scornful,
expression settled on her lips. “So patient are they in their trials,”
 said she, reading aloud the expression of Mary's note. “Is it not
possible, Captain Martin, that patience may be pushed a little beyond a
virtue, and become something very like cowardice,--abject cowardice?
And then,” cried she impetuously, and not waiting for his reply, “to
say that now is the time to show these poor people the saving care and
protection that the rich owe them, as if the duty dated from the hour of
their being struck down by famine, laid low by pestilence, or that the
debt could ever be acquitted by the relief accorded to pauperism! Why
not have taught these same famished creatures self-dependence, elevated
them to the rank of civilized beings by the enjoyment of rights that
give men self-esteem as well as liberty? What do you mean to do,
sir?--or is that your difficulty?” cried she, hastily changing her tone
to one of less energy.

“Exactly,--that is _my difficulty_. My father, I suspect, wishes me to
concur in the pleasant project struck out by Mary, and that, by way of
helping _them_, we should ruin _ourselves_.”

“And _you_ are for--” She stopped, as if to let him finish her question
for her.

“Egad, I don't know well what I'm for, except it be self-preservation.
I mean,” said he, correcting himself, as a sudden glance of almost
insolent scorn shot from Kate's eyes towards him,--“I mean that I 'm
certain more than half of this account is sheer exaggeration. Mary is
frightened,--as well she may be,--finding herself all alone, and
hearing nothing but the high-colored stories the people brings her, and
listening to calamities from morning to night.”

“But still it _may_ be all true,” said Kate, solemnly. “It may be--as
Miss Martin writes--that 'there is a blight on the land.'”

“What's to be done, then?” asked he, in deep embarrassment.

“The first step is to ascertain what is fact,--the real extent of the
misfortune.”

“And how is that to be accomplished?” asked he.

“Can you not think of some means?” said she, with a scarcely perceptible
approach to a smile.

“No, by Jove! that I cannot, except by going over there one's self.”

“And why not that?” asked she, more boldly, while she fixed her large
full eyes directly upon him.

“If _you_ thought that I ought to go,--if you advised it and would
actually say 'Go'--”

“Well, if I should?”

“Then I'd set off to-night; though, to say truth, neither the journey
nor the business are much to my fancy.”

“Were they ten times less so, sir, I'd say, 'Go,'” said she, resolutely.

“Then go I will,” cried the Captain; “and I'll start within two hours.”



CHAPTER VI. MR. MERL'S DEPARTURE

Worthy reader, you are neither weak of purpose nor undecided in action;
as little are you easily moved by soft influences, when aided by long
eyelashes. But had you been so, it would have been no difficult effort
for you to comprehend the state of mind in which Captain Martin repaired
to his room to make preparation for his journey. There was a kind of
half chivalry in his present purpose that nerved and supported him. It
was like a knight-errant of old setting out to confront a peril at the
behest of his lady-love; but against this animating conviction there
arose that besetting sin of small minds,--a sense of distrust,--a
lurking suspicion that he might be, all this while, nothing but the dupe
of a very artful woman.

“Who can tell,” said he to himself, “what plan she may have in all this,
or what object she may propose to herself in getting _me_ out of the
way? I don't think she really cares one farthing about the distress of
these people, supposing it all to be true; and as to the typhus fever
and cholera, egad! if they be there, one ought to think twice before
rushing into the midst of them. And then, again, what do I know about
the country or its habits? I have no means of judging if it be poorer or
sicklier or; more wretched than usual. To _my_ eyes, it always seemed
at the lowest depth of want and misery; every one went half starved and
more than half naked. I 'm sure there is no necessity for my going some
few hundred and odd miles to refresh my memory on this pleasant fact;
and yet this is precisely what I 'm about to do. Is it by way of trying
her power over me? By Jove, I 've hit it!” cried he, suddenly, as he
stopped arranging a mass of letters which he was reducing to order
before his departure. “That's her game; there's no doubt of it! She
has said to herself, 'This will prove him. If he do this at my bidding,
he'll do more.' Ay, but will he, mademoiselle? that's the question. A
young hussar may turn out to be a very old soldier. What if I were just
to tell her so. Girls of her stamp like a man all the better when he
shows himself to be wide-awake. I 'd lay a fifty on it she 'll care more
for me when she sees I 'm her own equal in shrewdness. And, after all,
why should _I_ go? I could send my valet, Fletcher,--just the kind of
fellow for such a mission,--never knew the secret he could n't worm out;
there never was a bit of barrack scandal he did n't get to the bottom
of. He 'd be back here within a fortnight, with the whole state of the
case, and I'll be bound there will be no humbugging _him_.”

This bright idea was not, however, without its share of detracting
reflections, for what became of all that personal heroism on which he
reposed such hope, if the danger were to be encountered by deputy? This
was a puzzle, not the less that he had not yet made up his mind whether
he 'd really be in love with Kate Henderson, or only involve _her_ in an
unfortunate attachment for _him_. While he thus pondered and hesitated,
strewing his room with the contents of drawers and cabinets, by way of
aiding the labor of preparation, his door was suddenly opened, and Mr.
Merl made his appearance. Although dressed with all his habitual regard
to effect, and more than an ordinary display of chains and trinkets,
that gentleman's aspect betokened trouble and anxiety; at least, there
was a certain restlessness in his eye that Martin well understood as an
evidence of something wrong within.

“Are you getting ready for a journey, Captain?” asked he, as he entered.

“I was thinking of it; but I believe I shall not go. I 'm undecided.”

“Up the Rhine?”

“No; not in that direction.”

“South,--towards Italy, perhaps?”

“Nor there, either. I was meditating a trip to England.”

“We should be on the road together,” said Merl. “I'm off by four
o'clock.”

“How so? What's the reason of this sudden start?”

“There's going to be a crash here,” said Merl, speaking in a lower tone.
“The Government have been doing the thing with too high a hand, and
there's mischief brewing.”

“Are you sure of this?” asked Martin.

“Only too sure, that's all. I bought in, on Tuesday last, at sixty-four
and an eighth, and the same stock is now fifty-one and a quarter, and
will be forty to-morrow. The day after--” Here Mr. Merl made a motion
with his outstretched arm, to indicate utter extinction.

“You're a heavy loser, then?” asked Martin, eagerly.

“I shall be, to the tune of some thirteen thousand pounds. It was just
on that account I came in here. I shall need money within the week, and
must turn those Irish securities of yours into cash,--some of them at
least,--and I want a hint from you as to which I ought to dispose of
and which hold over. You told me one day, I remember, that there was a
portion of the property likely to rise greatly in value--”

“_You_ told me, sir,” said Captain Martin, breaking suddenly in, “when
I gave you these same bonds, that they should remain in your own hands,
and never leave them. That was the condition on which I gave them.”

“I suppose, Captain, you gave them for something; you did not make a
present of them,” said the Jew, coloring slightly.

“If I did not make a present of them,” rejoined Martin, “the transaction
was about as profitable to me.”

“You owed me the money, sir; that, at least, is the way I regard the
matter.”

“And when I paid it by these securities, you pledged yourself not to
negotiate them. I explained to you how the entail was settled,--that the
property must eventually be mine,--and you accepted the arrangement on
these conditions.”

“All true, Captain; but nobody told me, at that time, there was going
to be a revolution in Paris,--which there will be within forty-eight
hours.”

“Confounded fool that I was to trust the fellow!” said Martin to
himself, but quite loud enough to be heard; then turning to Merl, he
said, “What do you mean by converting them into cash? Are you about to
sell part of our estate?”

“Nothing of the kind, Captain,” said Merl, smiling at the innocence of
the question. “I am simply going to deposit these where I can obtain
an advance upon them. I promise you, besides, it shall not be in any
quarter by which the transaction can reach the ears of your family.
This assurance will, I trust, satisfy _you_, and entitle _me_ to the
information I ask for.”

“What information do you allude to?” asked Martin, who had totally
forgotten what the Jew announced as the reason of his visit.

“I asked you, Captain,” said Merl, resuming the mincing softness of
his usual manner, “as to which of these securities might be the more
eligible for immediate negotiation?”

“And how should I know, sir?” replied the other, rudely. “I am very
little acquainted with the property itself; I know still less about the
kind of dealings you speak of. It does not concern me in the least
what you do, or how you do it. I believe I may have given you bonds for
something very like double the amount of all you ever advanced to me.
I hear of nothing from my father but the immense resources of this, and
the great capabilities of that; but as these same eventualities are
not destined to better _my_ condition, I have not troubled my head to
remember anything about them. You have a claim of about twenty thousand
against me.”

“Thirty-two thousand four hundred and seventy-eight pounds,” said the
Jew, reading from a small note-book which he had just taken from his
waistcoat pocket.

“That is some ten thousand more than ever I heard of,” said Martin, with
an hysterical sort of laugh. “Egad, Merl, the fellows were right that
would not have you in the 'Cercle.' You 'd have 'cleared every man of
them out,'--as well let a ferret into a rabbit warren.”

“I was n't aware,--I had not heard that I was put up--”

“To be sure you were; in all form proposed, seconded, and duly
blackballed. I own to you, I thought it very hard, very illiberal. There
are plenty of fellows there that have no right to be particular; and so
Jack Massingbred as much as told them. The fact is, Merl, you ought to
have waited awhile, and by the time that Harlowe and Spencer Cavendish
and a few more such were as deep in your books as I am, you 'd have had
a walk over. Willoughby says the same. It might have cost you something
smart, but you 'd have made it pay in the end,--eh, Merl?”

To this speech, uttered in a strain of jocular impertinence, Merl made
no reply. He had just torn one of his gloves in pieces in the effort
to draw it on, and he was busily exerting himself to get rid of the
fragments.

“Lady Dorothea had given me a card for you for Saturday,” resumed the
Captain; “but as you 're going away--Besides, after this defeat at
the Club, you could n't well come amongst all these people; so there's
nothing for it but patience, Merl, patience--”

“A lesson that may be found profitable to others, perhaps,” said the
Jew, with one of his furtive looks at the Captain, who quailed under it
at once.

“I was going to give you a piece of advice, Merl,” said he, in a tone
the very opposite to his late bantering one. “It was, that you should
just take a run over to Ireland yourself, and see the property.”

“I mean to do so, Captain Martin,” said the other, calmly.

“I can't offer you letters, for they would defeat what you desire to
accomplish; besides, there is no member of the family there at present
but a young lady-cousin of mine.”

“Just the kind of introduction I 'd like,” said the Jew, with all the
zest of a man glad to say what he knew would be deemed an impertinence.

Martin grew crimson with suppressed anger, but never spoke a word.

“Is this the Cousin Mary I have heard you speak of,” said Merl,--“the
great horsewoman, and she that ventures out alone on the Atlantic in a
mere skiff?”

Martin nodded. His temper was almost an overmatch for him, and he dared
not trust himself to speak.

“I should like to see her amazingly, Captain,” resumed Merl.

“Remember, sir, you have no lien upon _her_,” said Martin, sternly.

The Jew smirked and ran his fingers through his hair with the air of one
who deemed such an eventuality by no means so very remote.

“Do you know, Master Merl,” said Martin, staring at him from head
to foot with an expression the reverse of complimentary, “I 'm half
disposed to give you a few lines to my cousin; and if you 'll not take
the thing as a _mauvais plaisanterie_ on my part, I will do so.”. “Quite
the contrary, Captain. I 'll deem it a great favor, indeed,” said Merl,
with an admirable affectation of unconsciousness.

“Here goes, then,” said Martin, sitting down to a table, and preparing
his writing materials, while in a hurried hand he began:--

“'Dear Cousin Mary,--This will introduce to you Mr. Herman Merl, who
visits your remote regions on a tour of----What shall I say?”

“Pleasure,--amusement,” interposed Merl.

“No, when I _am_ telling a fib, I like a big one,--I 'll say,
philanthropy, Merl; and there's nothing so well adapted to cover those
secret investigations you are bent upon,--a tour of philanthropy.

“'You will, I am sure, lend him all possible assistance in his
benevolent object,--the same being to dispose of the family acres,--and
at the same time direct his attention to whatever may be matter of
interest,--whether mines, quarries, or other property easily convertible
into cash,--treating him in all respects as one to whom I owe many
obligations--and several thousand pounds.'

“Will that do, think you?”

“Perfectly; nothing better.”

“In return, I shall ask one favor at your hands,” said Martin, as
he folded and addressed the epistle. “It is that you write me a full
account of what you see in the West,--how the country looks, and the
people. Of course it will all seem terribly poor and destitute, and all
that sort of thing, to your eyes; but just try and find out if it be
worse than usual. Paddy is such a shrewd fellow, Merl, that it will
require all your own sharpness not to be taken in by him. A long letter
full of detail--a dash of figures in it--as to how many sheep have the
rot, or how many people have caught the fever, will improve it,--you
know the kind of thing I mean; and--I don't suppose you care about
shooting, yourself, but you 'll get some one to tell you--are the birds
plenty and in good condition. There's a certain Mr. Scanlan, if you
chance upon him; he 's up to everything, and not a bad performer at
dummy whist,--though I think _you_ could teach him a thing or two.” Merl
smiled and tried to look flattered, while the other went on: “And there
's another, called Henderson,--the steward,--a very shrewd person,--but
_you_ don't need all these particulars; you may be trusted to your own
good guidance,--eh, Merl?”

Merl again smiled in the same fashion as before; in fact, so completely
had he resumed the bland expression habitual to him, that the
Captain almost forgot the unpleasant cause of his visit, and all the
disagreeable incidents of the interview.

“You could n't give me a few lines to this Mr. Scanlan?” asked Merl,
with an air of easy indifference.

“Nothing easier,” cried the Captain, reseating himself; then suddenly
rising, with the expression of one to whom a sudden thought had just
crossed the mind, “Wait one second for me here, Merl; I'll be back with
you at once.” And as he spoke he dashed out of the room, and hastened to
his father.

“By a rare piece of luck,” cried he, as he entered, “I 've just chanced
upon the very fellow we want; an acquaintance I picked up at the
Cape,--up to everything; he goes over to Ireland to-night, and he 'll
take a run down to Cro' Martin, and send us his report of all he sees.
Whatever he tells us may be relied upon; for, depend upon 't, no lady
can humbug _him_. I 've just given him a note for Mary, and I 'll write
a few lines also by way of introducing him to Scanlan.”

Martin could barely follow the Captain, as with rapid utterance he
poured forth this plan. “Do I know him? What's his name?” asked he at
last.

“You never saw him. His name is Merl,--Herman Merl,--a fellow of
considerable wealth; a great speculator,--one of those Stock Exchange
worthies who never deal in less than tens of thousands. He has a
crotchet in his head about buying up half the West of Ireland,--some
scheme about flax and the deep-sea fishery. I don't understand it, but
I suppose _he_ does. At all events, he has plenty of money, and the head
to make it fructify; and if he only take a liking to it, he 's the very
fellow to buy up Kilkieran, and the islands, and the rest of that waste
district you were telling me of t'other night. But I must n't detain
him. He starts at four o'clock; and I only ran over here to tell you not
to worry yourself any more about Mary's letter. He 'll look to it all.”

And with this consolatory assurance the Captain hastened away, leaving
Martin as much relieved in mind as an indolent nature and an easy
conscience were sure to make him. To get anybody “to look to” anything
had been his whole object in life; to know that, whatever happened,
there was always somebody who misstated this, or neglected that, at
whose door all the culpability--where there was such--could be laid
and but for whom he had himself performed miracles of energy and
devotedness, and endured all the tortures and trials of a martyr. He
was, indeed, as are a great many others in this world, an excellent man
to his own heart,--kind, charitable, and affectionate; a well-wisher
to his kind, and hopeful of almost every one; but, all this while, his
virtues, like a miser's gold, had no circulation; they remained locked
up within him for his own use alone, and there he sat, counting them
over and gazing at them, speculating upon all that this affluence could
do, and--never doing it!

Life abounds with such men. They win respect while they live, and white
marble records their virtues when they die! Nor are they all useless.
Their outward bearing at least simulates whatever we revere in good men,
and we accept them in the same spirit of compromise as we take stucco
for stone; if they do no more, they show our appreciation of the “real
article.”

The Captain was not long in inditing a short note to Scanlan, to whom,
“strictly confidential,” Mr. Merl was introduced as a great capitalist
and speculator, desirous to ascertain all the resources of the land.
Scanlan was enjoined to show him every attention, making his visit in
all respects as agreeable as possible.

“This fellow will treat you well, Merl,” said the Captain, as he folded
the letter; “will give you the best salmon you ever tasted, and a glass
of Gordon's Madeira such as few could sport now-a-days. And if you
have a fancy for a day with my Cousin Mary's hounds, he 'll mount you
admirably, and show you the way besides.” And with this speech Martin
wished him good-bye; and closing the door after him, added, “And if
he'll kindly assist you to a broken neck, it's about the greatest
service he could render me!”

The laugh, silly and meaningless, that followed his utterance of this
speech, showed that it was spoken in all the listlessness of one who had
not really character enough to be even a “good hater.”



CHAPTER VII. THE CLUB

So little impression had Merl's gloomy forebodings made upon Captain
Martin, that he actually forgot everything that this shrewd gentleman
predicted, and only partially recalled them when the conversation the
next morning at the Club turned on the disturbed state of the capital.
People in “society” find it excessively difficult to believe in anything
like an organized opposition to the authorities of a government. They
are so accustomed to hear of street assemblages being scattered by a few
soldiers, mobs routed by a handful of mounted policemen, that they are
slow to imagine how any formidable movement can take its rise in such a
source. But the maladies of states, like those of the human frame,
are often mere trifles in their origin; chance, and the concurrence of
events swell their importance, till they assume an aspect of perhaps
greater menace than they deserve. This is essentially the case in
revolutionary struggles, where, at the outset, none ever contemplates
the extent to which the mischief may reach. The proclamation of the
“Ordinances,” as they were called, had produced a great excitement
in Paris. Groups of men in every street were gathered around some one
reading aloud the violent commentaries of the public papers; thoughtful
and stern faces were met at every corner; a look of expectancy--an
expression that seemed to say, What next?--was perceptible on all sides.
Many of the shops were half closed, and in some the objects of great
value were withdrawn to places of greater security. It was clear to see
that men apprehended some great crisis; but whence it should come, or by
whose instrumentality promoted, none seemed able to guess. Now and then
a mounted orderly would ride by at a smart trot, or a patrol party
of dragoons dash past; and the significant glance that followed them
indicated how full of meaning these signs appeared.

The day passed in this state of anxious uncertainty; and although the
journals discussed the condition of the capital as full of danger and
menace, an ostentatious announcement in the “Moniteur” proclaimed Paris
to be tranquil. In society--at least in the world of fashion and high
life--there were very few who would have disputed the official despatch.
“Who and what were they who could dispute the King's Government? Who and
where were there either leaders or followers? In what way should they
attempt it? The troops in and around Paris numbered something over forty
thousand, commanded by an old Marshal of the Empire, now the trustiest
adherent of royalty. The days of Mirabeaus and Robespierres and Dantons
had passed away; nor were these times in which men would like to recall
the reigns of terror and the guillotine.” So they reasoned--or, if the
phrase be too strong, so they talked--who lounged on soft-cushioned
ottomans, or moved listlessly over luxurious carpets; all agreeing that
it would be treasonable in the Ministers to retreat or abate one jot of
the high prerogative of the Crown. Powdered heads shook significantly,
and gold-embroidered vests heaved indignantly at the bare thought that
the old spirit of '95 should have survived amongst them; but not one
dreamed that the event boded seriously, or that the destinies of a great
nation were then in the balance.

It is but five-and-twenty years ago; and how much more have we learned
of the manufacture of revolutions in the interval! Barricades and street
warfare have become a science, and the amount of resistance a half-armed
populace can offer to a regular force is as much a matter of certainty
as a mathematical theorem. At that period, however, men were but in
the infancy of this knowledge; the traditions of the Great Revolution
scarcely were remembered, and, for the most part, they were
inapplicable.

What wonder, then, if people in society smiled scornfully at the
purposeless masses that occasionally moved past beneath their windows,
shouting with discordant voices some fragments of the “Marseillaise,”
 or, as they approached the residence of any in authority, venturing
on the more daring cry of “Down with the Ordinances!” The same tone of
haughty contempt pervaded the “Club.” Young men of fashion, little given
to the cares of political life, and really indifferent to the action of
laws which never invaded the privileges of the play-table, or curtailed
one prerogative of the “Coulisses,” felt an angry impatience at all the
turbulence and riot of the public streets.

In a magnificently furnished salon of the Club a number of these young
men were now assembled. Gathered from every nation of Europe,--many of
them bearing names of high historical interest,--they were, so far as
dress, air, and appearance went, no ignoble representatives of the
class they belonged to. The proud and haughty Spaniard, the fierce-eyed,
daring-looking Pole, the pale, intellectual-faced Italian, the courteous
Russian, and the fair-haired, stalwart Saxon were all there; and,
however dissimilar in type, banded together by the magic influence of
the “set” they moved in, to an almost perfect uniformity of sentiment
and opinion.

“I vote that any man be fined ten Louis that alludes, however remotely,
to this confounded question again,” cried Count Gardoni, rising
impatiently from his chair and approaching a card-table.

“And I second you!” exclaimed a Polish prince, with a Russian decoration
at his button-hole.

“Carried _nem. con._” said Captain Martin, seating himself at the
play-table. “And now for the 'Lansquenet.'” And in a moment every seat
was occupied, and purses of gold and pocket-books of bank-notes were
strewed over the board. They were all men who played high; and the game
soon assumed the grave character that so invariably accompanies large
wagers. Wonderfully little passed, except the terms of the game itself.
Gambling is a jealous passion, and never admits its votaries to wander
in their attention. And now large sums passed from hand to hand, and all
the passions of hope and fear racked heads and hearts around, while a
decorous silence prevailed; or, when broken, some softly toned voice
alone interrupted the stillness.

“Are you going, Martin?” whispered the young French Count de Nevers, as
the other moved noiselessly back from the table.

“It is high time, I think,” said Martin; “this is my seventeenth night
of losing,--losing heavily, too. I'm sick of it!”

“Here 's a chance for you, Martin,” said a Russian prince, who had just
assumed “the bank.” “You shall have your choice of color, and your own
stake.”

“Thanks; but I'll not be tempted.”

“I say red, and a thousand francs,” cried a Neapolitan.

“There 's heavier play outside, I suspect,” said Martin, as a wild,
hoarse shout from the streets re-echoed through the room.

“A fine,--a fine,--Martin is fined!” cried several around the table.

“You have n't left me wherewithal to pay it, gentlemen,” said he,
laughing. “I was just about to retire, a bankrupt, into private life.”

“That's platoon fire,” exclaimed the Pole, as the loud detonation of
small arms seemed to shake the very room.

“Czernavitz also fined,” cried two together.

“I bow in submission to the Court,” said the Pole, throwing down the
money on the table.

“Lend _me_ as much more,” said Martin; “it may change my luck.” And with
this gambler's philosophy, he again drew nigh the table.

This slight interruption over, the game proceeded as before. Martin,
however, was now a winner, every wager succeeding, and every bet he made
a gain.

“There's nothing like a dogged persistence,” said the Russian. “Fortune
never turns her back on him who shows constancy. See Martin, now; by
that very resolution he has conquered, and here we are, all cleared
out!”

“I am, for one,” cried an Italian, flinging his empty purse on the
table.

“There's my last Louis,” said Nevers. “I reserve it to pay for my
supper.”

“Martin shall treat us all to supper!” exclaimed another.

“Where shall it be, then?” said Martin; “here, or at my own quarters?”

“Here, by all means,” cried some.

“I 'm for the Place Vendôme,” said the Pole, “for who knows but we shall
catch a glimpse of that beautiful girl, Martin's 'Belle Irlandaise.'”

“I saw her to-night,” said the Italian, “and I own she _is_ all you say.
She was speaking to Villemart, and I assure you the old Minister won't
forget it in a hurry. Something or other he said about the noise in the
street drew from him the word _canaille_. She turned round at once and
attacked him. He replied, and the controversy grew warm; so much so,
that many gathered around them to listen, amongst whom I saw the Duc
de Guiche, Prince du Saulx, and the Austrian Minister. Nothing could be
more perfect than her manner,--calm, without any effrontery; assured,
and yet no sacrifice of delicacy. It was easy to see, too, that the
theme was not one into which she stumbled by an accident; she knew every
event of the Great Revolution, and used the knowledge with consummate
skill, and, but for one slip, with consummate temper also.

“What was the slip you allude to?” cried the Russian.

“It was when Villemart, after a boastful enumeration of the superior
merits of his order, called them the 'Enlighteners of the People.'

“'You played that part on one occasion,' said she; 'but I scarcely
thought you 'd like to refer to it.'

“'How so? When do you mean?' asked he.

“'When they hung you to the lanterns,' said she, with the energy of
a tigress in her look. Pardié! at that moment I never saw anything so
beautiful or so terrible.”

A loud uproar in the street without, in which the sound of troop-horses
passaging to and fro could be distinguished, now interrupted the
colloquy. As the noise increased, a low, deep roar, like the sound of
distant thunder, could be heard, and the Pole cried out,--“Messieurs les
Sans-culottes, I strongly advise you to turn homewards, for, if I be not
much mistaken, here comes the artillery.”

“The affair may turn out a serious one, after all,” broke in the
Italian.

“A serious one!” echoed the Pole, scornfully. “How can it? Forty
battalions of infantry, ten thousand sabres, and eight batteries; are
they not enough, think you, to rout this contemptible herd of street
rioters?”

“There--listen! It has begun already!” exclaimed Martin, as the sharp
report of fire-arms, quite close to the windows, was followed by a
crash, and then a wild, mad shout, half rage, half defiance.

“There's nothing for it, in these things, but speedy action,” said
the Pole; “grape and cavalry charges to clear the streets, and rifle
practice at anything that shows itself at the windows.”

“It is so easy, so very easy, to crush a mob,” said the Russian, “if you
only direct your attention to the leader,--think of nothing but _him_.
Once you show that, whatever may be the fate of others, death must be
his, the whole assemblage becomes a disorganized, unwieldy mass, to be
sabred or shot down at pleasure.”

“Soldiers have no fancy for this kind of warfare,” said De Nevers,
haughtily; “victory is never glorious, defeat always humiliation.”

“But who talks of defeat?” exclaimed the Pole, passionately. “The
officer who could fail against such an enemy should be shot by a
court-martial. We have, I believe, every man of us here, served; and
I asked you, what disproportion of force could suggest a doubt of
success?”

As he spoke, the door of the room was suddenly opened, and a young
man, with dress all disordered, and the fragment of a hat in his hand,
entered.

“What, Massingbred!” cried one, “how came you to be so roughly handled?”

“So much for popular politeness!” exclaimed the Russian, as he took up
the tattered remains of a dress-coat, and exhibited it to the others.

“Pardon me, Prince,” replied Massingbred, as he filled a glass of
water and drank it off, “this courtesy I received at the hands of the
military. I was turning my cab from the Boulevard to enter this street,
when a hoarse challenge of a sentry, saying I know not what, attracted
my attention. I drew up short to learn, and then suddenly came a rush
of the people from behind, which terrified my horse, and set him off at
speed; the uproar increasing, the affrighted animal dashed madly onward,
the crowd flying on every side, when suddenly a bullet whizzed past my
head, cutting my hat in two; a second, at the same instant, struck my
horse, and killed him on the spot, cab and all rolling over as he fell.
How I arose, gained my legs, and was swept away by the dense torrent of
the populace, are events of which I am very far from clear. I only know
that although the occurrence happened within half an hour ago, it seems
to _me_ an affair of days since.”

“You were, doubtless, within some line of outposts when first
challenged,” said the Pole, “and the speed at which you drove was
believed to be an arranged plan of attack, for you say the mob followed
you.”

“Very possibly your explanation is the correct one,” said Massingbred,
coolly; “but I looked for more steadiness and composure from the troops,
while I certainly did not anticipate so much true courtesy and kindness
as I met with from the people.”

“Parbleu! here's Massingbred becoming Democrat,” said one. “The next
thing we shall hear is his defence of a barricade.”

“You'll assuredly not hear that I attacked one in such company as
inflicted all this upon me,” rejoined he, with an easy smile.

“Here's the man to captivate your 'Belle Irlandaise,' Martin,” cried
one. “Already is he a hero and a martyr to Royal cruelty.”

“Ah! you came too late to hear that,” said the Pole, in a whisper to
Massingbred; “but it seems La Henderson became quite a Charlotte Corday
this evening, and talked more violent Republicanism than has been heard
in a salon since the days of old Égalité.”

“All lights must be extinguished, gentlemen,” said the waiter, entering
hastily. “The street is occupied by troops, and you must pass out by the
Rue de Grenelle.”

“Are the mobs not dispersing, then?” asked the Russian.

“No, your Highness. They have beaten back the troops from the Quai
Voltaire, and are already advancing on the Louvre.”

“What absurdity!” exclaimed the Pole. “If the troops permit this, there
is treason amongst them.”

“I can answer for it there is terror, at least,” said Massingbred.
“All the high daring and spirit is with what you would call the
Sans-culottes.”

“That a man should talk this way because he has lost a cab-horse!” cried
the Pole, insolently.

“There are men who can bear the loss of a country with more
equanimity,--I know that,” whispered Massingbred in his ear, with all
the calm sternness of an insult.

“You mean this for _me?_” said the Pole, in a low voice.

“Of course I do,” was the answer.

“Where?--when?--how?” muttered the Pole, in suppressed passion.

“I leave all at your disposal,” said Massingbred, smiling at the other's
effort to control his rage.

“At Versailles,--to-morrow morning,--pistols.”

Massingbred bowed, and turned away. At the same instant the waiter
entered to say that the house must be cleared at once, or all within it
consent to remain close prisoners.

“Come along, Martin,” said Massingbred, taking his arm. “I shall want
you to do me a favor. Let us make our escape by the Rue de Grenelle, and
I 'll engage to pilot you safely to your own quarters.”

“Has anything passed between you and Czernavitz?” asked Martin, as they
gained the street.

“A slight exchange of civilities which requires an exchange of shots,”
 said Jack, calmly.

“By George! I 'm sorry for it. He can hit a franc-piece at thirty
paces.”

“So can I, Martin; and, what's more, Anatole knows it. He's as brave
as a lion, and it is my confounded skill has pushed him on to this
provocation.”

“He 'll shoot you,” muttered Martin, in a half revery.

“Not impossible,” said Massingbred. “He's a fellow who cannot conceal
his emotions, and will show at once what he means to do.”

“Well, what of that?”

“Simply, that if he intends mischief I shall know it, and send a bullet
through his heart.”

Little as Martin had seen of Massingbred,--they were but Club
acquaintances of a few weeks back,--he believed that he was one of those
smart, versatile men who, with abundance of social ability, acquire
reputation for higher capacity than they possess; but, above all, he
never gave him credit for anything like a settled purpose or a stern
resolution. It was, then, with considerable astonishment that he now
heard him avow this deadly determination with all the composure that
could vouch for its sincerity. There was, however, little time to think
of these things. The course they were driven to follow, by by-streets
and alleys, necessitated a long and difficult way. The great
thoroughfares which they crossed at intervals were entirely in the
possession of the troops, who challenged them as they approached, and
only suffered them to proceed when well satisfied with their account.
The crowds had all dispersed, and to the late din and tumult there had
succeeded the deep silence of a city sunk in sleep, only broken by the
hoarse call of the sentinels, or the distant tramp of a patrol.

“It is all over, I suppose,” said Martin. “The sight of the
eight-pounders and the dark caissons has done the work.”

“I don't think so,” said Massingbred, “nor do the troops think so.
These mobs are not like ours in England, who, with plenty of individual
courage, are always poltroons in the mass. These fellows understand
fighting as an art, know how to combine their movements, arrange
the modes of attack or defence, can measure accurately the means
of resistance opposed to them, and, above all, understand how to be
led,--something far more difficult than it seems. In _my_ good borough
of Oughterard,--or yours, rather, Martin, for I have only a loan of
it,--a few soldiers--the army, as they would call them--would sweep the
whole population before them. Our countrymen can get up a row, these
fellows can accomplish a revolt,--there's the difference.”

“And have they any real, substantial grievance that demands such an
expiation?”

“Who knows?” said he, laughingly. “There never was a Government too bad
to live under,--there never was one exempt from great vices. Half the
political disturbances the world has witnessed have arisen from causes
remote from State Government; a deficient harvest, a dear loaf, the
liberty of the Press invaded,--a tyranny always resented by those who
can't read,--are common causes enough. But here we are now at the Place
Vendôme, and certainly one should say the odds are against the people.”

Massingbred said truly. Two battalions of infantry, with a battery of
guns in position, were flanked by four squadrons of Cuirassiers, the
formidable array filling the entire “Place,” and showing by their air
and attitude their readiness for any eventuality. A chance acquaintance
with one of the staff enabled Massingbred and Martin to pass through
their lines and arrive at their hotel.

“Remember,” said the officer who accompanied them, “that you are close
prisoners now. My orders are that nobody is to leave the Place under any
pretext.”

“Why, you can scarcely suspect that the Government has enemies in this
aristocratic quarter?” said Massingbred, smiling.

“We have them everywhere,” was the brief answer, as he bowed and turned
away.

“I scarcely see how I'm to keep my appointment at Versailles to-morrow
morning,” said Massingbred, as he followed Martin up the spacious
stairs. “Happily, Czernavitz knows me, and will not misinterpret my
absence.”

“Not to say that he may be unable himself to get there,” said Martin.
As he spoke, they had reached the door, opening which with his key, the
Captain motioned to Massingbred to enter.

Massingbred stopped suddenly, and in a voice of deep meaning said, “Your
father lives here?”

“Yes,--what then?” asked Martin.

“Only that I have no right to pass his threshold,” said the other, in
a low voice. “I was his guest once, and I 'm not sure that I repaid the
hospitality as became me. You were away at the time.”

“You allude to that stupid election affair,” said Martin. “I can only
say that I never did, never could understand it. My only feeling was
one of gratitude to you for saving me from being member for the
borough. Come along,” said he, taking his arm; “this is no time for your
scruples, at all events.”

“No, Martin, I cannot,” said the other. “I 'd rather walk up to one of
those nine-pounders there than present myself to your lady-mother--”

“But you needn't. You are _my_ guest; these are _my_ quarters. You shall
see nobody but myself till you leave this. Remember what the Captain
told us; we are prisoners here.” And without waiting for a reply, Martin
pushed him before him into the room.

“Two o'clock,” said Massingbred, looking at his watch; “and we are to be
at Versailles by eight.”

“Well, leave all the care of that to me,” said Martin; “and do you throw
yourself on the bed there, and take some rest. Without you prefer to sup
first?”

“No, an hour's sleep is what I stand most in need of; and so I 'll say
good-night.”

Massingbred said this less that he wanted repose than a brief interval
to be alone with his own thoughts. And now, as he closed his eyes to
affect sleep, it was really to commune with his own heart, and reflect
over what had just occurred.

Independently that he liked Czernavitz personally, he was sorry for a
quarrel at such a moment. There was a great game about to be played, and
a mere personal altercation seemed something small and contemptible in
the face of such events. “What will be said of us,” thought he, “but
that we were a pair of hot-headed fools, thinking more of a miserable
interchange of weak sarcasms than of the high destinies of a whole
nation? And it was _my_ fault,” added he to himself; “I had no right to
reproach him with a calamity hard enough to bear, even without its
being a reproach. What a strange thing is life, after all!” thought
he; “everything of greatest moment that occurs in it the upshot of an
accident,--my going to Ireland, my visit to the West, my election, my
meeting with Kate Henderson, and now this duel.” And, so ruminating, he
dropped off into a sound sleep, undisturbed by sounds that might well
have broken the heaviest slumber.



CHAPTER VIII. AN EVENING OF ONE OP THE “THREE DAYS”

On the evening which witnessed these events Lady Dorothea's “reception”
 had been more than usually brilliant. Numbers had come to show of
how little moment they deemed this “street disturbance,” as they were
pleased to call it; others, again, were curious to pick up in society
the opinions formed on what was passing, among whom were several high
in the favor of the Court and the confidence of the Government. All, as
they arrived, had some little anecdote or adventure to relate as to the
difficulties which beset them on the way,--the distances which they were
obliged to travel, the obstructions and passwords and explanations which
met them at every turn. These were all narrated in the easy, jocular
tone of passing trifles, the very inconvenience of which suggested its
share of amusement.

As the evening wore on, even these became less frequent; the streets
were already thinning, and, except in some remote, unimportant parts of
the capital, the troops were in possession of all the thoroughfares. Of
course, the great topic of conversation was the bold stroke of policy
then enacting,--a measure which all pronounced wise and just, and
eminently called for.

To have heard the sentiments then uttered, the disparaging opinions
expressed of the middle and humbler classes, the hopelessness of ever
seeing them sufficiently impressed with their own inferiority, the
adulation bestowed on the monarch and all around him, one might really
have fancied himself back again at the Tuileries in the time of Louis
the Fourteenth. All agreed in deeming the occasion an excellent one to
give the people a salutary lesson; and it was really pleasant to see
the warm interest taken by these high and distinguished persons in the
fortunes of their less happy countrymen.

To Lady Dorothea's ears no theme could be more grateful; and she moved
from group to group, delighted to mingle her congratulations with those
around, and exchange her hopes and aspirations and wishes with theirs.
Kate Henderson, upon whom habitually devolved the chief part in these
“receptions,” was excited and flurried in manner; a more than ordinary
effort to please being dashed, as it were, by some secret anxiety, and
the expectation of some coming event. Had there been any one to watch
her movements, he might have seen the eagerness with which she listened
to each new account of the state of the capital, and how impatiently
she drank in the last tidings from the streets; nor less marked was the
expression of proud scorn upon her features, as she heard the insulting
estimate of the populace, and the vainglorious confidence in the
soldiery. But more than all these was her haughty indignation as she
listened to the confused, mistaken opinions uttered on every side as to
the policy of the Government and the benevolent intentions of the king.
Once, and only once, did she forget the prudent resolve she wished to
impose upon herself; but temper and caution and reserve gave way, as
she heard a very distinguished person amusing a circle around him by an
unfair and unfaithful portraiture of the great leaders of '92. It was
then, when stung by the odious epithet of _canaille_ applied to those
for whose characters she entertained a deep devotion, that she forgot
everything, and in a burst of indignant eloquence overwhelmed and
refuted the speaker. This was the moment, too, in which she replied to
Villemart by a word of terrible ferocity. Had the red cap of Liberty
itself been suddenly hoisted in that brilliant assemblage, the dread and
terror which arose could scarcely have been greater.

“Where are we?” cried the Marquise de Longueville. “I thought we were in
the Place de Vendôme, and I find myself in the Faubourg St. Antoine!”

“Does my Lady know that her friend and confidante is a Girondist of the
first water?” said an ex-Minister.

“Who could have suspected the spirit of Marat under the mask of Ninon de
l'Enclos?” muttered Villemart.

“What is this I hear, dearest Kate?” cried the Duchesse de Mirecourt,
as she drew the young girl's arm within her own. “They tell me you have
terrified every one,--that Madame de Soissons has gone home ill, and the
old Chevalier de Gardonnes has sent for his confessor.”

“I have been very rash, very foolish,” said Kate, as a deadly pallor
came over her; “but I could bear it no longer. Besides, what does it
matter? They 'll hear worse, and bear it too, before three days are
over.”

“Then it is all true?” cried the Duchess, eagerly. “You told Villemart
that when the Government spoke with grape-shot, the people replied with
the guillotine!”

“Not exactly,” said Kate, with a faint smile. “But are they all going?”

“Of course they are. You have frightened them almost to death; and I
know you only meant it for jest,--one of those little half-cruel jests
you were ever fond of. Come with me and say so,--come, dearest.” And she
drew her, as she spoke, into the crowded salon, now already a scene of
excited leave-taking. The brilliant company, however, fell back as they
came forward, and an expression of mingled dismay and compassion was
turned towards the young Duchess, who with a kind of heroic courage drew
Kate's arm closer within her own.

“I am come to make an explanation, messieurs et mesdames,” said the
Duchess, with her most captivating smile; “pray vouchsafe me a hearing.
My friend--my dearest, best friend here--has, in a moment of sportive
pleasantry, suffered herself to jest--”

“It was a jest, then?” broke in Madame de Longueville, haughtily.

“Just as that is,” replied Kate, lifting her hand and pointing in the
direction whence came a terrible crash of artillery, followed by the
rattle of musketry.

“Let us go,--let us away!” was now heard in affrighted accents on every
side; and the splendid assemblage, with less of ceremony than might be
expected, began to depart. Lady Dorothea alone was ignorant of what had
occurred, and witnessed this sudden leave-taking with amazement. “You
are surely not afraid?” said she to one; “there is nothing serious in
all this.”

“She has told us the reverse, my Lady,” was the reply. “We should be
compromised to remain longer in her company.”

“Adieu, my Lady. I wish we left you in safer companionship.”

“Farewell, Madame, and pray be warned of your danger,” whispered
another.

“Your Ladyship may be called upon to acquit debts contracted by another,
if Mademoiselle continues a member of your family,” said Villemart, as
he bowed his departure.

“Believe me, Madame, none of us include _you_ in the terrible sentiments
we have listened to.”

These, and a vast number of similar speeches attended the leave-taking
of nearly each of her guests, till Lady Dorothea, confused, almost
stunned by reiterated shocks, sat silently accepting these mysterious
announcements, and almost imagining herself in all the bewilderment of a
dream.

Twice she made an effort to ask some explanation, but failed; and it was
only as the Duchesse de Mirecourt drew nigh to say farewell, that in a
faint, weak voice she said,--“Can you tell me what all are hinting at,
or am I only confusing myself with the terrible scenes without?”

“I 'd have prevented it had I been near. I only heard it when too late,
my Lady,” said the Duchess, sorrowfully.

“Prevented what?--heard what?” cried Lady Dorothea.

“Besides, she has often said as much amongst ourselves; we only laughed,
as indeed every one would do now, did not events present so formidable
an aspect.”

“Who is she you speak of? Tell me, I beseech you. What does this mean?”

“I am the culprit, my Lady,” said Kate, approaching with all the
quiet stateliness of her peculiar manner. “I have routed this gorgeous
assembly, shocked your most distinguished guests, and horrified all
whose sentiments breathe loyalty! I am sincerely sorry for my offence;
and it is a grave one.”

“_You--you_ have dared to do this?”

“Too true, madam,” rejoined Kate.

“How and to whom have you had the insolence--”

She stopped, overcome by passion; and Kate replied,--“To all who pleased
to listen, my Lady, I have said what doubtless is not often uttered in
such choice company, but what, if I mistake not greatly, their ears will
grow familiar with erelong.”

“Nay, nay,” said the Duchess, in a tone of apology, “the matter is not
so serious as all this. Every one now is terrified. This disturbance,
the soldiery, the vast crowds that beset the streets, have all produced
so much excitement that even a few words spoken at random are enough
to cause fear. It is one of Kate's fancies to terrorize thus over weak
minds. She has the cruel triumph of not knowing what fear is. In a word,
it is a mere trifling event, sure to be forgotten in the midst of such
scenes as we are passing through.”

This attempt at explanation, poured forth with rapid utterance, did not
produce on Lady Dorothea the conviction it was intended to impose, and
her Ladyship received the last adieus of the Duchess with a cold and
stately formality; and then, as the door closed after her, turned to
Kate Henderson, and said,--“I want _your_ explanation of all this. Let
me have it.”

“It is easily given, my Lady,” said Kate, calmly. And then, in a voice
that never trembled nor varied, she narrated briefly the scene which
had just occurred, not extenuating in the slightest her own share in the
transaction, or offering a single syllable of excuse.

“And you, being who and what you are, dared thus to outrage the best
blood of France!” exclaimed Lady Dorothea, trembling all over with
passion.

“Perhaps, my Lady, if I sought for an apology, it would be in the fact
of being who and what I am.”

“And do you imagine that after conduct such as this, after exposing me
to a partnership in the shame that attaches to yourself, that you are
any longer to enjoy the shelter of my roof?”

“It never occurred to me to think of that, madam,” said Kate, with an
ill-repressed scorn.

“Then it is for _me_ to remind you of it,” said her Ladyship, sternly.
“You shall, first of all, write me an humble apology for this vulgar
tirade, this outrage upon my company, and then you shall leave the
house. Sit down there, and write as I shall dictate to you.”

Kate seated herself with an air of implicit obedience at a
writing-table, and took up a pen.

“Write,” cried Lady Dorothea, sternly. “Begin, 'My Lady.' No. 'I
approach your Ladyship for the last time.' No, not that. 'If the sincere
sorrow in which I pen these lines.' No. Do it yourself. You best can
express the shame your heart should feel in such a moment. Let the words
be your own!”

Kate leaned over the paper and wrote rapidly for a few seconds. Having
finished, she read over the lines, and seemed to reflect on them.

“Show me that paper!” cried Lady Dorothea, impatiently. But, without
obeying the command, Kate said,--“Your Ladyship will not be able to
leave Paris for at least forty hours. By that time the Monarchy will
have run its course in France. You will probably desire, however, to
escape from the scenes of turbulence sure to ensue. This will secure you
a free passage, whichever road you take.”

“What raving is all this?” said Lady Dorothea, snatching the paper
from her hand, and then reading aloud in French,-- “'The authorities
are required to aid and tender all assistance in their power to Lady
Dorothea Martin and all who accompany her, neither giving nor suffering
any opposition to be given to her or them in the prosecution of their
journey.'

(Signed) “Jules Lagrange,

“'Minister of Police _ad interim_'

“And this in your own hand, too!” exclaimed Lady Dorothea,
contemptuously.

“Yes, madam; but it will entitle it to the seal of the Prefecture, and
entitle _you_ to all that it professes.”

“So that I have the honor to shelter within my walls a chief of this
insurrection,--if it be worthy of such a name; one in the confidence of
this stupid _canaille_, who fancy that the fall of a Monarchy is like a
row in a _guinguette!_”

“Your Ladyship is no longer in a position to question me or arraign
my actions. Before two days are over, the pageant of a king will have
passed off the stage, and men of a different stamp take the direction
of affairs. One of these will be he whose name I have affixed to that
paper,--not without due warranty to do so. Your Ladyship may or may not
choose to avail yourself of it.”

“I spurn the imposition,” said Lady Dorothea, tearing it in fragments.
“So poor a cheat could not deceive _me_. As for yourself--”

“Oh, do not bestow a thought upon _me_, my Lady. I can suffice for my
own guidance. I only wait for morning to leave this house.”

“And it is to a city in such a state as this you would confide yourself.
Truly, mademoiselle, Republicanism has a right to be proud of you. You
are no half-convert to its principles.”

“Am I again to say, my Lady, that your control over me has ceased?”

“It has not. It shall not cease till I have restored you to the humble
roof from which I took you,” said Lady Dorothea, passionately. “Your
father is our creature; he has no other subsistence than what we
condescend to bestow on him. He shall know, when you re-enter his doors,
why and for what cause you are there. Till that time come, you are, as
you have been, in my service.”

“No, my Lady, the tie between us is snapped. Dependence is but a sad
part at the best; but so long as it is coupled with a certain show of
respect it is bearable. Destroy _that_, and it is mere slavery, abject
and degrading. I cannot go back to your Ladyship's service.” And she
gave to the last word an emphasis of intense scorn.

“You must and you shall,” said Lady Dorothea. “If _you_ are forgetful
of what it is your duty to remember, I am not. Here you shall remain;
without,” added she, in an accent of supreme contempt, “your counsel and
direction shall be sought after by the high and mighty individuals who
are so soon to administer the affairs of this nation.”

The loud roll of a drum, followed by the louder clank of sabres and
musketry, here startled the speakers; and Kate, hastening to the window,
opened it, and stepped out upon the balcony. Day was just dawning; a
gray half-light covered the sky, but the dark shadows of the tall
houses still stretched over the Place. Here, now, the troops were all in
motion; a sudden summons having roused them to form in rank. The hasty
character of the movement showed that some emergency was imminent,--a
fact confirmed by the frequent arrival and departure of orderlies at
full speed.

After a brief interval of preparation the infantry formed in column,
and, followed by the artillery and cavalry, moved out of the Place at
a quick step. The measured tramp of the foot-soldiers, the clattering
noise of the train and the dragoons could be heard long after they had
passed out of sight; and Kate stood listening eagerly as to what would
come next, when suddenly a man in plain clothes rode hastily from one of
the side-streets into the centre of the Place. He looked around him for
a moment or two, and then disappeared. Within a few seconds after, a
dull, indistinct sound seemed to rise from the ground, which swelled
gradually louder and louder, and at last grew into the regular footfall
of a great multitude moving in measured time; and now a vast crowd
poured into the Place, silent and wordless. On they came from the
various quarters that opened into the square,--men, for the most part
clad in blouses or in the coarse garb of laborers. They were armed
either with musket or sword, and in many instances wore the cross-belt
of the soldier. They proceeded at once to barricade the square at its
opening into the Rue de la Paix,--a work which they accomplished with
astonishing speed and regularity; for, while Kate still looked, a
formidable rampart was thrown up across the entire street, along which a
line of armed men was stationed, every one of whom, by his attitude and
gesture, betrayed the old discipline of a soldier's life. Orders were
given and obeyed, movements made, and dispositions effected, with
all the regularity and precision of regular troops; and by the ready
obedience of all, and the steady attitude observed, it was easy to see
that these men were trained to arms and to habits of discipline. Not
less evident was it that they who commanded them were not new to such
duties. But, more important than all such signs was the fact that here
and there through the mass might be seen the uniform of a soldier, or
the epaulette of an officer, showing that desertion to the ranks of the
people had already begun.

Kate was so occupied in attentive observation of the scene that she had
not noticed the arrival of another person in the apartment, and whose
voice now suddenly attracted her. It was Martin himself, hastily aroused
from his bed by his servant, who in great alarm told him that the
capital was in open revolt, the king's troops beaten back, and the
people victorious everywhere. “There 's not a moment to lose,” cried
he; “we must escape while we can. The road to Versailles is yet in
possession of the troops, and we can take that way.”

Lady Dorothea, partly overcome by the late scene, partly stunned by the
repeated shocks she experienced, made no reply whatever; and Martin,
judging from the expression of her features the anxiety she was
suffering, hastily added, “Let me see Kate Henderson,--where is she?”

Lady Dorothea merely pointed towards the balcony, but did not utter a
word.

“Oh, have I found you?” said Martin, stepping out upon the balcony. “You
see what is doing,--I might say what is done,” added he; “for I believe
the game is well-nigh decided. Nothing but an overwhelming force will
now crush this populace. We must get away, and at once. Will you give
the orders? Send for post-horses; tell them to pack up whatever they
can,--direct everything, in fact. My Lady is too ill,--too much overcome
to act, or think of anything. Our whole reliance is upon you.” While he
was yet uttering these broken, disjointed sentences, he had drawn Kate
by the arm within the room, and now stood beside Lady Dorothea's chair.
Her Ladyship raised her head and fixed her eyes upon Kate, who sustained
the gaze calmly and steadily, nor by the slightest movement displayed
one touch of any emotion. The glance, at first haughty and defiant,
seemed at length to grow weaker under the unmoved stare of the young
girl, and finally she bent down her head and sat as though overcome.

“Come, Dora,” said Martin, kindly, “rouse yourself; you are always equal
to an effort when necessity presses. Tell Kate here what you wish, and
she 'll do it.”

“I want no aid,--no assistance, sir. Miss Henderson is her own
mistress,--she may do what, or go where she pleases.”

Martin made a sign to Kate not to mind what he believed to be the mere
wandering of an over-excited brain; and then bending down over the
chair, said, “Dear Dora, we must be active and stirring; the people will
soon be masters of the capital,--for a while, at least,--and there is no
saying what excesses they will commit.”

“Do not offend Miss Henderson, sir,” interposed Lady Dorothea; “she has
equal confidence in their valor and their virtue.”

“What does this mean?--when did she fall into this state?” asked he,
eagerly. And although only spoken in a whisper, Lady Dorothea overheard
them, and said,--“Let _her_ tell you. She can give you the very fullest
explanation.”

“But, Dora, this is no time for trifling; we are here, in the midst of
an enraged populace and a maddened soldiery. There, listen!--that was
artillery; and now, hear!--the bells of the churches are sounding the
alarm.”

“They are ringing the knell of the Monarchy!” said Kate, solemnly.

A hoarse, wild shout--aery like that of enraged wild beasts--arose
from the Place beneath, and all rushed to the window to see what had
occurred. It was a charge of heavy cavalry endeavoring to force the
barricade; and now, vigorously repulsed by the defenders, men and horses
were rolling on the ground in terrible confusion, while on the barricade
itself a hand-to-hand conflict was raging.

“Sharp work, by George!” said a voice behind Kate's shoulder. She turned
and saw Captain Martin, who had just joined them unobserved.

“I thought you many a mile away,” said Kate, in a whisper.

“So I should have been,” replied he, in the same tone, “but I was n't
going to lose this. I knew it was to come off to-day, and I thought it
would have been a thousand pities to be absent.”

“And are your wishes, then, with these gallant fellows?” said she,
eagerly. “Do I hear you aright, that it was to aid them you remained?
There! see how they bear down on the soldiery; they will not be
restrained; they are crossing the barricade, and charging with the
bayonet. It is only for liberty that men can fight thus. Oh that I were
a man, to be amongst them!”

A stray shot from beneath here struck the architrave above their heads,
and sent down a mass of plaster over them.

“Come, Dora, this is needless peril,” said Martin, drawing her within
the room. “If you will not leave this, at least do not expose yourself
unnecessarily.”

“But it is exactly to get away--to escape while there is time--that I
came for,” said the Captain. “They tell me that the mob are getting the
best of it, and, worse again, that the troops are joining them; so,
to make sure, I 've sent off Fenton to the post for horses, and I 'm
expecting him every moment. But here he is. Well, have you got the
horses?”

“No, sir: the horses have all been taken by the people to mount
orderlies; the postmaster, too, has fled, and everything is in
confusion. But if we had horses the streets are impassable; from here to
the Boulevard there are no less than five barricades.”

“Then what is to be done?” cried Martin.

“They say, sir,” replied Fenton, “that by gaining the outer Boulevard on
foot, carriages and horses are easily found there, to reach Belleville,
St. Germain, or Versailles.”

“He is right,” said the Captain; “there is nothing else to be done. What
do _you_ think?” said he, addressing Kate, who stood intently watching
the movements in the Place beneath.

“Yes; do you agree with this plan?” asked Martin, approaching her.

“Look!” cried she, eagerly, and not heeding the question; “the troops
are rapidly joining the people,--they come in numbers now,--and yonder
is an officer in his uniform.”

“Shame on him!” exclaimed Lady Dorothea, indignantly.

“So say I too,” said Kate. “He who wears a livery should not assume the
port and bearing of a free man. This struggle is for liberty, and should
only be maintained by the free!”

“How are we to pass these barricades?” cried Martin, anxiously.

“I will be your guide, sir, if that be all,” said Kate. “You may trust
me. I promise no more than I can perform.”

“She speaks truly,” said Lady Dorothea. “Alas that we should see the day
when we cannot reject the aid!”

“There is a matter I want to speak to you about,” said Martin,
drawing his father aside, and speaking in a low, confidential tone.
“Massingbred--Jack Massingbred--is now here, in my room. I know all
about my mother's dislike to him, and _he_ knows it; indeed, he has as
much as owned to me that he deserved it all. But what is to be done? We
cannot leave him here.”

“How came he to be here?” asked Martin.

“He accompanied me from the Club, where, in an altercation of some sort,
he had just involved himself in a serious quarrel. He came here to be
ready to start this morning for Versailles, where the meeting was to
take place; but indeed he had no thought of accepting shelter under
our roof; and when he found where he was, it was with the greatest
difficulty I could persuade him to enter. None of us anticipated such a
serious turn of affairs as this; and now, of course, a meeting will be
scarcely possible. What are we to do with him?”

“Ask him frankly to join us if we obtain the horses.”

“But my mother?”

“I 'll speak to her,--but it were better you did it, Harry. These are
not times to weigh scruples and balance difficulties. I don't myself
think that Massingbred treated us fairly, but it is not now I 'd like to
remember it. There, go; tell her what you have told me, and all will be
well.”

The Captain drew nigh Lady Dorothea, and, leaning over her chair,
whispered to her for some minutes. At first, a slight gesture of
impatience burst from her, but afterwards she seemed to hear him calmly
and tranquilly.

“It would seem as though the humiliations of this night are never to
have an end,” said she, with a sigh. “But I'll bear my share of them.”

“Remember,” said the other, “that it was by no choice of _his_ he came
here. His foot was on the threshold before he suspected it.”

“Miss Henderson sent me, my Lady,” said a servant, entering hastily, “to
say that there is not a minute to be lost. They are expecting an attack
on the barricade in the Rue de la Paix, and we ought to pass through at
once.”

“By whose orders?” began she, haughtily; then, checking herself
suddenly, and in a voice weak and broken, added: “I am ready. Give me
your arm, Harry, and do not leave me. Where is Mr. Martin?” asked she.

“He is waiting for your Ladyship at the foot of the stairs with another
gentleman,” said the servant.

“That must be Massingbred, for I told them to call him,” said the
Captain.

When Lady Dorothea, supported by the arm of her son, had reached
the gate, she found Martin and Massingbred standing to receive them,
surrounded by a numerous escort of servants, each loaded with some
portion of the family baggage.

“A hasty summons, sir,” said she, addressing Massingbred, and thus
abruptly avoiding the awkwardness of a more ceremonious meeting. “A
few hours back none of us anticipated anything like this. Will it end
seriously, think you?”

“There is every prospect of such, madam,” said he, bowing respectfully
to her salutation. “Every moment brings fresh tidings of defection among
the troops, while the Marshal is paralyzed by contradictory orders.”

“Is it always to be the fate of monarchy to be badly served in times of
peril?” said she, bitterly.

“It is very difficult to awaken loyalty against one's convictions of
right, madam. I mean,” added he, as a gesture of impatience broke from
her, “that these acts of the king, having no support from his real
friends, are weak stimulants to evoke deeds of daring and courage.”

“They are unworthy supporters of a Crown who only defend what they
approve of. This is but Democracy at best, and smacks of the policy
which has little to lose and everything to gain by times of trouble.”

“And yet, madam, such cannot be the case here; at least, it is assuredly
not so in the instance of him who is now speaking with Miss Henderson.”
 And he pointed to a man who, holding the bridle of his horse on his arm,
walked slowly at Kate's side in the street before the door.

“And who is he?” asked she, eagerly.

“The greatest banker in Paris, madam,--one of the richest capitalists of
Europe,--ready to resign all his fortune in the struggle against a rule
which he foresees intended to bring back the days of a worn-out, effete
monarchy, rather than a system which shall invigorate the nation, and
enrich it by the arts of commerce and trade.”

“But his name--who is he?” asked she, more impatiently.

“Charles Lagrange, madam.”

“I have heard the name before. I have seen it somewhere lately,” said
she, trying to remember where and how.

“You could scarcely have paid your respects at Neuilly, madam,
without seeing him. He was, besides, the favored guest at Madame de
Mirecourt's.”

“You would not imply, sir, that the Duchess condescended to any sympathy
with this party?”

“More than half the Court, madam, are against the Crown; I will not say,
however, that they are, on that account, for the people.”

“There! she is making a sign to us to follow her,” said Martin, pointing
towards Kate, who, still conversing with her companion, motioned to the
others to come up.

“It is from that quarter we receive our orders,” said Lady Dorothea,
sneeringly, as she prepared to follow.

“What has she to do with it?” exclaimed the Captain. “To look at her,
one would say she was deep in the whole business.”

A second gesture, more urgent than before, now summoned the party to
make haste.

Through the Place, crowded as it was by an armed and excited multitude,
way was rapidly made for the little party who now issued from the door
of the hotel. Kate Henderson walked in front, with Massingbred at her
side talking eagerly, and by his gestures seeming as though endeavoring
to extenuate or explain away something in his conduct; next came Lady
Dorothea, supported between her husband and her son, and while walking
slowly and with faltering steps, still carrying her head proudly erect,
and gazing on the stern faces around her with looks of haughty contempt.
After them were a numerous retinue of servants, with such effects as
they had got hurriedly together,--a terror-struck set, scarcely able to
crawl along from fear.

As they drew nigh the barricade, some men proceeded to remove a heavy
wagon which adjoined a house, and by the speed and activity of their
movements, urged on as they were by the orders of one in command, it
might be seen that the operation demanded promptitude.

“We are scarcely safe in this,” cried the officer. “See! they are making
signs to us from the windows,--the troops are coming. If you pass out
now, you will be between two fires.”

“There is yet time,” said Kate, eagerly. “Our presence in the street,
too, will delay them, and give you some minutes to prepare. And as for
ourselves, we shall gain one of the side-streets easily enough.”

“Tie your handkerchief to your cane, sir,” said the officer to
Massingbred.

“My flag is ready,” said Jack, gayly; “I only hope they may respect it.”

“Now--now!” cried Kate, with eagerness, and beckoning to Lady Dorothea
to hasten, “the passage is free, and not a second to be lost!”

“Are you not coming with us?” whispered Martin to her, as they passed
out.

“Yes; I'll follow. But,” added she, in a lower tone, “were the choice
given me, it is here I 'd take my stand.”

She looked full at Massingbred as she spoke, and, bending down his head,
he said, “Had it been your place, it were mine also!”

“Quick,--quick, my Lady,” said Kate. “They must close up the passage at
once. They are expecting an attack.” And so saying, she motioned rapidly
to Martin to move on.

“The woman is a fiend,” said Lady Dorothea; “see how her eyes sparkle,
and mark the wild exultation of her features.”

“Adieu, sir,--adieu!” said Kate, waving her hand to one who seemed the
chief of the party. “All my wishes are with you. Were I a man, my hand
should guarantee my heart.”

“Come--come back!” cried the officer. “You are too late. There comes the
head of the column.”

“No, never--never!” exclamed Lady Dorothea, haughtily; “protection from
such as these is worse than any death.”

“Give me the flag, then,” cried Kate, snatching it from Massingbred's
hand, and hastening on before the others. And now the heavy wagon had
fallen back to its place, and a serried file of muskets peeped over it.

“Where's Massingbred?” asked the Captain, eagerly.

“Yonder,--where he ought to be!” exclaimed Kate, proudly, pointing
to the barricade, upon which, now, Jack was standing conspicuously, a
musket on his arm.

The troops in front were not the head of a column, but the advanced
guard of a force evidently at some distance off, and instead of
advancing on the barricade, they drew up and halted in triple file
across the street. Their attitude of silent, stern defiance--for it was
such--evoked a wild burst of popular fury, and epithets of abuse and
insult were heaped upon them from windows and parapets.

“They are the famous Twenty-Second of the Line,” said the Captain, “who
forced the Pont-Neuf yesterday and drove the mob before them.”

“It is fortunate for us that we fall into such hands,” said Lady
Dorothea, waving her handkerchief as she advanced. But Kate had already
approached the line, and now halted at a command from the officer. While
she endeavored to explain how and why they were there, the cries and
menaces of the populace grew louder and wilder. The officer, a
very young subaltern, seemed confused and flurried; his eyes turned
constantly towards the street from which they had advanced, and he
seemed anxiously expecting the arrival of the regiment.

“I cannot give you a convoy, Mademoiselle,” he said; “I. scarcely know
if I have the right to let you pass. We may be attacked at any moment;
for aught I can tell, _you_ may be in the interests of the insurgents--”

“We are cut off, Lieutenant,” cried a sergeant, running up at the
moment. “They have thrown up a barrier behind us, and it is armed
already.”

“Lay down your arms, then,” said Kate, “and do not sacrifice your brave
fellows in a hopeless straggle.”

“Listen not to her, young man, but give heed to your honor and your
loyalty,” cried Lady Dorothea. “Is it against such an enemy as this
French soldiers fear to advance?”

“Forward!” cried the officer, waving his sword above his head. “Let
us carry the barricade!” And a wild yell of defiance from the windows
repeated the speech in derision.

“You are going to certain death!” cried Kate, throwing herself before
him. “Let _me_ make terms for you, and they shall not bring dishonor on
you.”

“Here comes the regiment!” called out the sergeant. “They have forced
the barricade.” And the quick tramp of a column, as they came at a run,
now shook the street.

“Remember your cause and your King, sir,” cried Lady Dorothea to the
officer.

“Bethink you of your country,--of France,--and of Liberty!” said Kate,
as she grasped his arm.

“Stand back!--back to the houses!” said he, waving his sword.
“Voltigeurs, to the front!”

The command was scarcely issued, when a hail of balls rattled through
the air. The defenders of the barricade had opened their fire, and with
a deadly precision, too, for several fell at the very first discharge.

“Back to the houses!” exclaimed Martin, dragging Lady Dorothea along,
who, in her eagerness, now forgot all personal danger, and only thought
of the contest before her.

“Get under cover of the troops,--to the rear!” cried the Captain, as he
endeavored to bear her away.

“Back--back--beneath the archway!” cried Kate, as, throwing her arms
around Lady Dorothea, she lifted her fairly from the ground, and carried
her within the deep recess of a _porte cochère_. Scarcely, however, had
she deposited her in safety, than she fell tottering backwards and sank
to the ground.

“Good Heavens! she is struck,” exclaimed Martin, bending over her.

“It is nothing,--a spent shot, and no more,” said Kate, as she showed
the bullet which had perforated her dress beneath the arm.

“A good soldier, by Jove!” said the Captain, gazing with real admiration
on the beautiful features before him; the faint smile she wore
heightening their loveliness, and contrasting happily with their pallor.

“There they go! They are up the barricade already; they are over
it,--through it!” cried the Captain. “Gallantly done!--gloriously done!
No, by Jove! they are falling back; the fire is murderous. See how they
bayonet them. The troops must win. They move together; they are like a
wall! In vain, in vain; they cannot do it! They are beaten,--they are
lost!”

“Who are lost?” said Kate, in a half-fainting voice.

“The soldiers. And there 's Massingbred on the top of the
barricade, in the midst of it all. I see his hat They are driven
back--beaten--beaten!”

“Come in quickly,” cried a voice from behind; and a small portion of the
door was opened to admit them. “The soldiers are retiring, and will kill
all before them.”

“Let _me_ aid you; it is _my_ turn now,” said Lady Dorothea, assisting
Kate to rise. “Good Heavens! her arm is broken,--it is smashed in two.”
 And she caught the fainting girl in her arms.

Gathering around, they bore her within the gate, and had but time to bar
and bolt it when the hurried tramp without, and the wild yell of popular
triumph, told that the soldiers were retreating, beaten and defeated.

“And this to save me!” said Lady Dorothea, as she stooped over her. And
the scalding tears dropped one by one on Kate's cheek.

“Tear this handkerchief, and bind it around my arm,” said Kate, calmly;
“the pain is not very great, and there will be no bleeding, the doctors
say, from a gun-shot wound.”

“I'll be the surgeon,” said the Captain, addressing himself to the task
with more of skill than might be expected. “I 've seen many a fellow
struck down who did n't bear it as calmly,” muttered he, as he bent over
her. “Am I giving you any pain?”

“Not in the least; and if I were in torture, that glorious cheer outside
would rally me. Hear!--listen!--the soldiers are in full retreat; the
people, the noble-hearted people, are the conquerors!”

“Be calm, and think of yourself,” said Lady Dorothea, mildly, to her;
“such excitement may peril your very life.”

“And it is worth a thousand lives to taste of it,” said she, while her
cheek flushed, and her dark eyes gleamed with added lustre.

“The street is clear now,” said one of the servants to Martin, “and we
might reach the Boulevard with ease.”

“Let us go, then,” said Lady Dorothea. “Let us look to _her_ and think
of nothing till she be cared for.”



CHAPTER IX. SOME CONFESSIONS OF JACK MASSINGBRED

Upon two several occasions have we committed to Jack Massingbred the
task of conducting this truthful history; for the third time do we now
purpose to make his correspondence the link between the past and what is
to follow. We are not quite sure that the course we thus adopt is free
from its share of inconvenience, but we take it to avoid the evils of
reiteration inseparable from following out the same events from merely
different points of view. There is also another advantage to be gained.
Jack is before our readers; we are not. Jack is an acquaintance; we
cannot aspire to that honor. Jack's opinions, right or wrong as they may
be, are part and parcel of a character already awaiting their verdict.
What he thought and felt, hoped, feared, or wished, are the materials by
which he is to be judged; and so we leave his cause in his own hands.

His letter is addressed to the same correspondent to whom he wrote
before. It is written, too, at different intervals, and in different
moods of mind. Like the letters of many men who practise concealment
with the world at large, it is remarkable for great frankness and
sincerity. He throws away his mask with such evident signs of enjoyment
that we only wonder if he can ever resume it; but crafty men like to
relax into candor, as royalty is said to indulge with pleasure in the
chance moments of pretended equality. It is, at all events, a novel
sensation; and even that much, in this routine life of ours, is
something!

He writes from Spa, and after some replies to matters with which we have
no concern, proceeds thus:--

“Of the Revolution, then, and the Three Glorious Days as they are
called, I can tell you next to nothing, and for this simple reason,
that I was there fighting, shouting, throwing up barricades, singing the
'Marseillaise,' smashing furniture, and shooting my 'Swiss,' like the
rest. As to who beat the troops, forced the Tuileries, and drove Marmont
back, you must consult the newspapers. Personal adventures I could give
you to satiety, hairbreadth 'scapes and acts of heroism by the dozen;
but these narratives are never new, and always tiresome. The serious
reflectiveness sounds like humbug, and, if one treats them lightly,
the flippancy is an offence. Jocular heroism is ever an insult to the
reader.

“You say, '_Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?_' and I
answer, it was all _her_ doing. Yes, Harry, _she_ was there. I was
thinking of nothing less in the world than a great 'blow for freedom,'
as the 'Globe' has it. I had troubled my head wonderfully little about
the whole affair. Any little interest I took was in the notion that if
our 'natural enemies,' the French, were to fall to and kill each other,
there would be so much the fewer left to fight against us; but as to who
was to get the upper hand, or what they were to do when they had it,
I gave myself no imaginable concern. I had a vague, shadowy kind of
impression that the government was a bad one, but I had a much
stronger conviction that the people deserved no better. My leanings--my
instincts, if you prefer it--were with the Crown. The mob and its
sentiments are always repulsive. Popular enthusiasm is a great ocean,
but it is an ocean of dirty water, and you cannot come out clean from
the contact; and so I should have wished well to royalty, but for an
accident,--a mere trifle in its way, but one quite sufficient, even on
historic grounds, to account for a man's change of opinions. The troops
shot my cab-horse, sent a bullet through poor 'Beverley,' and seriously
damaged a new hat which I wore at the time, accompanying these acts with
expressions the reverse of compliment or civility. I was pitched out
into the gutter, and, most appropriately you will say, I got up a
Radical, a Democrat, a Fourierist,--anything, in short, that shouts
'Down with Kings, and up with the Sovereign People!'

“My principles--don't smile at the word--led me into a stupid
altercation with a very pleasant acquaintance, and we parted to meet the
next morning in hostility,--at least, such was our understanding; but by
the time that our difference should have been settled, _I_ was carried
away on a stretcher to the Hôtel Dieu, wounded, and he was flung, a
corpse, into the Seine. I intended to have been a most accurate narrator
of events, journalizing for you, hour by hour, with all the stirring
excitement of the present tense, but I cannot; the crash and the hubbub
are still in my brain, and the infernal chaos of the streets is yet
over me. Not to speak of my wound,--a very ugly sabre-cut in the
neck,--severing I don't know what amount of nerves, arteries, and
such-like 'small deer,' every one of which, however, has its own
peculiar perils in the shape of aneurisms, tetanus, and so forth, in
case I am not a miracle of patience, calmness, and composure.

“The Martins are nursing and comforting and chicken-brothing me to my
heart's content, and La Henderson, herself an invalid, with a terrible
broken arm, comes and reads to me from time to time. What a girl it is!
Wounded in a street encounter, she actually carried Lady Dorothea into
a porte-cochère, and when they had lost their heads in terror, could
neither issue an order to the servants nor know what way to turn, she
took the guidance of the whole party, obtained horses and carriages and
an escort, escaped from Paris, and reached Versailles in the midst of
flying courtiers and dismayed ministers, and actually was the very first
to bring the tidings that the game of monarchy was up,--that the king
had nothing left for it but an inglorious flight. To the Duchesse de
Mire-court she made this communication, which it seems none of the
court-followers had the courage or honesty to do before. The Duchess, in
her terror, actually dragged her into the presence of the king, and made
her repeat what she had said. The scene, as told me, was quite dramatic;
the king took her hand to lead her to a seat, but it was unfortunately
of the wounded arm, and she fainted. The sight of the wounded limb so
affected the nerves of monarchy that he gave immediate orders to depart,
and was off within an hour.

“How they found me out a patient in a ward of the Hôtel Dieu, rescued
and carried me away with them, I have heard full half a dozen times, but
I 'm far from being clear enough to repeat the story; and, indeed, when
I try to recall the period, the only images which rise up before me
are long ranges of white coverlids, pale faces, and groans and cries of
suffering, with the dark curly head of a great master of torture
peeping at me, and whom, I am told, is the Baron Dupuytren,
the Surgeon-in-Chief. After these comes a vision of litters and
_charrettes_,--sore joltings and stoppages to drink water--But I shall
rave if I go on. Better I should tell you of my pleasant little bedroom
here, opening on a small garden, with a tiny fountain trying to sprinkle
the wild myrtle and blush-roses around it, and sportively sending its
little plash over me, as the wind wafts it into my chamber. My luxurious
chair and easy-cushioned sofa, and my table littered with everything,
from flowers to French romances; not to speak of the small rustic seat
beside the window, where she has been sitting the last hour, and has
only quitted to give me time to write this to you. I know it--I see
it--all you can say, all that you are saying at this moment, is fifty
times more forcibly echoing within my own heart, and repeating in fitful
sentences: 'A ruined man--a broken fortune--a mad attachment--a life of
struggle, difficulty, and failure!' But why should it be failure? Such a
girl for a wife ought in itself to be an earnest of success. Are not her
qualities exactly those that do battle with the difficulties of fortune?
Self-denial--ambition--courage--an intense, an intuitive knowledge of
the world--and then, a purpose-like devotion to whatever she undertakes,
that throws an air of heroism over all her actions.

“Birth--blood--family connections--what have they done for me, except it
be to entail upon me the necessity of selecting a career amidst the
two or three that are supposed to suit the well-born? I may be a Life
Guardsman, or an unpaid attaché, but I must not be a physician or a
merchant. Nor is it alone that certain careers are closed against
us, but certain opinions too. I must not think ill of the governing
class,--I must never think well of the governed.

“Well, Harry, the colonies are the remedy for all this. There, at least,
a man can fashion existence as arbitrarily as he can the shape and
size of his house. None shall dictate his etiquette, no more than his
architecture; and I am well weary of the slavery of this old-world life,
with our worship of old notions and old china, both because they are
cracked, damaged, and useless. I 'll marry her. I have made up my mind
on 't. Spare me all your remonstrances, all your mock compassion. Nor
is it like a fellow who has not seen the world in its best gala suit,
affecting to despise rank, splendor, and high station. _I have_ seen
the thing. I have cantered my thoroughbred along Rotten Row, eaten my
truffled dinners in Belgravia, whispered my nonsense over the white
shoulders of the fairest and best-born of England's daughters. I know
to a decimal fraction the value of all these; and, what 's more, I know
what one pays for them,--the miserable vassalage, the poor slavery of
mind, soul, and body they cost!

“It is the terror of exclusion here, the dread of coldness there--the
possibility of offence to 'his Grace' on this side, or misconception by
'her Ladyship' on that--sway and rule a man so that he may neither eat,
drink, nor sleep without a 'Court Guide' in his pocket. I 've done with
it! now and forever,--I tell you frankly,--I return no more to this
bondage.

“I have written a farewell address to my worthy constituents of
Oughterard. I have told them that, 'feeling an instinct of independence
within me, I can no longer remain their representative; that, as a man
of honor, I shrink from the jobbery of the little borough politicians,
and, as a gentleman, I beg to decline their intimacy.' They took me for
want of a better--I leave them for the same reason.

“To my father I have said: 'Let us make a compromise. As your son I
have a claim on the House. Now, what will you give for my share? I 'll
neither importune you for place, nor embarrass you with solicitations
for employment. Help me to stock my knapsack, and I 'll find my road
myself.' _She_ knows nothing of these steps on my part; nor shall she,
till they have become irrevocable. She is too proud ever to consent to
what would cost me thus heavily; but the expense once incurred,--the
outlay made,--she cannot object to what has become the law of my future
life.

“I send off these two documents to-night; this done, I shall write to
her an offer of marriage. What a fever I 'm in! and all because I feel
the necessity of defending myself to _you_,--to you of all men the most
headstrong, reckless, and self-indulgent,--a fellow who never curbed a
caprice nor restrained a passing fancy; and yet you are just the man
to light your cigar, and while you puff away your blue cloud, mutter on
about rashness, folly, insanity, and the rest of it, as if the state of
your bank account should make that wisdom in _you_, which with _me_ is
but mere madness! But I tell you, Harry, it is your very thousands per
annum that preclude you from doing what I can. It is your house in town,
your stud at Tattersall's, your yacht at Cowes, your grouse-lodge in the
Highlands, that tie and fetter you to live like some scores of others,
with whom you have n't one solitary sympathy, save in income! You are
bound up in all the recognizances of your wealth to dine stupidly, sup
languidly, and sink down at last into a marriage of convenience,--to
make a wife of her whom 'her Grace' has chosen for you without a single
speculation in the contract save the thought of the earl you will be
allied to, and the four noble families you 'll have the right to go in
mourning for.

“And what worse than cant it is to talk of what they call an indiscreet
match! What does--what can the world know as to the reasons that impel
you, or me, or anybody else, to form a certain attachment? Are they
acquainted with our secret and most hidden emotions? Do they understand
the project of life we have planned to ourselves? Have they read our
utter weariness and contempt for forms that _they_ venerate, and social
distinctions that _they_ worship? I am aware that in some cases it
requires courage to do this; and in doing it a man virtually throws down
the glove to the whole world, and says, 'This woman's love is to me more
than all of you'--and so say I at this moment. I must cry halt, I see,
Harry. I have set these nerves at work in my wound, and the pain is
agony. Tomorrow--to-night, if I 'm able--I shall continue.

“Midnight.” They have just wished me good-night, after having spent the
evening here reading out the newspapers for me, commenting upon them,
and exerting themselves to amuse me in a hundred good-natured ways. You
would like this same stately old Lady Dorothea. She is really 'Grande
Dame' in every respect,--dress, air, carriage, gesture, even her slow
and measured speech is imposing, and her prejudices, uttered as they are
in such perfect sincerity of heart, have something touching about them,
and her sorrowful pity for the mob sounded more gracefully than Kate's
enthusiastic estimate of their high deservings. It does go terribly
against the grain to fancy an alliance between coarse natures and noble
sentiments, and to believe in the native nobility of those who never
touch soap! I have had a kind of skirmish with La Henderson upon this
theme to-night. She was cross and out of temper, and bore my bantering
badly. The fact is, she is utterly disgusted at the turn things have
taken in France; and not altogether without reason, since, after all
their bluster and bloodshed and barricades, they have gone back to a
monarchy again. They barred out the master to make 'the head usher' top
of the school. Let us see if he won't be as fond of the birch as his
predecessor. Like all mutineers, they found they could n't steer the
ship when they had murdered the captain! How hopeless it makes one of
humanity to see such a spectacle as this, Harry, and how low is one's
estimate of the species after such experience! You meet some half-dozen
semi-bald, spectacled old gentlemen in society, somewhat more reserved
than the rest of the company, fond of talking to each other, and rather
distrustful of strangers; you find them slow conversers at dinner, sorry
whist-players in the drawing-room; you are told, however, that one is a
President of the Council, another the Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
and a third something equally important. You venerate them
accordingly, while you mutter the old Swede's apothegm about the 'small
intelligences' that rule mankind. Wait awhile! There is a row in the
streets: a pickpocket has appealed to the public to rescue him from the
ignoble hands of the police; an escaped felon has fired at the judge who
sentenced him, in the name of Liberty and Fraternity. No matter what
the cause, there _is_ a row. The troops are called out; some
are beaten, some join the insurgents. The government grows
frightened--temporizes--offers terms--and sends for more soldiers.
The people--I never clearly knew what the word meant--the people
make extravagant demands, and will not even give time to have them
granted,--in a word, the whole state is subverted, the king, if there
be one, in flight, the royal family missing, the ministers nowhere! No
great loss you 'll say, if the four or five smooth-faced imbecilities
we have spoken of are not to the fore! But there is your error,
Harry,--your great error. These men, used to conduct and carry on
the government, cannot be replaced. The new capacities do nothing but
blunder, and maybe issue contradictory orders and impede each other's
actions. To improvise a Secretary of State is about as wise a proceeding
as to take at hazard a third-class passenger and set him to guide the
engine of a train. The only difference is that the machinery of state
is ten thousand times more complex than that of a steam-engine, and the
powers for mischief and misfortune in due proportion.

“But why talk of these things? I have had enough and too much of them
already this evening; women, too, are unpleasant disputants in politics.
They attach their faith to persons, not parties. Miss Henderson is,
besides, a little spoiled by the notice of those maxim-mongers who write
leaders in the 'Débats, and articles for the 'Deux Mondes.' They
have, or affect to have, a kind of pitying estimate for our English
constitutional forms, which is rather offensive. At least, she provoked
me, and I am relapsing into bad temper, just by thinking of it.

“You tell me that you once served with Captain Martin, and I see you
understand him; not that it requires much study to do so. You say he was
reckoned a good officer; what a sneer is that on the art military!

“There are, however, many suitable qualities about him, and he certainly
possesses the true and distinctive element of a gentleman,--he knows how
to be idle. Ay, Harry, that is a privilege that your retired banker
or enriched cotton-spinner never attains to. They must be up and
doing,--where there is nothing to do. They carry the spirit of the
counting-house and the loom into society with them, and having found
a pleasure in business, they want to make a business of pleasure. Now,
Martin understands idling to perfection. His tea and toast, his mutton
cutlet, and his mustachios are abundant occupation for him. With
luncheon about two o'clock, he saunters through the stables, sucking a
lighted cigar, filing his nails, and admiring his boots, till it 's time
to ride out. He comes to me about nine of an evening, and we play piquet
till I get sleepy; after which he goes to 'the rooms,' and, I believe,
plays high; at least, I suspect so; for he has, at times, the forced
calm--that semi-jocular resignation--one sees in a heavy loser. He has
been occasionally, too, probing me about Merl,--you remember the fellow
who had the rooms near Knightsbridge,--so that I opine he has been
dabbling in loans. What a sorry spectacle such a creature as this in the
toils of the Israelite, for he is the 'softest of the soft.' I see it
from the effect La Henderson has produced upon him. He is in love with
her,--actually in love. He even wanted to make me his confidant--and I
narrowly escaped the confession--only yesterday evening. Of course, he
has no suspicion of my attachment in the same quarter, so that it would
be downright treachery in me to listen to his avowal. Another feeling,
too, sways me, Harry,--I don't think I could hear a man profess
admiration for the woman that I mean to marry, without the self-same
sense of resentment I should experience were I already her husband. I 'm
certain I 'd shoot him for it.

“La belle Kate and I parted coldly--dryly, I should call it--this
evening. I had fancied she was above coquetry, but she is not. Is
any woman? She certainly gave the Captain what the world would
call encouragement all the night; listened attentively to tiresome
tiger-huntings and stories of the new country; questioned him about his
Mahratta campaigns, and even hinted at how much she would like an Indian
life. Perhaps the torment she was inflicting on Lady Dorothea amused
her; perhaps it was the irritation she witnessed in me gave the zest to
this pastime. It is seldom that she condescends to be either amused or
amusing; and I own it is a part does not suit her. She is a thousand
times more attractive sitting over her embroidery-frame, raising
her head at times to say a few words,--ever apposite and well
chosen,--always simple, too, and to the purpose; or even by a slight
gesture bearing agreement with what is said around her; till, with a
sudden impulse, she pours forth fast, rapidly, and fluently some glowing
sentiment of praise or censure, some glorious eulogy of the good, or
some withering depreciation of the wrong. Then it is that you see
how dark those eyes can be, how deep-toned that voice, and with what
delicacy of expression she can mould and fashion every mood of mind, and
give utterance to sentiments that till then none have ever known how to
embody.

“It is such a descent to her to play coquette! Cleopatra cannot--should
not be an Abigail. I am low and depressed to-night; I scarcely know
why: indeed, I have less reason than usual for heavy-heartedness. These
people are singularly kind and attentive to me, and seem to have totally
forgotten how ungratefully once before I repaid their civilities. What
a stupid mistake do we commit in not separating our public life from our
social one, so as to show that our opinions upon measures of state
are disconnected with all the sentiments we maintain for our private
friendships. I detect a hundred sympathies, inconceivable points of
contact, between these people and myself. We pass hours praising the
same things, and abusing the same people; and how could it possibly
sever our relations that I would endow Maynooth when they would pull it
down, or that I liked forty-shilling freeholders better than ten-pound
householders? You 'll say that a certain earnestness accompanies strong
convictions, and that when a man is deeply impressed with some supposed
truths, he 'll not measure his reprobation of those who assail them.
But a lawyer does all this, and forfeits nothing of the esteem of 'his
learned brother on the opposite side.' Nay, they exchange very-ugly
knocks at times, and inflict very unseemly marks even with the gloves
on; still they go homeward, arm-in-arm, after, and laugh heartily at
both plaintiff and defendant. By Jove! Harry, it may sound ill, but
somehow it seems as though to secure even a moderate share of enjoyment
in this life one must throne Expediency in the seat of Principle. I 'll
add the conclusion to-morrow, and now say good-night.

“Three days have passed over since I wrote the last time to you, and
it would require as many weeks were I to chronicle all that has passed
through my mind in the interval. Events there have been few; but
sensations--emotions, enough for a lifetime. Nor dare I recall them!
Faintly endeavoring to trace a few broken memories, my pains of mind and
body come back again, so that you must bear with me if I be incoherent,
almost unintelligible.

“The day after I wrote to you, I never saw her. My Lady, who came as
usual to visit me in the day, said something about Miss Henderson having
a headache. Unpleasant letters from her family--obliged to give up
the day to answering them; but all so confused and with such evident
constraint as to show me that something disagreeable loomed in view.

“The Captain dropped in about four o'clock, and as the weather was
unfavorable, we sat down to our party of piquet. By a little address,
I continued to lose nearly every game, and so gradually led him into a
conversation while we played; but I soon saw that he only knew something
had occurred 'upstairs,' but knew not what.

“' I suspect, however,' added he, 'it is only the old question as to
Kate's going away.' “'Going away! Going where?' cried I.

“'Home to her father; she is resolutely bent upon it,--has been so ever
since we left Paris. My mother, who evidently--but on what score I know
not--had some serious difference with her, is now most eager to make
concessions, and would stoop to--what for her is no trifle--even
solicitation to induce her to stay, has utterly failed; so, too, has
my father. Persuasion and entreaty not succeeding, I suspect--but it is
only suspicion--that they have had recourse to parental authority,
and asked old Henderson to interfere. At least, a letter has come this
morning from the West of Ireland, for Kate, which I surmise to be in his
hand. She gave it, immediately on reading it, to my mother, and I could
detect in her Ladyship's face, while she perused it, unmistakable
signs of satisfaction. When she handed it back, too, she gave a certain
condescending smile, which, in my mother, implies victory, and seems
to say, “Let us be friends now,--I 'm going to signal--cease firing.”'

“'And Kate, did she make any remark--say anything?' “'Not a syllable.
She folded up the document, carefully and steadily, and placed it in
her work-box, and then resumed her embroidery in silence. I watched her
narrowly, while I affected to read the paper, and saw that she had to
rip out half she had done. After a while my mother said,--“'”You 'll not
answer that letter to-day, probably?”

“'“I mean to do so, my Lady,” said she; “and, with your permission, will
beg you to read my reply.”

“'“Very well,” said my mother, and left the room. I was standing outside
on the balcony at the time, so that Kate believed, after my mother's
departure, she was quite alone. It was then she opened the letter, and
re-read it carefully. I never took my eyes off her; and yet what was
passing in her mind, whether joy, grief, disappointment, or pleasure,
I defy any man to declare; nor when, having laid it down once more, she
took up her work, not a line or a lineament betrayed her. It was plain
enough the letter was no pleasant one, and I expected to have heard her
sigh perhaps, or at least show some sign of depression; but no, she
went on calmly, and at last began to sing, in a low, faint voice, barely
audible where I stood, one of her little barcarole songs she is so fond
of; and if there was no sorrow in her own heart, by Jove! she made mine
throb heavily as I listened! I stood it as long as I was able, and then
coughed to show that I was there, and entered the room. She never lifted
her head, or noticed me, not even when I drew a chair close to her, and
sat down at her side.

“'I suppose, Massingbred,' said he, after a pause, 'you 'll laugh at
me, if I tell you I was in love with the Governess! Well, I should have
laughed too, some six months ago, if any man had prophesied it; but
the way I put the matter to myself is this: If I do succeed to a
good estate, I have a right to indulge my own fancy in a wife; if I
don't,--that is, if I be a ruined man,--where 's the harm in marrying
beneath me?'

“'Quite right, admirably argued,' said I, impatiently; 'go on.'

“'I 'm glad you agree with me,' said he, with the stupid satisfaction of
imbecility. 'I thought I had reduced the question to its very narrowest
bounds.'

“'So you have; go on,' cried I.

“'“Miss Henderson,” said I,--for I determined to show that I was
speaking seriously, and so I did n't call her Kate,-- “Miss Henderson, I
want to speak to you. I have been long seeking this opportunity; and if
you will vouchsafe me a few minutes now, and hear me, on a subject upon
which all my happiness in life depends--”

“'When I got that far, she put her work down on her knee, and stared at
me with those large, full eyes of hers so steadily--ay, so haughtily,
too--that I half wished myself fifty miles away.

“'“Captain Martin,” said she, in a low, distinct voice, “has it ever
occurred to you in life to have, by a mere moment of reflection, a
sudden flash of intelligence, saved yourself from some step, some act,
which, if accomplished, had brought nothing but outrage to your feeling,
and insult to your self-esteem? Let such now rescue you from resuming
this theme.”

“'“But you# don't understand me,” said I. “What I wish to say--” Just at
that instant my father came into the room in search of her, and I made
my escape to hide the confusion that I felt ready to overwhelm me.'

“'And have you not seen her since?'

“'No. Indeed, I think it quite as well, too. She 'll have time to think
over what I said, and see what a deuced good offer it is; for though I
know she was going to make objections about inequality of station and
all that at the time, reflection will bring better thoughts.'

“'And she 'll consent, you think?'

“'I wish I had a bet on it,' said he.

“'So you shall, then,' said I, endeavoring to seem thoroughly at my
ease. 'It's a very unworthy occasion for a wager, Martin; but I'll lay
five hundred to one she refuses you.'

“'Taken, and booked,' cried he, writing it down in his note-book. “I
only regret it is not in thousands.'

“'So it should be, if I could honestly stake what I have n't got.'

“'You are so sanguine of winning? '

“' So certain, you ought to say.'

“' Of course you use no influence against me,--you take no step of any
kind to affect her decision.'

“'Certainly not.'

“'Nor are you--But,' added he, laughing, 'I need n't make that proviso.
I was going to say, you are not to ask her yourself.'

“'I 'll even promise you that, if you like,' said I.

“'Then what can you mean?' said he, with a puzzled look. 'But whatever
it be, I can stand the loss. I 've won very close to double as much from
you this evening.'

“'And as to the disappointment?'

“'Oh, _you_ 'll not mention it, I 'm certain, neither will she, so none
will be the wiser; and, after all, the real bore in all these cases is
the gossip.' And with this consolatory reflection he left me to dress
for dinner. How well bred a fellow seems who has no feeling, but just
tact eno

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