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The King's Highway

by G. P. R. James · English · Gutenberg #3780 · 1,003,226 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The King's Highway

Author: G. P. R. James


        
Release date: February 1, 2003 [eBook #3780]
                Most recently updated: January 8, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3780

Credits: This etext was produced by Jim Tinsley


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This etext was produced by Jim Tinsley <jtinsley@pobox.com>






THE KING'S HIGHWAY

by G.P.R. JAMES ESQ.




CHAPTER I.

Though the weather was hot and sultry, and the summer was at its height,
yet the evening was gloomy, and low, angry clouds hung over the distant
line of the sea, when, under the shelter of some low-browed cliffs upon
the Irish coast, three persons stood together, two of whom were talking
earnestly. About four or five miles from the shore, looking like a
spectre upon the misty background of clouds, appeared a small brig with
her canvas closely reefed, though there was little wind stirring, and
nothing announced the approach of a gale, unless it were a long, heavy
swell that heaved up the bosom of the ocean as if with a suppressed sob.
The three persons we have mentioned were standing together close at the
foot of the rocks; and, though there was nothing in their demeanour
which would imply that they were seeking concealment by the points and
angles of the cliff,--for they spoke loud, and one of them laughed more
than once with the short but jocund laugh of a heart whose careless
gaiety no circumstances can repress,--yet the spot was well calculated
to hide them from any eye, unless it were one gazing down from the
cliffs above, or one looking towards the shore from the sea.

The party of which we speak comprised two men not quite reached the
middle age, and a fine, noble-looking boy of perhaps eight years old or
a little more; but all the conversation was between the two elder, who
bore a slight family likeness to each other. The one had a cloak thrown
over his arm, and a blue handkerchief bound round his left hand. His
dress in other respects was that of a military man of the period; a
long-waisted, broad-tailed coat, with a good deal of gold lace and many
large buttons upon it, enormous riding boots, and a heavy sword. He had
no defensive armour on, indeed, though those were days when the
soldierly cuirass was not yet done away with; and on his head he only
wore an ordinary hat trimmed round with feathers.

He seemed, however, to be a personage perfectly well able to defend his
own, being not much short of six feet in height; and though somewhat
thin, extremely muscular, with long, bony arms, and a wide deep chest.
His forehead was high and open, and his eye frank and clear, having
withal some shrewdness in its quick twinkle. The countenance was a good
one; the features handsome, though a little coarse; and if it was not
altogether prepossessing, the abatement was made on account of a certain
indescribable look of dissipation--not absolutely to say debauchery,
but approaching it--which mingled with the expression of finer things,
like nightshade filling up the broken masses of some ruined temple. His
hair was somewhat prematurely grizzled; for he yet lacked several years
of forty, and strong lines, not of thought, were marked upon his brow.

He was, upon the whole, a man whom many people would have called a
handsome, fine-looking man; and there was certainly in his countenance
that indescribable something, which can only be designated by the term
engaging.

While conversing with his companion, which he did frankly and even
gaily, laughing, as we have said, from time to time, there was still a
peculiarity which might be supposed to show that for some reason he was
not perfectly at his ease, or perfectly sure of the man to whom he
spoke. In general, he did not look at him, though he gazed straight
forward; but, as is very frequently the case with us all, when we are
talking to a person whom we doubt or dislike, he looked beyond him, from
time to time, however, turning his eyes full upon the countenance of his
comrade, and keeping them fixed upon him for several moments.

The second personage of the party was a man somewhat less in height than
the other, but still tall. He was two or three years younger; handsome
in features; graceful in person; and withal possessing an air of
distinction which the other might have possessed also, had it not been
considerably diminished by the certain gay and swaggering look which we
have already noticed. His dress was not so completely military as that
of the first, though there was scarf and sword-knot, and gold-fringed
belt and leathern gloves, with wide cuffs, which swallowed up the arms
almost to the elbows.

He laughed not at all, and his tone was grave, but smooth and courtly,
except when, ever and anon, there mingled with what he was saying in
sweet and placid words, some bitter and sarcastic tirade, which made his
companion smile, though it moved not a muscle of his own countenance.

We have said that there was a third in the group, and that third was a
boy of about eight years of age. It is scarcely possible to conceive
anything more beautiful than his countenance, or to fancy a form more
replete with living grace than his. His hair swept round his clear and
open countenance in dark wavy curls; and while he held the taller of the
two gentlemen by the hand, he gazed forward over the wide melancholy
sea, which came rolling up towards their feet, with a look full of
thought, and perhaps of anxiety. There was certainly grief in that gaze;
for the black eyelashes which surrounded those large blue eyes became,
after a moment or two, moistened with something bright like a tear; and
apparently utterly inattentive to the conversation between his two
companions, he still turned away, fully occupied with the matter of his
own thoughts.

It is time, however, for us to take notice of that to which he did not
attend.

"Not a whit, Harry, not a whit," said the taller of the two: "there are
certain portions of good and evil scattered through the world, and every
man must take his share of both. I have taken care, as you well know, to
secure a certain portion of the pleasures of this life. It was not
natural that the thing should last for ever, so I have quite made up my
mind to drinking the bitters since I have sipped the sweets. On this
last business I have staked my all, and lost my all; and if my poor
brother had not done the same, and lost his life into the bargain, I
should not much care for my part. On my honour and soul, it does seem to
me a strange thing, that here poor Morton, who would have done service
to everybody on earth, who was as good as he was brave, and as clever as
he was good, should fall at the very first shot, and I go through the
whole business with nothing but this scratch of the hand. I did my best
to get myself killed, too; for I will swear that I was the last man upon
our part that left the bank of the Boyne. But just as half a dozen of
the fellows had got me down, and were going to cut my throat because I
would not surrender, there came by the fellow they call Bentinck, I
think, who called to them not to kill me now that the battle was over. I
started up, saying, 'There is one honest Dutchman at least,' and made a
dart through them. They would have caught me, I dare say, but he laughed
aloud; and I heard him call to them not to follow me, saying, 'That one
on either side made no great difference.' I may chance to do that fellow
a good turn yet in my day."

"That may well be," replied the other; "for since your brother's death,
if you are sure he is killed, you are the direct heir to an earldom, and
to estates that would buy a score of German princes."

While he thus spoke, the person he addressed suddenly turned his eyes
full upon his face, and looked at him intently for a minute. He then
answered, "Sure he is dead, Harry? Did I not tell you that he died in my
arms? Would it not have been a nice thing now, if I had been killed too?
There would have been none between you and the earldom then. Upon my
life, I think you ought to have it: it would just suit you; you would
make such a smooth-tongued, easy courtier to this Dutch vagabond, whom
you are going over to, I can see, notwithstanding all your
asseverations;" and he laughed aloud as he spoke.

"Nonsense, Lennard, nonsense!" replied his companion: "I neither wish
you killed, my good cousin, nor care for the earldom, nor am going over
to the usurper, though, Heaven knows, you'll do no good to any one, the
earldom will do no good to you, and the usurper, perhaps, may do much
good to the country. But had either of the three been true, I should
certainly have given you up to the Prince of Orange, instead of sharing
my last fifty guineas with you, to help you off to France."

His companion gazed down upon the ground with a grim smile, and remained
for a moment without answering; he then looked up, gave a short laugh,
and replied, "I must not be ungrateful, cousin mine; I thank you for the
money with all my heart and soul; but I cannot think that you have run
yourself so hard as that either; you must have made mighty great
preparations which have not appeared, to spend your snug little
patrimony upon a king who did not deserve it, and for whom you did not
fight, after all."

"I should have fought if I could have come up in time," replied the
other, with his brows darkening. "I suppose you do not suspect me of
being unwilling to fight, Lennard?"

"Oh, no, man! no!" replied his cousin: "it does not run in our blood; we
have all fighting drops in our veins; and I know you can fight well
enough when it suits your purpose. As for that matter, I might think
myself a fool for fighting in behalf of a man who won't fight in his own
behalf; but it is his cause, not himself, Harry, I fought for."

"Bubbles, bubbles, Lennard," replied the other, "'tis but a mere name!"

"And what do we all fight for, from the cradle to the grave?" demanded
his cousin--"bubbles, bubbles, Harry. Through England and Ireland, not
to say Scotland, there will be to-morrow morning, which I take it is
Sunday, full five thousand priests busily engaged in telling their
hearers, that love, glory, avarice, and ambition are nothing
but--bubbles! So I am but playing the same game as the rest. I wish to
Heaven the boat would come round though, for I am beginning to think it
is as great a bubble as the rest.--Run down, Wilton, my boy," he said,
speaking to the youth that held him by the hand--"run down to that
point, and see if you can discover the boat creeping round under the
cliffs."

The boy instantly darted off without speaking, and the two gentlemen
watched him in silence. After a moment, however, the shorter of the two
spoke, with his eyes still fixed on the child, and the slight sneer
curling his lip--"A fine boy that, Lennard!" he said. "A child of love,
of course!"

"Doubtless," answered the other; "but you will understand he is not
mine.--It is a friend's child that I have promised to do the best for."

"He is wondrous like your brother Morton," rejoined his companion: "it
needs no marriage certificate to tell us whose son he is."

"No; God speed the poor boy!" replied the other gentleman, "he is like
his father enough. I must do what I can for him, though Heaven knows
what I am to do either for him or myself. It is long ere he can be a
soldier, and I am not much accustomed to taking heed of children."

"Where is his mother?" demanded the cousin: "whatever be her rank, she
is most likely as rich as you are, and certainly better able to take
care of him."

"Pshaw!" replied the other--"I might look long enough before I found
her. The boy has never known anything about her either, so that would
not do. But here he comes, here he comes, so say no more about it."

As he spoke, the boy bounded up, exclaiming, "I see the boat, I see the
boat coming round the rock!" and the moment after, a tolerable-sized
fishing boat was seen rounding the little point that we have mentioned;
and the two cousins, with the boy, descended to the water's edge. During
the few minutes that elapsed before the boat came up to the little
landing-place where they stood, the cousins shook hands together, and
bade each other adieu.

"Well, God speed you, Harry!" said the one; "you have not failed me at
this pinch, though you have at many another."

"Where shall I write to you, Lennard," demanded the other, "in case that
anything should happen to turn up to your advantage?"

"Oh! to the Crown, to the Crown, at St. Germains," replied the elder;
"and if it be for anything to my advantage, write as quickly as
possible, good cousin.--Come, Wilton, my boy; come, here's the boat!
Thank God we have not much baggage to embark.--Now, my man," he
continued, speaking to one of the fishermen who had leaped out into the
water, "lift the boy in, and the portmanteau, and then off to yonder
brig, with all the sail you can put on."

Thus saying, he sprang into the boat, received the boy in his arms, and
waved his hand to his cousin, while the fishermen pushed off from the
shore.

The one who was left behind folded his arms upon his chest, and gazed
after the boat as she bounded over the water. His brow was slightly
clouded, and a peculiar sort of smile hung upon his lip; but after thus
pausing for a minute or two, he turned upon his heel, walked up a narrow
path to the top of the cliff, and mounting a horse which was held for
him by a servant, at a distance of about a hundred yards from the edge,
he rode away, whistling as he went, not like Cimon, for want of thought,
but from the very intensity of thought.



CHAPTER II

The horseman of whom we have spoken in the last chapter rode slowly on
about two hundred yards farther, and there the servant advanced and
opened a gate, by means of which the path they were then upon
communicated with a small road between two high banks leading down to
the sea-side. The moment that the gentleman rode forward through the
gate, his eyes fell upon a figure coming up apparently from the
sea-shore. It was that of a woman, seemingly well advanced in life, and
dressed in the garb of the lower orders: there was nothing particular in
her appearance, except that in her gait and figure she was more decrepit
than from her countenance might have been expected. The tears were
streaming rapidly down her face, however; and though she suddenly paused
on perceiving the stranger, she could not command those tears from
flowing on, though she turned away her head to conceal them.

The stranger slightly pulled in his horse's rein, looked at her again,
and then gazed thoughtfully down the road towards the sea, as if
calculating what the woman could have been doing there, and whether she
could have seen the departure of his two late companions.

The servant who was behind him seemed to read his master's thoughts; for
being close to him shutting the gate, he said in a low tone, "That's the
old woman with whom the young gentleman lodged; for I saw her when the
Colonel went there this morning to fetch him away."

The moment the man had spoken, his master pushed forward his horse
again, and riding up to the woman, accosted her at once.

"Ah, my good woman," he said, "you are grieving after your poor little
boy; but do not be cast down, he will be taken good care of."

"God bless your honour," replied the woman, "and thank you, too, for
comforting me: he's a dear good boy, that's true; but the Colonel has
taken him to France, so I shall never see him more."

"Oh yes, you may, my good lady," replied the stranger: "you know I am
his cousin--his father's first cousin; so if you want to hear of him
from time to time, perhaps I could put you in the way of it. If I knew
where you lived, I would come and call upon you to-night, and talk to
you about it before I go on to Dublin."

"Your honour's going to Dublin, are you?" said the woman, suddenly and
sharply, while the blood mounted into the cheek of her companion, as if
from some feeling of embarrassment. She continued, however, before he
could reply, saying, "With a thousand thanks to your honour, I shall be
glad to see you; and if I could but hear that the poor boy got well to
France, and was comfortable, I think I should be happy all my life."

"But where do you live, my good woman?" demanded the horseman: "we have
not much time to lose, for the sun is going down, and the night is
coming on."

"And a stormy night it will be," said the woman, who, though she had
very little of the Irish accent, seemed to have not a little of that
peculiar obliquity of mind, which so often leads the Irishman to follow
the last idea started, however loosely it may be connected with the main
subject of discourse. "As to where I live," she continued, "it's at the
small neat cottage at the end of the lane; the best house in the place
to my mind, except the priest's and the tavern; and for that matter,
it's my own property, too."

"Well, I will come there in about an hour," said her companion, "and we
will talk it all over, my good lady, for I must leave this place early
to-morrow."

Away went the stranger as he spoke, at a rapid pace, towards an Irish
village or small town of that day, which lay at the distance of about a
mile and a half from the sea-shore. It was altogether a very different
place, and bore a very different aspect, from any other collection of
houses, of the same number and extent, within the shores of the Sister
Island. It was situated upon the rise of a steep hill, at the foot of
which ran a clear shallow stream, from whose margin, up to the top of
the acclivity, ran two irregular rows of houses, wide apart, and
scattered at unequal distances, on the two sides of the high road. They
were principally hovels, of a single story in height; a great proportion
of them formed of nothing but turf, with no other window but a hole
covered with a board, and sometimes not that. Others, few and far
between, again, were equally of one story, but were neatly plastered
with clay, and ornamented with a wash of lime; and besides these, were
three or four houses which really deserved the name--the parish
priest's, the tavern, and what was called the shop.

These rows of dwellings were raised on two high but sloping banks, which
were covered with green turf, and extended perhaps fifty yards in width
between the houses and the road: this long strip of turf affording the
inhabitants plenty of space for dunghills and dust-heaps, with
occasional stacks of turf, and a detached sort of summer-house now and
then for a pig, in those cases where his company was not preferred in
the parlour.

Here, too, the chickens used to meet in daily convocation; and here the
priest's bull would occasionally take a morning walk, to the detriment
of the dunghills and the frailer edifices, to the danger of the
children, and the indignation of the other animals, who might seem to
think that they had a right prescriptive to exclusive possession.

Between these two tracts of debatable land was interposed a paved high
road, twice as broad as it needed to have been, and furnished with a
stone gutter down the centre, into which flowed, from every side,
streams not Castalian; while five or six ducks, belonging to the master
of the shop, acted as the only town scavengers; and a large black sow,
with a sturdy farrow of eleven young pigs, rolled about in the full
enjoyment of the filth and dirt, seeming to represent the mayor and town
council of this rural municipality.

At the top of the hill two or three lanes turned off, and in one of
these was situated the cottage which the old lady had indicated as her
dwelling. The stranger, however, rode not thither at once, but, in the
first place, stopped at the tavern, as it was called (being neither more
nor less than a small public-house), and throwing his rein to the
servant, he dismounted, and paused to order some refreshment. When this
was done, he took his way at once to the house of the priest, which was
a neat white building, showing considerable taste in all its external
arrangements. The stranger was immediately admitted, and remained for
about half an hour; at the end of which time he came out, accompanied as
far as the little wicket gate by a very benign and thoughtful-looking
man, past the middle age, whose last words, as he took leave of the
stranger, were, "Alas, my son! she was so beautiful, and so charitable,
that it is much to be lamented that she was in all respects a
cast-away."

The stranger then returned to the tavern, and sat down to a somewhat
black and angular roasted fowl, which, however, proved better to the
palate than the eye; and to this he added somewhat more than a pint of
claret, which--however strange it may seem to find such a thing in an
Irish pot-house--might, for taste and fragrance, have competed with the
best that ever was found at the table of prince or peer: nor was such a
thing uncommon in that day. This done, and when five or six minutes of
meditation--that kind of pleasant meditation which ensues when the inner
man is made quite comfortable--had been added to his moderate food and
moderate potation, the stranger rose, and with a slow and thoughtful
step walked forth from the inn, and took his way towards the cottage to
which the old woman had directed him.

The sun was by this time sinking below the horizon, and a bright red
glow from his declining rays spread through the atmosphere, tinging the
edges of the long, liny, lurid clouds which were gathering thickly over
the sky. The wind, too, had risen considerably, and was blowing with
sharp quick gusts increasing towards a gale, so that the stranger was
obliged to put his hand to his large feathered hat to keep it firm upon
his head.

In the meantime, the old woman had returned home, and her first
occupation was to indulge her grief; for, sitting down at the little
table in her parlour, she covered her eyes with her hands, and wept till
the tears ran through her fingers. After a time, however, she calmed
herself, and rising, looked for a moment into a small looking-glass,
which showed her face entirely disfigured with tears. She then went into
a little adjacent room, which, as well as the parlour, was the image of
neatness and cleanness. She there took a towel, dipped it in cold water,
and seemed about to bathe away the traces from her cheeks. The next
moment, however, she threw the towel down, saying, "No, no! why should
I?" She then returned to the parlour, and called down the passage,
"Betty, Betty!"

An Irishwoman, of about fifty years of age, clothed much in the same
style, and not much worse than her mistress, appeared in answer to her
summons; and, according to the directions she now received, lighted a
single candle, put up a large heavy shutter against the parlour window,
and retired. The mistress of the house remained for some time sitting at
the table, and apparently listening for every step without; though from
time to time, when a heavier and heavier blast of wind shook the cottage
where she sat, she gazed up towards the sky, and her lips moved as if
offering a prayer.

At length, some one knocked loudly at the door, and starting up, she
hurried to open it and give entrance to the stranger whom we have
mentioned before. She put a chair for him, and stood till he asked her
to sit down.

"So, my good lady," he said, "you lived a long time with Colonel and
Mrs. Sherbrooke."

"Oh! bless you, yes, sir," replied the woman, "ever since the Colonel
and the young lady came here, till she died, poor thing, and then I
remained to take care of the boy, dear, beautiful fellow."

"You seem very sorry to lose him," rejoined the stranger, "and,
doubtless, were sadly grieved when Mrs. Sherbrooke died."

"You may well say that," replied the woman; "had I not known her quite a
little girl? and to see her die, in the prime of her youth and beauty,
not four-and-twenty years of age. You may well say I was sorry. If her
poor father could have seen it, it would have broke his heart; but he
died long before that, or many another thing would have broken his heart
as well as that."

"Was her father living," demanded the stranger, "when she married
Colonel Sherbrooke?"

The woman, without replying, gazed inquiringly and steadfastly on the
stranger's countenance for a moment or two; who continued, after a short
pause--"Poo, poo, I know all about it; I mean, when she came away with
him."

"No, sir," replied the woman; "he had been dead then more than a year."

"Doubtless," replied the stranger, "it was, as you implied, a happy
thing for him that he did not live to see his daughter's fate; but how
was it, I wonder, as she was so sweet a creature, and the Colonel so
fond of her, that he never married her?"

The woman looked down for a moment; but then gazed up in his face with a
somewhat rueful expression of countenance, and a shake of the head,
answering, "She was a Protestant, you know."

The stranger looked surprised, and asked, "Did she always continue a
Protestant, my good woman? I should have thought love could have worked
more wonderful conversions than that."

"Ah! she died as she lived, poor thing," replied the woman, "and with
nobody with her either, but I and one other; for the Colonel was away,
poor man, levying troops for the king--that is, for King James, sir; for
your honour looks as if you were on the other side."

The stranger was silent and looked abstracted; but at length he
answered, somewhat listlessly, "Really, my good woman, one does not know
what side to be of. It is raining very hard to-night, unless those are
the boughs of the trees tapping against your window."

"Those are the large drops of rain," replied the woman, "dashed against
the glass by the south-west wind. It will be an awful night; and I think
of the ship."

"I will let you hear of the boy," rejoined the stranger in an
indifferent tone, "as soon as I hear of him myself;" and taking up his
hat from the table, he seemed about to depart, when a peculiar
expression upon the woman's countenance made him pause, and, at the same
time, brought to his mind that he had not even asked her name.

"I thought your honour had forgotten," she replied, when he asked her
the question at length. "They call me Betty Harper; but Mrs. Harper will
find me in this place, if you put that upon your letter: and now that we
are asking such sort of questions, your honour wouldn't be offended,
surely, if I were to ask you your name too?"

"Certainly not, my good lady," he replied; "I am called Harry
Sherbrooke, Esquire, very much at your service.--Heavens, how it blows
and rains!"

"Perhaps it is nothing but a wind-shower" replied the woman; "if your
honour would like to wait until it has ridden by."

"Why, I shall get drenched most assuredly if I go," he answered, "and
that before I reach the inn; but I will look out and see, my good lady."

He accordingly proceeded into the little passage, and opened the door,
followed by his companion. They were instantly saluted, however, by a
blast of wind that almost knocked the strong man himself down, and made
the woman reel against the wall of the passage.

Everything beyond--though the cottage, situated upon a height, looked
down the slope of the hill, over the cliffs, to the open sea--was as
dark as the cloud which fell upon Egypt: a darkness that could be felt!
and not the slightest vestige of star or moon, or lingering ray of
sunshine, marked to the eye the distinction between heaven, earth, and
sea.

Sherbrooke drew back, as the wind cut him, and the rain dashed in his
face; but at that very moment something like a faint flash was seen,
apparently at a great distance, and gleaming through the heavy rain. The
woman instantly caught her companion's wrist tight in her grasp,
exclaiming, "Hark!"--and in a few seconds after, in a momentary lull of
the wind, was heard the low booming roar of a distant cannon.

"It is a signal of distress!" cried the woman. "Oh! the ship, the ship!
The wind is dead upon the shore, and the long reef, out by the Battery
Point, has seen many a vessel wrecked between night and morning."

While she spoke, the signal of distress was seen and heard again.

"I will go down and send people out to see what can be done," said the
stranger, and walked away without waiting for reply. He turned his steps
towards the inn, muttering as he went, "There's one, at least, on board
the ship that won't be drowned, if there's truth in an old proverb! so
if the vessel be wrecked to-night, I had better order breakfast for my
cousin to-morrow morning--for he is sure to swim ashore." It was a
night, however, on which no hope of reaching land could cheer the
wrecked seamen. The tide was approaching the full; the wind was blowing
a perfect hurricane; the surf upon a high rocky beach, no boat could
have lived in for a minute; and the strongest swimmer--even if it had
been within the scope of human power and skill to struggle on for any
time with those tremendous waves--must infallibly have been dashed to
pieces on the rocks that lined the shore. The minute guns were
distinctly heard from that town, and several other villages in the
neighbourhood. Many people went to the tops of the cliffs, and some down
to the sea-shore, where the waves did not reach the bases of the rocks.
One gentleman, living in the neighbourhood, sent out servants and
tenantry with links and torches, but no one ever could clearly
distinguish the ship; and could only perceive that she must be in the
direction of a dangerous rocky shoal called the Long Reef, at about two
miles' distance from the shore.

The next morning, however, her fate was more clearly ascertained; not
that a vestige of her was to be seen out at sea, but the whole shore for
two or three miles was covered with pieces of wreck. The stern-post of a
small, French-built vessel, and also a boat considerably damaged in the
bow, and turned keel upwards, came on shore as Harry Sherbrooke and his
servant were themselves examining the scene. The boat bore, painted in
white letters, "La Coureuse de Dunkerque."

"That is enough for our purpose, I should suppose," said the master,
pointing to the letters with a cane he had in his hand, and addressing
his servant--"I must be gone, Harrison, but you remain behind, and do as
I bade you."

"Wait a moment, yet, sir," replied the man: "you see they are bringing
up a body from between those two rocks,--it seems about his size and
make, too;" and approaching the spot to which he pointed, they found
some of the country people carrying up the body of a French officer,
which afterwards proved to be that of the commander of the brig, which
had been seen during the preceding day. After examining the papers which
were taken from the pockets of the dead man, one of which seemed to be a
list of all the persons on board his vessel, Sherbrooke turned away,
merely saying to his servant, "Take care and secure that paper, and
bring it after me to Dublin as fast as possible."

The man bowed his head, and his master walked slowly
and quietly away.



CHAPTER III

Now whatever might be the effect of all that passed, as recorded in the
last chapter, upon the mind of Harry Sherbrooke, it is not in the
slightest degree our intention to induce the reader to believe that the
two personages, the officer and the little boy, whom we saw embark for
the brig which was wrecked, were amongst the persons who perished upon
that occasion. True it is that every person the ship contained found a
watery grave, between sunset and sunrise on the night in question. But
to explain how the whole took place, we must follow the track of the
voyagers in the boat.

As soon as they were seated, Lennard Sherbrooke threw his arms
affectionately round the boy, drew him a little closer to his bosom, and
kissed his broad fair forehead; while the boy, on his part, with his
hand leaning on the officer's knee, and his shoulder resting confiding
on his bosom, looked up in his face with eyes of earnest and deep
affection. In such mute conference they remained for some five or ten
minutes; while the hardy sailors pulled away at the oars, their course
towards the vessel lying right in the wind's eye. After a minute or two
more, Lennard Sherbrooke turned round, and gazed back towards the shore,
where he could now plainly perceive his cousin beginning to climb the
little path up the cliff. After watching him for a moment with a look of
calculating thought, he turned towards the boy again, and saw that there
were tears in his eyes, which sight caused him to bend down, saying, in
a low voice, "You are not frightened, my dear boy?"

"Oh no, no!" replied the boy--"I am only sorry to go away to a strange
place."

Lennard Sherbrooke turned his eyes once more towards the shore, but the
form of his cousin had now totally disappeared. He then remained musing
for a minute or two, while the fishermen laboured away, making no very
great progress against the wind. At the distance of about a mile or a
mile and a half from the shore, Lennard Sherbrooke turned round towards
the man who was steering, and made some remarks upon the excellence of
the boat. The man, proud of his little vessel, boasted her capabilities,
and declared that she was as sea-worthy as any frigate in the navy.

"I should like to see her tried," said Sherbrooke. "I should not wonder
if she were well tried to-night," replied the man.

For a moment or two the officer made no rejoinder; but then approaching
the steersman nearer still, he said, in a low voice, "Come, my man, I
have something to tell you. We must alter our course very soon; I am not
going to yon Frenchman at all."

"Why, then, where the devil are you going to?" demanded the fisherman;
and he proceeded, in tones and in language which none but an Irishman
must presume to deal with, to express his astonishment, that after
having been hired by the other gentleman to carry the person who spoke
to him and the boy to the French brig of war, where berths had been
secured for them, he should be told that they were not going there at
all.

The stranger suffered him to expend all his astonishment without moving
a muscle, and then replied, with perfect calmness, "My good friend, you
are a Catholic, I have been told, and a good subject to King James--"

"God bless him!" interrupted the man, heartily; but Sherbrooke
proceeded, saying, "In these days one may well be doubtful of one's own
relations; and I have a fancy, my man, that unless I prevent any one
from knowing my course, and where I am, I may be betrayed where I go,
and betrayed if I stay. Now what I want you to do is this, to take me
over to the coast of England, instead of to yonder French brig."

The man's astonishment was very great; but he seemed to enter into the
motives of his companion with all the quick perception of an Irishman.
There were innumerable difficulties, however, which he did not fail to
start; and he asserted manfully, that it was utterly impossible for them
to proceed upon such a voyage at once. In the first place, they had no
provisions; in the next place, there was the wife and children, who
would not know what was become of them; in the third place, it was
coming on to blow hard right upon the coast. So that he proved there
was, in fact, not only danger and difficulty, but absolute
impossibility, opposed to the plan which the gentleman wished to follow.

In the meanwhile, the four seamen, who were at the oars, laboured away
incessantly, but with very slow and difficult efforts. Every moment the
wind rose higher and higher, and the sun's lower limb touched the
waters, while they were yet two miles from the French brig.

A part of the large red disk of the descending orb was seen between the
sea and the edge of the clouds that hung upon the verge of the sky,
pouring forth from the horizon to the very shore a long line of
blood-red light, which, resting upon the boiling waters of the ocean,
seemed as if the setting star could indeed "the multitudinous sea
incarnadine, making the green one red."

That red light, however, showed far more clearly than before how the
waters were already agitated; for the waves might be seen distinctly,
even to the spot in the horizon where they seemed to struggle with the
sun, heaving up their gigantic heads till they appeared to overwhelm him
before he naturally set.

The arguments of the fisherman apparently effected that thing which is
so seldom effected in this world; namely, to convince the person to whom
they were addressed. I say SELDOM, for there have been instances known,
in remote times, of people being convinced. They puzzled him, however,
and embarrassed him very much, and he remained for full five minutes in
deep and anxious thought.

His reverie, however, was brought to an end suddenly, by a few words
which the fisherman whispered to him. His countenance brightened; a
rapid and brief conversation followed in a low tone, which ended in his
abruptly holding out his hand to the good man at the helm, saying, "I
trust to your honour."

"Upon my soul and honour," replied the fisherman, grasping his proffered
hand.

The matter now seemed settled,--no farther words passed between the
master of the boat and his passenger; but the seaman gave a rapid glance
to the sky, to the long spit of land called the Battery Point, and to
the southward, whence the wind was blowing so sharply.

"We can do it," he muttered to himself, "we can do it;" and he then gave
immediate orders for changing the boat's course, and putting out all
sail. His companions seemed as much surprised by his change of purpose,
as he had been with the alteration of his passenger's determination. His
orders were nevertheless obeyed promptly, the head of the boat was
turned away from the wind, the canvas caught the gale, and away she went
like lightning, heeling till the little yard almost touched the water.
Her course, however, was not bent back exactly to the same spot from
which she started, and it now became evident that it was the fisherman's
intention to round the Battery Point.

Lennard Sherbrooke was not at all aware of the dangerous reef that lay
so near their course; but it soon became evident to him that there was
some great peril, which required much skill and care to avoid; and, as
night fell, the anxiety of the seamen evidently became greater. The wind
by this time was blowing quite a hurricane, and the rushing roaring
sound of the gale and the ocean was quite deafening. But about half an
hour after sunset that peculiar angry roar, which is only heard in the
neighbourhood of breakers, was distinguished to leeward; and looking in
that direction, Sherbrooke perceived one long white line of foam and
surf, rising like an island in the midst of dark and struggling waters.

Not a word was said: it seemed as if scarcely a breath was drawn. In a
few minutes the sound of the breakers became less distinct; a slight
motion was perceivable in the arm of the man who held the tiller, and in
about ten minutes the effect of the neighbouring headlands was found in
smoother water and a lighter gale, as the boat glided calmly and
steadily on, into a small bay, not many hundred miles from Baltimore.
The rest of their voyage, till they reached the shore again, was safe
and easy: the master of the boat and his men seemed to know every creek,
cove, and inlet, as well as their own dwelling places; and, directing
their coarse to a little but deep stream, they ran in between two other
boats, and were soon safely moored.

The boy, by Sherbrooke's direction, had lain himself down in the bottom
of the boat, wrapped up in a large cloak; and there, with the happy
privilege of childhood, he had fallen sound asleep, nor woke till danger
and anxiety were passed, and the little vessel safe at the shore.
Accommodation was easily found in a neighbouring village, and, on the
following day, one, and only one, of the boat's crew went over to the
spot from which they had set out on the preceding evening. He returned
with another man, both loaded with provisions. There was much coming and
going between the village and the boat during the day. By eventide the
storm had sobbed itself away; the sea was calm again, the sky soft and
clear; and beneath the bright eyes of the watchful stars, the boat once
more took its way across the broad bosom of the ocean, with its course
laid directly towards the English shore.



CHAPTER IV.

Those were days of pack-saddles and pillions--days certainly not without
their state and display; but yet days in which persons were not valued
according to the precise mode of their dress or equipage, when hearts
were not appraised by the hat or gloves, nor the mind estimated by the
carriages or horses.

Man was considered far more abstractedly then than at present; and
although illustrious ancestors, great possessions, and hereditary claims
upon consideration, were allowed more weight than they now possess, yet
the minor circumstances of each individual,--the things that filled his
pocket, the dishes upon his table, the name of his tailor, or the club
that he belonged to,--were seldom, if ever, allowed to affect the
appreciation of his general character.

However that might be, it was an age, as we have said, of pack-saddles
and pillions; and no one, at any distance from the capital itself, would
have been the least ashamed to be seen with a lady or child mounted
behind him on the same horse, while he jogged easily onward on his
destined way.

It was thus that, about a quarter of an hour before nightfall, a, tall
powerful man was seen riding along through one of the north-western
counties of England, with a boy of about eight years of age mounted on a
pillion behind him, and steadying himself on the horse by an
affectionate embrace cast round the waist of his elder companion.

Lennard Sherbrooke--for the reader has already divined that this was no
other than the personage introduced to him in our first chapter--Lennard
Sherbrooke, then, was still heavily armed, but in other respects had
undergone a considerable change. The richly laced coat had given place
to a plain dark one of greenish brown; the large riding boots remained;
and the hat, though it kept its border of feathers, was divested of
every other ornament. There were pistols at the saddle-bow, which indeed
were very necessary in those days to every one who performed the
perilous and laborious duty of wandering along the King's Highway; and
in every other respect the appearance of Lennard Sherbrooke was well
calculated neither to attract cupidity nor invite attack.

About ten minutes after the period at which we have again introduced him
to our readers, the traveller and his young companion stopped at the
door of an old-fashioned inn, or rather at the porch thereof; for the
door itself, with a retiring modesty, stood at some distance back, while
an impudent little portico with carved oak pillars, of quaint but not
inelegant design, stood forth into the road, with steps leading down
from it to the sill of the sunk doorway. An ostler ran out to take the
horse, and helped the boy down tenderly and carefully. Sherbrooke
himself then dismounted, looked at his beast from head to foot, and then
ordering the ostler to give him some hay and water, he took the boy by
the hand and entered the house.

The ostler looked at the beast, which was tired, and then at the sky,
over which the first shades of evening were beginning to creep, thinking
as he did so that the stranger might quite as well put up his beast for
the night. In the meantime, however, Sherbrooke had given the boy into
the charge of the hostess, had bidden her prepare some supper for him,
and had intimated that he himself was going a little farther, but would
soon return to sleep at her hospitable dwelling. He ordered to be
brought in and given into her charge also a small portmanteau,--smaller
than that which he had taken with him into the boat,--and when all this
was done, he kissed the boy's forehead tenderly, and left him, mounting
once more his weary beast, and plodding slowly along upon his way.

It was a very sweet evening: the sun, half way down behind one of the
distant hills, seemed, like man's curiosity, to overlook unheeded all
the bright and beautiful things close to him, and to gaze with his eyes
of light full upon the objects further from him, through which the
wayfarer was bending his way. The line of undulating hills, the masses
of a long line of woodland, some deep valleys and dells, a small village
with its church and tower on an eminence, were all in deep blue shadow;
while, in the foreground, every bank and slope was glittering in yellow
sunshine, and a small river, that wound along through the flatter part
of the ground, seemed turned into gold by the great and glorious
alchymist, as he sunk to his rest.

The heart of the traveller who wandered there alone was ill, very ill at
ease. Happily for himself, as he was now circumstanced, the character of
Sherbrooke was a gay and buoyant one, not easily depressed, bearing the
load lightly; but still he could not but feel the difficulties, the
dangers, and the distresses of a situation, which, though shared in by
very many at that moment, was rather aggravated by such being the case,
and had but small alleviation even from hope.

In the first place, he had seen the cause to which he had attached
himself utterly ruined by the base irresolution of a weak monarch, who
had lost his crown by his tyranny, and who had failed to regain it by
his courage. In the next place, for his devotion to that cause, he was a
banished and an outlawed man, with his life at the mercy of any one who
chose to take it. In the next he was well nigh penniless, with the life
of another, dear, most dear to his heart, depending entirely upon his
exertions.

The heart of the traveller, then, was ill, very ill at ease, but yet the
calm of that evening's sunshine had a sweet and tranquillizing effect.
There is a mirror--there is certainly a moral mirror in our hearts,
which reflects the images of the things around us; and every change that
comes over nature's face is mingled sweetly, though too often unnoticed,
with the thoughts and feelings called forth by other things. The effect
of that calm evening upon Lennard Sherbrooke was not to produce the
wild, bright, visionary dreams and expectations which seem the peculiar
offspring of the glowing morning, or of the bright and risen day; but it
was the counterpart, the image, the reflection of that evening scene
itself to which it gave rise in his heart. He felt tranquillized, he
felt more resolute, more capable of enduring. Grief and anxiety subsided
into melancholy and resolution, and the sweet influence of the hour had
also an effect beyond: it made him pause upon the memories of his past
life, upon many a scene of idle profligacy, revel, and riot,--of talents
cast away and opportunity neglected,--of fortune spent and bright hopes
blasted,--and of all the great advantages which he had once possessed
utterly lost and gone, with the exception of a kind and generous heart:
a jewel, indeed, but one which in this world, alas! can but too seldom
be turned to the advantage of the possessor.

On these things he pondered, and a sweet and ennobling regret came upon
him that it should be so--a regret which might have gone on to sincere
repentance, to firm amendment, to the retrieval of fortunes, to an utter
change of destiny, had the circumstances of the times, or any friendly
voice and helping hand, led his mind on upon that path wherein it had
already taken the first step, and had opened out before him a way of
retrieval, instead of forcing him onward down the hill of destruction.
But, alas! those were not times when the opportunity of doing better was
likely to be allowed to him; nor were circumstances destined to change
his course. His destiny, like that of many Jacobites of the day, was but
to be from ruin to ruin; and let it be remembered, that the character
and history of Lennard Sherbrooke are not ideal, but are copied
faithfully from a true but sad history of a life in those times.

All natural affections sweeten and purify the human heart. Like
everything else given us immediately from God, their natural tendency is
to wage war against all that is evil within us; and every single thought
of amendment and improvement, every regret for the past, every better
hope for the future, was connected with the thought of the beautiful boy
he had left behind at the inn; and elevated by his love for a being in
the bright purity of youth, he thought of him and his situation again
and again; and often as he did so, the intensity of his own feelings
made him murmur forth half audible words all relating to the boy, or to
the person he was then about to seek, for the purpose of interesting him
in the poor youth's fate.

"I will tell him all and everything," he said, thus murmuring to himself
as he went on: "he may drive me forth if he will; but surely, surely, he
will protect and do something for the boy. What, though there have been
faults committed and wrong done, he cannot be so hard-hearted as to let
the poor child starve, or be brought up as I can alone bring him up."

Such was still the conclusion to which he seemed to come; and at length
when the sun had completely gone down, and at the distance of about
three miles from the inn, he paused before a large pair of wooden gates,
consisting of two rows of square bars of painted wood placed close
together, with a thick heavy rail at the top and bottom, while two
wooden obelisks, with their steeple-shaped summits, formed the gate
posts. Opening the gates, as one well familiar with the lock, he now
entered the smaller road which led from them through the fields towards
a wood upon the top of the hill. At first the way was uninteresting
enough, and the faint remains of twilight only served to show some
square fields within their hedge-rows cut in the most prim and
undeviating lines around. The wayfarer rode on, through that part of the
scene, with his eyes bent down in deep thought; but when he came to the
wood; and, following the path--which, now kept with high neatness and
propriety, wound in and out amongst the trees, and then sweeping gently
round the shoulder of the hill, exposed a beautiful deer park--he had
before his eyes a fine Elizabethan house, rising grey upon a little
eminence at the distance of some four or five hundred yards,--it seemed
that some old remembrance, some agitating vision of the days gone by,
came over the horseman's mind. He pulled in his rein, clasped his hands
together, and gazed around with a look of sad and painful recognition.
At the end of a minute or two, however, he recovered himself, rode on to
the front of the house we have mentioned, and dismounting from his
horse, pulled the bell-rope which action was instantly followed by a
long peal heard from within.

"It sounds cold and empty," said the wayfarer to himself, "like my
reception, and perhaps my hopes."

No answer was made for some time; and though the sounds had been loud
enough, as the traveller's ears bore witness, yet they required to be
repeated before any one came to ask his pleasure.

"This is very strange!" he said, as he applied his hand to the bell-rope
again. "He must have grown miserly, as they say, indeed. Why I remember
a dozen servants crowding into this porch at the first sound of a
horse's feet."

A short time after, some steps were heard within; bolts and bars were
carefully withdrawn, and an old man in a white jacket, with a lantern in
his hand, opened the heavy oaken door, and gazed upon the stranger.

"Where is the Earl of Byerdale?" demanded the horseman, in apparent
surprise. "Is he not at home?"

The old man gazed at him for a moment from head to foot, without
replying, and then answered slowly and somewhat bitterly, "Yes, he is at
home--at his long home, from which he'll never move again! Why, he has
been dead and buried this fortnight."

"Indeed!" cried the traveller, putting his hand to his head, with an air
of surprise, and what we may call dismay; "indeed! and who has
discharged the servants and shut up the house?"

"Those who have a right to do it," replied the old man, sharply; "for my
lord was not such a fool as to leave his property to be spent, and his
place mismanaged, by two scape-graces whom he knew well enough."

As he spoke, without farther ceremony he shut the door in the stranger's
face, and then returned to his own abode in the back part of the house,
chuckling as he went, and murmuring to himself, "I think I have paid him
now for throwing me into the horsepond, for just telling a little bit of
a lie about Ellen, the laundry maid. He thought I had forgotten him! Ha!
ha! ha!"

The traveller stood confounded; but he made no observation, he uttered
no word, he seemed too much accustomed to meet the announcement of fresh
misfortune to suffer it to drive him from the strong-hold of silence.
Sweeter or gentler feelings might have done it: he might have been
tempted to speak aloud in calm meditation and thought, either gloomy or
joyful; but his heart, when wrung and broken by the last hard grasp of
fate, like the wolf at his death, was dumb.

He remained for full two minutes, however, beneath the porch, motionless
and silent; then springing on his horse's back, he urged him somewhat
rapidly up the slope. Ere he had reached the top, either from
remembering that the beast was weary, or from some change in his own
feelings, he slackened his pace, and gave himself up to meditation
again. The first agony of the blow that he had received was now over,
and once again he not only reasoned with himself calmly, but expressed
some of his conclusions in a murmur.

"What!" he said, "a peer without a penny! the name attainted, too, and
all lands and property declared forfeit! No, no! it will never do! Years
may bring better times!--Who knows? the attainder may be reversed; new
fortunes may be gained or made! The right dies not, though it may
slumber; exists, though it be not enforced. A peer without a penny! no,
no!--far better a beggar with half a crown!"

Thus saying he rode on, passed through the wood we have mentioned,--the
dull meadows, and the wooden gates; and entering the high road, was
proceeding towards the inn, when an event occurred which effected a
considerable change in his plans and purposes.

It was by this time one of those dark nights, the most propitious that
can be imagined for such little adventures as rendered at one time the
place called Gad's Hill famous alike in story and in song. It wasn't
that the night was cloudy, for, to say sooth, it was a fine night, and
manifold small stars were twinkling in the sky; but the moon, the sweet
moon, was at that time in her infancy, a babe of not two days old, so
that the light she afforded to her wandering companions through the
fields of space was of course not likely to be much. The stars twinkled,
as we have said, but they gave no light to the road; and on either side
there were sundry brakes, and lanes, and hedges, and groups of trees
which were sufficiently shady and latitant in the mid-day, and which
certainly were impervious to any ray of light then above the horizon.

The mind of Lennard Sherbrooke, however, was far too busy about other
things to think of dangers on the King's Highway. His purse was
certainly well armoured against robbery; and the defence was on the
inside and not on the out; so that--had he thought on the matter at all,
which he did not do--he might very probably have thought, in his light
recklessness, he wished he might meet with a highwayman, in order to try
whether he could not rob better than be robbed.

However, as I have said, he thought not of the subject at all. His own
situation, and that of the boy Wilton, occupied him entirely; and it was
not till the noise of a horse's feet coming rapidly behind him sounded
close at his shoulder, that he turned to see by whom he had been
overtaken.

All that Sherbrooke could perceive was, that it was a man mounted on a
remarkably fine horse, riding with ease and grace, and bearing
altogether the appearance of a gentleman.

"Pray, sir," said the stranger, "can you tell me how far I am from the
inn called the Buck's Horns, and whether this is the direct road
thither?"

"The inn is about two miles on," replied Sherbrooke, "on the left-hand
side of the way, and you cannot miss it, for there is no other house for
five miles."

"Only two miles!" said the stranger; "then there is no use of my riding
so fast, risking to break my neck, and my horse's knees."

Sherbrooke said nothing, but rode on quietly, while the stranger, still
reining in his horse, pursued the high road by the traveller's side.

"It is a very dark night," said the stranger, after a minute or two's
silence.

"A very dark night, indeed!" replied Sherbrooke, and the conversation
again ended there.

"Well," said the stranger, after two or three minutes more had passed,
"as my conversation seems disagreeable to you, sir, I shall ride on."

"Goodnight, sir," replied Sherbrooke, and the other appeared to put
spurs to his horse. At the first step, however, he seized the
traveller's rein, uttering a whistle: two more horsemen instantly darted
out from one side of the road, and in an instant the well-known words,
"Stand and deliver!" were audibly pronounced in the ears of the
traveller.

Now it is a very different thing, and a much more difficult thing, to
deal in such a sort with three gentlemen of the road, than with one; but
nevertheless, as we have before shown, Lennard Sherbrooke was a stout
man, nor was he at all a faint-hearted one. A pistol was instantly out
of one of the holsters, pointed, and fired, and one of his assailants
rolled over upon the ground, horse and man together. His heavy sword was
free from the sheath the moment after; and exclaiming, "Now there's but
two of you, I can manage you," he pushed on his horse against the man
who had seized his bridle, aiming a very unpleasant sort of oblique cut
at the worthy personage's head, which, had it taken effect, would
probably have left him with a considerable portion less of skull than
that with which he entered into the conflict.

Three things, however, happened almost simultaneously, which gave a new
aspect altogether to affairs. The man upon Sherbrooke's left hand fired
a pistol at his head, but missed him in the darkness of night. At the
same moment the other man at whom he was aiming the blow, and who being
nearer to him of course saw better, parried it successfully, but
abstained from returning it, exclaiming, "By Heavens! I believe it is
Leonard Sherbrooke!"

"If you had asked me," replied Sherbrooke, "I would have told you that
long ago: pray who are you?"

"I am Frank Bryerly," replied the man: "hold your hands, hold your hands
every one, and let us see what mischief's done! Dick Harrison, I
believe, is down. Devilish unfortunate, Sherbrooke, that you did not
speak."

"Speak!" returned Sherbrooke, "what should I speak for? these are not
times for speaking over much."

"I am not hurt, I am not hurt!" cried the man called Harrison; "but hang
him, I believe he has killed my horse, and the horse had well nigh
killed me, for he reared and went over with me at the shot:--get up,
brute, get up!" and he kicked the horse in the side to make him rise. Up
started the beast upon his feet in a moment, trembling in every limb,
but still apparently not much hurt; and upon examination it proved that
the ball had struck him in the fleshy part of the shoulder, producing a
long, but not a deep wound, and probably causing the animal to rear by
the pain it had occasioned.

As soon as this was explained satisfactorily, a somewhat curious scene
was presented, by Leonard Sherbrooke standing in the midst of his
assailants, and shaking hands with two of them as old friends, while the
third was presented to him with all the form and ceremony of a new
introduction. But such things, alas! were not uncommon in those days;
and gentlemen of high birth and education have been known to take to the
King's Highway--not like Prince Hal, for sport, but for a mouthful of
bread.

"Why, Frank," said Sherbrooke, addressing the one who had seized his
horse's rein, "how is this, my good fellow?"

"Why, just like everything else in the world," replied the other in a
gay tone. "I'm at the down end of the great see-saw, Sherbrooke, that's
all. When last you knew me, I was a gay Templer, in not bad practice,
bamboozling the juries, deafening the judges, making love to every woman
I met, ruining the tavern-keepers, and astounding the watch and the
chairman. In short, Sherbrooke, very much like yourself."

"Exactly, Frank," replied Sherbrooke, "my own history within a letter or
so: we were always called the counterparts, you know; but what became of
you after I left you, a year and a half ago, when this Dutch skipper
first came over to usurp his father-in-law's throne?"

"Why, I did not take it quite so hotly as you did," replied the other;
"but I remained for some time after the King was gone, till I heard he
had come back to Ireland; then, of course, I went to join him, fared
with the rest, lost everything, and here I am--after having been a
Templer, and then a captain in the king's guards--doing the honours of
the King's Highway."

"Stupidly enough," replied Lennard Sherbrooke; "for here the first thing
that you do is to attack a man who is just as likely to take as to give,
and ask for a man's money who has but a guinea and a shilling in all the
world."

"I am but raw at the trade, I confess," replied the other, "and we are
none of us much more learned. The truth is, we were only practising upon
you, Sherbrooke, we expect a much better prize to-morrow; but what say
you, if your condition be such, why not come and take a turn upon the
road with us? It is the most honourable trade going now-a-days. Treason
and treachery, indeed, carry off the honours at court; but there are so
many traitors of one gang or another, that betraying one's friend is
become a vulgar calling. Take a turn with us on the road, man! take a
turn with us on the road!"

"Upon my soul," replied Sherbrooke, "I think the plan not a bad one; I
believe if I had met you alone, Frank, I should have tried to rob you."

"Don't call it rob," replied Frank Bryerly, "call it soliciting from, or
relieving. But it is a bargain, Sherbrooke, isn't it?"

Lennard Sherbrooke paused and thought for a moment, with the scattered
remains of better feelings, like some gallant party of a defeated army
trying still to rally and resist against the overpowering force of
adverse circumstances. He thought, in that short moment, of what other
course he could follow; he turned his eyes to the east and the west, to
the north and the south, for the chance of one gleam of hope, for the
prospect of any opening to escape. It was in vain, his last hope had
been trampled out that night. He had not even money to fly, and seek, on
some other shore, the means of support and existence. He had but
sufficient to support himself and his horse, and the poor boy, for three
or four more days. Imagination pictured that poor boy's bright
countenance, looking up to him for food and help, and finding none, and
grasping Bryerly's hand, he said, in a low voice, "It is a bargain.
Where and how shall I join you?"

"Oh!" replied the other, "we three are up at Mudicot's inn, about four
miles there: you had better turn your horse and go back with us."

"No," replied Sherbrooke, "I have some matters to settle at the little
inn down there: all that I have in the world is there, and that, Heaven
knows, is little enough; I will join you to-morrow."

"Sherbrooke," said Bryerly, drawing him a little on one side and
speaking low, "I am a rich man, you know: I have got ten guineas in my
pocket: you must share them with me."

Pride had already said "No!" but Bryerly insisted, saying, "You can pay
me in a day or two."

Sherbrooke thought of the boy again, and accepted the money; and then
bidding his companions adieu for the time, he left them and returned to
the inn.

The poor boy, wearied out, had once more fallen asleep where he sat, and
Sherbrooke, causing him to be put to bed, remained busily writing till a
late hour at night. He then folded up and sealed carefully that which he
had written, together with a number of little articles which he drew
forth from the portmanteau; he then wrote some long directions on the
back of the packet, and placing the whole once more in the portmanteau,
in a place where it was sure to be seen, if any inquisitive eye examined
the contents of the receptacle, he turned the key and retired to rest.
The whole of the following day he passed in playing with and amusing
little Wilton; and so much childish gaiety was there in his demeanour,
that the man seemed as young as the child. Towards evening, however, he
again ordered his horse to be brought out; and, having paid the landlady
for their accommodation up to that time, he again left the boy in her
charge and put his foot in the stirrup. He had kissed him several times
before he did so; but a sort of yearning of the heart seemed to come
over him, and turning back again to the door of the inn, he once more
pressed him to his heart, ere he departed.



CHAPTER V.

Journeys were in those days at least treble the length they are at
present. It may be said that the distance from London to York, or from
Carlisle to Berwick, could never be above a certain length. Measured by
a string probably such would have been the case; but if the reader
considers how much more sand, gravel, mud, and clay, the wheels of a
carriage had to go through in those days, he will easily see how it was
the distances were so protracted.

At all events, fifty or sixty miles was a long, laborious journey; and
at whatever hour the traveller might set out upon his way, he was not
likely to reach the end of it, without becoming a "borrower from the
night of a dark hour or two."

Such was the case with the tenant of a large cumbrous carriage, which,
drawn heavily on by four stout horses wended slowly on the King's
Highway, not very far from the spot where the wooden gates that we have
described raised their white faces by the side of the road.

The panels of that carriage, as well as the ornaments of the top
thereof, bore the arms of a British earl; and there was a heavy and
dignified swagger about the vehicle itself, which seemed to imply a
consciousness even in the wood and leather of the dignity of the person
within. He, for his own part, though a graceful and very courtly
personage, full of high talent, policy, and wit, had nothing about him
at all of the pomposity of his vehicle; and at the moment which we refer
to, namely, about two hours after nightfall, tired with his long
journey, and seated with solitary thought, he had drawn a fur-cap
lightly over his head, and, leaning back in the carriage, enjoyed not
unpleasant repose.

To be woke out of one's slumbers suddenly at any time, or by any means,
is a very unpleasant sensation; but there are few occasions that we can
conceive, on which such an event is more disagreeable than when we are
thus woke, to find a pistol at our breast, and some one demanding our
money.

The Earl of Sunbury was sleeping quietly in his carriage with the most
perfect feeling of security, though those indeed were not very secure
times; when suddenly the carriage stopped, and he started up. Scarcely,
however, was he awake to what was passing round, than the door of the
carriage was opened, and a man of gentlemanly appearance, with a pistol
in his right hand, and his horse's bridle over the left arm, presented
himself to the eyes of the peer. At the same time, through the opposite
window of the carriage, was seen another man on horseback; while the
Earl judged, and judged rightly, that there must be others of the same
fraternity at the heads of the horses, and the ears of the postilions.

The Earl was usually cool and calm in his demeanour under most of the
circumstances of life; and he therefore asked the pistol-bearing
gentleman, much in the same tone that one would ask one's way across the
country, or receive a visitor whom we do not know, "Pray, sir, what may
be your pleasure with me?"

"I am very sorry to delay your lordship even for a moment," replied the
stranger, very much in the same tone as that with which the Earl had
spoken; "but I do it for the purpose of requesting, that you would
disburden yourself of a part of your baggage, which you can very well
spare, and which we cannot. I mean, my lord, shortly and civilly, to
say, that we must have your money, and also any little articles of gold
and jewellery that may be about your person."

"Sir," replied the Earl, "you ask so courteously, that I should be
almost ashamed to refuse you, even were your request not backed by the
soft solicitation of a pistol. There, sir, is my purse, which probably
is not quite so full as you might desire, but is still worth something.
Then as to jewellery, my watch, seals, and these trinkets are at your
disposal. Farther than these I have but this ring, for which I have a
very great regard; and I wish that some way could be pointed out by
which I might be able to redeem it at a future time it may be worth some
half dozen guineas, but certainly not more, to any other than myself. In
my eyes, however, it only appears as a precious gage of old affection,
given to me in my youth by one I loved, and which has remained still
upon my finger, till age has wintered my hair."

"I beg that you will keep the ring," replied the highwayman; "you have
given enough already, my lord, and we thank you."

He was now retiring with a bow, and closing the door, but the Earl
stopped him, saying, in a tone of some feeling, "I beg your pardon; but
your manner, language, and behaviour, are so different from all that
might be expected under such circumstances, that I cannot but think
necessity more than inclination has driven you to a dangerous pursuit."

"Your lordship thinks right," replied the highwayman "I am a poor
gentleman, of a house as noble as your own, but have felt the hardships
of these times more severely than most."

He was again about to retire; but the Earl once more spoke, saying,
"Your behaviour to me, sir, especially about this ring, has been such
that, without asking impertinent questions, I would fain serve you.--Can
I do it ?"

"I fear not, my lord; I fear not," replied the stranger. Then seeming to
recollect himself, with a sudden start, he approached nearer to the
carriage, saying, "I had forgot--you can, my lord!--you can."

"In what manner?" demanded the peer.

"That I cannot tell your lordship here and now," replied the highwayman:
"time is wanting, and, doubtless, my companions' patience is worn away
already."

"Well," replied the Earl, "if you will venture to call upon me at my own
house, some ten miles hence, which, as you know me, you probably know
also, I will hear all you have to say, serve you if I can, and will take
care that you come and go with safety."

"I offer you a thousand thanks, my lord," replied the other, "and will
venture as fearlessly as I would to my own chamber." [Footnote: It may
be interesting to the reader to know that the whole of this scene, even
to a great part of the dialogue, actually took place in the beginning of
the reign of William III.]

Thus saying, he drew back and closed the door; and then making a signal
to his companions to withdraw from the heads of the horses, he bade the
postilions drive on, and sprang upon his own beast.

"What have you got, Lennard? what have you got?" demanded the man who
was at the other door of the carriage: "what have you got--you have had
a long talk about it?"

"A heavy purse," replied Sherbrooke; "what the contents are, I know
not--a watch, a chain, and three gold seals.--I'm almost sorry that I
did this thing."

"Sorry!" cried the other; "why you insisted upon doing it yourself, and
would let no other take the first adventure out of your hands."

"I did not mean that," replied Sherbrooke "I did not mean that at all!
If the thing were to be done, and I standing by, I might as well do it
as see you do it. What I mean is, that I am sorry for having taken the
man's money at all!"

"Pshaw!" replied the other: "You forget that he is one of the enemy, or
rather, I should say, a traitor to his king, to his native-born prince,
and therefore is fair game for every true subject of King James."

"He stood by him a long time," replied Sherbrooke, "for all that--as
long, and longer than the King stood by himself."

"Never mind, never mind, Colonel," said one of the others, who had come
up by this time; "you won't need absolution for what's been done
to-night; and I would bet a guinea to a shilling, that if you ask any
priest in all the land, he will tell you, that you have done a good deed
instead of a bad; but let us get back to the inn as quick as we can, and
see what the purse contains."

The road which the Earl of Sunbury was pursuing passed the very inn to
which the men who had lightened him of his gold were going; but there
was a back bridle-path through some thick woods to the right of the
road, which cut off a full mile of the way, and along this the four
keepers of the King's Highway urged their horses at full speed,
endeavouring, as was natural under such circumstances, to gallop away
reflection, which, in spite of all that they assumed, was not a pleasant
companion to any of the four. It very often happens that the
exhilaration of success occupies so entirely the portion of time during
which remorse for doing a bad action is most ready to strike us, that we
are ready to commit the same error again, before the last murmurs of
conscience have time to make themselves heard. Those who wish to drown
her first loud remonstrances give full way and eager encouragement to
that exhilaration; and now, each of the men whom we have mentioned,
except Sherbrooke, went on encouraging their wild gaiety, leaping the
gates that here and there obstructed their passage, instead of opening
them; and in the end arriving at the inn a full quarter of an hour
before the carriage of the Earl passed the house on its onward way.

The vehicle stopped there for a minute or two, to give the horses hay
and water; and much was the clamour amongst the servants, the
postilions, and the ostlers, concerning the daring robbery that had been
committed; but the postilions of those days, and eke the keepers of
inns, were wise people in their generation, and discreet withal. They
talked loudly of the horror, the infamy, and the shamefulness, of making
the King's Highway a place of general toll and contribution; but still
they abstained most scrupulously from taking any notice of gentlemen who
were out late upon the road, especially if they went on horseback.



CHAPTER VI.

It was about two days after the period of which we have spoken, when the
Earl of Sunbury, caring very little for the loss he had met with on the
road, and thinking of it merely as one of those unpleasant circumstances
which occur to every man now and then, sat in his library with every
sort of comfort and splendour about him, enjoying in dignified ease the
society of mighty spirits from the past, in those works which have given
and received an earthly immortality. His hand was upon Sallust; and
having just been reading the awful lines which present in Catiline the
type of almost every great conspirator, he raised his eyes and gazed on
vacancy, calling up with little labour, as it were, a substantial image
to his mind's eye of him whom the great historian had displayed.

The hour was about nine o'clock at night, and the windows were closed,
when suddenly a loud ringing of the bell made itself heard, even in the
Earl's library. As the person who came, by applying at the front
entrance, evidently considered himself a visitor of the Earl, that
nobleman placed his hand upon the open page of the book and waited for a
farther announcement with a look of vexation, muttering to himself,
"This is very tiresome: I thought, at all events, I should have had a
few days of tranquillity and repose."

"A gentleman, my lord," said one of the servants, entering, "is at the
gate, and wishes to speak with your lordship."

"Have you asked what is his business?" demanded the Earl.

"He will not mention it, my lord," replied the servant, "nor give his
name either; but he says your lordship told him to call upon you."

"Oh! admit him, admit him," said the peer; "put a chair there, and bring
some chocolate."

After putting the chair, the man retired, and a moment after returned,
saying, "The gentleman, my lord."

The door opened wide, and the tall fine form of Lennard Sherbrooke
entered, leading by the hand the beautiful boy whom we have before
described, who now gazed about him with a look of awe and surprise.

Little less astonishment was visible on the countenance of the Earl
himself; and until the door was closed by the servant, he continued to
gaze alternately upon Sherbrooke and the boy, seeming to find in the
appearance of each much matter for wonder.

"Do me the favour of sitting down," he said at length "I think I have
had the advantage of seeing you before."

"Once, my lord," replied Sherbrooke, "and then it must have been but
dimly."

"Not more than once?" demanded the Earl: "your face is somewhat familiar
to me, and I think I could connect it with a name."

"Connect it with none, my lord," said Sherbrooke: "that name is at an
end, at least for a time: the person for whom you take me is no more. I
should have thought that you knew such to be the case."

"I did, indeed, hear," said the Earl, "that he was killed at the Boyne;
but still the likeness is so great, and my acquaintance with him was so
slight, that--"

"He died at the Boyne, my lord," said Sherbrooke, looking down, "in a
cause which was just, though the head and object of that cause was
unworthy of connexion with it." The Earl's cheek grew a little red; but
Sherbrooke continued, with a slight laugh, "I did not, however, come
here, my lord, to offend you with my view of politics. We have only once
met, my lord, that I know of in life, but I have heard you kindly spoken
of by those I loved and honoured. You, yourself, told me, that if you
could serve me you would; and I come to claim fulfilment of that offer,
though what I request may seem both extraordinary and extravagant to
demand."

The Earl bent down his eyes upon the table, and drew his lips in
somewhat close, for he in no degree divined what request was coming; and
he was much too old a politician to encourage applications, the very
proposers of which announced them as extravagant. "May I ask," he said,
at length, "what it is you have to propose? I am quite ready to do any
reasonable thing for your service, as I promised upon an occasion to
which I need not farther refer."

Three servants at that moment entered the room, with chocolate, long cut
slices of toast, and cold water; and the conversation being thus
interrupted, the Earl invited his two guests to partake; and calling the
boy to him, fondled him for some moments at his knee, playing with the
clustering curls of his bright hair, and asking him many little kindly
questions about his sports and pastimes.

The boy looked up in his face well pleased, and answered with so much
intelligence, and such winning grace, that the Earl, employing exactly
the same caress that Sherbrooke had often done before, parted the fair
hair on his forehead, and kissed his lofty brow.

When the servants were gone, Sherbrooke instantly resumed the
conversation. "My request, my lord," he said, "is to be a very strange
one; a request that will put you to some expense, though not a very
great one; and will give you some trouble, though, would to God both the
trouble and expense could be undertaken by myself."

"Perhaps," said the Earl, turning his eyes to the boy, "it may be
better, sir, that we speak alone for a minute or two. I am now sure that
I cannot be mistaken in the person to whom I speak, although I took you
at first for one that is no more. We will leave your son here, and he
can amuse himself with this book of pictures."

Thus saying he rose, patted the boy's head, and pointed out the book he
referred to. He then threw open a door between that room and the next,
which was a large saloon, well lighted, and having led the way thither
with Sherbrooke, he held with him a low, but earnest conversation for
some minutes.

"Well, sir," he said at length, "well, sir, I will not, and must not
refuse, though it places me in a strange and somewhat difficult
situation; but indeed, indeed, I wish you would listen to my
remonstrances. Abandon a hopeless, and what, depend upon it, is an
unjust cause,--a cause which the only person who could gain by it has
abandoned and betrayed. Yield to the universal voice of the people; or
if you cannot co-operate with the government that the popular voice has
called to power, at all events submit; and, I doubt not in the least,
that if, coupled with promises and engagements to be a peaceful subject,
you claim the titles and estates--"

"My lord, it cannot be," replied Sherbrooke, interrupting him: "you
forget that I belong to the Catholic church. However, you will remember
our agreement respecting the papers, and other things which I shall
deposit with you this night: they are not to be given to him till he is
of age, under any circumstances, except that of the King's restoration,
when you may immediately make them public."

As he spoke, he was turning away to return to the library; but the Earl
stopped him, saying, "Stay yet one moment: would it not be better to
give me some farther explanations? and have you nothing to say with
regard to the boy's education? for you must remember how I, too, am
situated."

"I have no farther explanations to give, my lord," replied Sherbrooke;
"and as to the boy's education, I must leave it entirely with yourself.
Neither on his religious nor his political education will I say a word.
In regard to the latter, indeed, I may beg you to let him hear the
truth, and, reading what is written on both sides, to judge for himself.
Farther I have nothing to say."

"But you will understand," replied the other, with marked emphasis,
"that I cannot and do not undertake to educate him as I would a son of
my own. He shall have as good an education as possible; he shall be
fitted, as far as my judgment can go, for any station in the state, to
enter any gentlemanly profession, and to win his way for himself by his
own exertions. But you cannot and must not expect that I should accustom
him to indulgence or expense in any way that the unfortunate
circumstances in which he is placed may render beyond his power to
attain, when you and I are no longer in being to support or aid him."

"You judge wisely, my lord," replied Sherbrooke, "and in those respects
I trust him entirely to you, feeling too deeply grateful for the relief
you have given me from this overpowering anxiety, to cavil at any
condition that you may propose."

"I have only one word more to say," replied the Earl, "which is, if you
please, I would prefer putting down on paper the conditions and
circumstances under which I take the boy: we will both sign the paper,
which may be for the security of us both."

Sherbrooke agreed without hesitation; and on their return to the
library, the Earl wrote for some time, while his companion talked with
and caressed the boy. When the Earl had done, he handed one of the
papers he had written to Sherbrooke, who read it attentively, and then
signing it returned it to the Earl. That nobleman in the mean time, had
signed a counterpart of the paper which he now gave to Sherbrooke; and
the latter, taking from his pocket the small packet of various articles
which we have seen him make up at the inn before he went out on the very
expedition which produced his present visit to the Earl, gave it into
the peer's hands, who put his seal upon it also.

This done, a momentary pause ensued, and Lennard Sherbrooke gazed
wistfully at the boy. A feeling of tenderness, which he could not
repress, gained upon his heart as he gazed, and seemed to overpower him;
for tears came up, and dimmed his sight. At length, he dashed them away;
and taking the boy up in his arms, he pressed him fondly to his bosom;
kissed him twice; set him down again; and then, turning to the Earl,
with a brow on which strong resolution was seen struggling with deep
emotion, he said, "Thank you, my lord, thank you!"

It was all he could say, and turning away hastily he quitted the room.
The Earl rang the bell, and ordered the servant to see that the
gentleman's horse was brought round. He then turned and gazed upon the
boy with a look of interest; but little Wilton seemed perfectly happy,
and was still looking over the book of paintings which the Earl had
given to him to examine.

"What can this be?" thought the Earl, as he looked at him; "can there be
perfect insensibility under that fair exterior?" And taking the boy by
the hand he drew him nearer.

"Are you not sorry he is gone?" the nobleman asked.

"Oh! he will not be long away," replied the boy: "he will come back in
an hour or two as he always does, and will look at me as I lie in bed,
and kiss me, and tell me to sleep soundly."

"Poor boy!" said the Earl, in a tone that made the large expressive eyes
rise towards his face with a look of inquiry: "You must not expect him
to be back to-night, my boy. Now tell me what is your name?"

"Wilton," replied the boy; but remembering that that was not sufficient
to satisfy a stranger, he added, "Wilton Brown. But how long will it be
before he comes back?"

"I do not know," replied the Earl, evading his question. "How old are
you, Wilton?"

"I am past eight," replied the boy.

"Happily, an age of quick forgetfulness!" said the Earl, in a low tone
to himself; and then applying his thoughts to make the boy comfortable
for the night, he rang for his housekeeper, and gave her such
explanations and directions as he thought fit.



CHAPTER VII.

There is a strange and terrible difference in this world between the
look forward and the look back. Like the cloud that went before the
hosts of the children of Israel, when they fled from the land of Egypt,
an inscrutable fate lies before us, hiding with a dark and shadowy veil
the course of every future day: while behind us the wide-spread past is
open to the view; and as we mark the steps that we have taken, we can
assign to each its due portion of pain, anxiety, regret, remorse,
repose, or joy. Yet how short seems the past to the recollection of each
mortal man! how long, and wide, and interminable, is the cloudy future
to the gaze of imagination!

Many years had passed since the eventful night recorded in our last
chapter; and to the boy, Wilton Brown, all that memory comprised seemed
but one brief short hour out of life's long day.

The Earl of Sunbury had fulfilled what he had undertaken towards him,
exactly and conscientiously. He was a man, as we have shown, of kindly
feelings, and of a generous heart: although he was a politician, a
courtier, and a man of the world. He might, too--had not some severe
checks and disappointments crushed many of the gentler feelings of his
heart--he might, too, have been a man of warm and enthusiastic
affections. As it was, however, he guarded himself in general very
carefully against such feelings; acted liberally and kindly; but never
promised more, or did more, than prudence consented to, were the
temptation ever so strong.

He had promised Lennard Sherbrooke that he would take the boy, and give
him a good education, would befriend him in life, and do all that he
could to serve him. He kept his word, as we have said, to the letter.
During the first six weeks, after he had engaged in this task, he saw
the boy often in the course of every day; grew extremely fond of him;
took him to London, when his own days of repose in the country were
past; and solaced many an hour, when he returned home fatigued with
business, by listening to the boy's prattle, and by playing with, as it
were, the fresh and intelligent mind of the young being now dependent
upon him for all things.

It is a false and a mistaken notion altogether, that men of great mind
and intense thought are easily wearied or annoyed by the presence of
children. The man who is wearied with children must always be childish
himself in mind; but, alas! not young in heart. He must be light,
superficial, though perhaps inquiring and intelligent; but neither
gentle in spirit nor fresh in feeling. Such men must always soon become
wearied with children; for very great similarity of thought and of
mind--the paradox is but seeming--is naturally wearisome in another;
while, on the contrary, similarity of feeling and of heart is that bond
which binds our affections together. Where both similarities are
combined, we may be most happy in the society of our counterpart; but
where the link between the hearts is wanting there will always be great
tediousness in great similarity.

Thus the Earl of Sunbury, though, Heaven knows, no man on earth could be
less childish in his keen and calculating thoughts, or in all his
ordinary habits and occupations, yet found a relief, and an enjoyment,
in talking with the boy, in eliciting all his fresh and picturesque
ideas, and in marking the train and course which thought naturally takes
before it is tutored to follow the direction of art. His own heart--for
a man of the world--was very fresh; but still the worldly mind ruled it
when it would; and the moment that he began to find that the boy might
become too much endeared, and too necessary to him, he determined to
deprive himself of the present pleasure, rather than risk the future
inconvenience.

He accordingly determined to send the boy to school, and little Wilton
heard the announcement with pleasure; for though by this time he had
become greatly attached to the Earl, he longed for the society of beings
of the same age and habits as himself. When he was with the Earl he saw
that nobleman was interested with him, but he saw that he was amused
with him too; and in this respect children are very like that noblest of
animals, the dog. Any one who has remarked a dog when people jest with
him, and speak to him mockingly, must have seen that the creature is not
wholly pleased, that he seems as if made to feel a degree of
inferiority. Such also is the case with children; and little Wilton felt
that the Earl was making a sort of playful investigation of his mind,
even while he was jesting with him. I have said felt, because it was
feeling, not thought, that discovered it; and, therefore, though he
loved the Earl notwithstanding all this, he was glad to go where he
heard there were many such young beings as himself.

The Earl did not think him ungrateful on account of the open expression
of his delight. He saw it all, and understood it all; for he had very
few of the smaller selfishnesses, which so frequently blind our eyes to
the most obvious facts which impinge against our own vanities. His was a
high and noble mind, chained and thralled by manifold circumstances and
accidents to the dull pursuits of worldly ambitions. One trait, however,
may display his character: he had practised in regard to the boy a piece
of that high delicacy of feeling of which none but great men are
capable. He had learned and divined, from the short conversation which
had taken place between himself and Lennard Sherbrooke, sufficient in
regard to the boy's unfortunate situation to guide his conduct in
respect to him; and now, even when alone with him in his own
drawing-room or library, he asked no farther questions; he pryed not at
all into what had gone before; and though the youth occasionally
prattled of the wild Irish shores, and the cottage where he had been
brought up, the Earl merely smiled, but gave him no encouragement to say
more.

At length, Wilton Brown went to school; and as the Earl gradually lost a
part of that interest in him which had given prudence the alarm, time
had its effect on Wilton also, drawing one thin airy film after another
over the events of the past, not obliterating them; but, like the effect
of distance upon substantial objects, gathering them together in less
distinct masses, and diminishing them both in size and clearness. When
the time approached for his holidays, which were few and far between, he
was called to the Earl's house, and treated with every degree of
kindness; though with mere boyhood went by boyhood's graces, and the lad
could not be fondled and played with as the child. The Earl never did
anything to make him feel that he was a dependant--no, not for a single
moment; but as the boy's mind expanded, and as a certain degree of the
knowledge of the world was gained from the habits of a public school, he
explained to him, clearly and straight-forwardly, that upon his own
exertions he must rely for wealth, fame, and honour. He told him, that
in the country where he lived, the road to fortune, dignity, and power,
was open to every man; but that road was filled with eager and
unscrupulous competitors, and obstructed in many parts by obstacles
difficult to be surmounted.

"They can be surmounted, Wilton, however," he added; "and with energy,
activity, and determination, that road can be trod, from one end to the
other, within the space of a single life, and leave room for repose at
the end.--You have often seen," he continued, "a gentleman who visits me
here, who rose from a station certainly not higher, or more fortunate
than your own,--who is called, even now, the Great Lord Somers, and
doubtless the same name will remain with him hereafter. He is an example
for all men to follow; and his life offers an encouragement for every
sort of exertion. He rose even from a very humble station of life,
outstripped all competitors, and is now, as you see, in the post of Lord
Keeper, owing no man anything, but all to his own talents and
perseverance. The same may be the case with you, Wilton. All that I can
do, to place you in the way of winning fortune and station for yourself,
I will do most willingly; but in every other respect you must keep in
mind, that you are to be the artisan of your own fortune, and shape your
course accordingly."

Such was the language held towards Wilton Brown by the Earl, upon more
than one occasion; and the boy took what he said to heart, remembered,
pondered it, and after much thought and reflection formed the great and
glorious resolution of winning honour and renown, by every exertion of
his mind and body. It is a resolution that may, perhaps, have often been
taken by those who ultimately have never succeeded in the attempt. It is
a resolution from which some may have been wiled away by pleasure, or
driven by accident. But it is a resolution which no man who afterwards
proved great ever failed to take, ay, and to take early. On the head of
mediocrity: on the petty statesmen who figure throughout two thirds of
the world's history; on the tolerable generals who conduct the ordinary
wars of the world; on the small poets and the small philosophers who
fill up the ages that intervene between great men, fortune and accident
may shower down the highest honours, the greatest power, the most
abundant wealth; but the man who in any pursuit has reached the height
of real greatness, has set out on his career with the resolution of
winning fame in despite of circumstances.

Such was the resolution which was taken, as we have said, by Wilton
Brown, and the effect of that very resolution upon him, as a mere lad,
was to make him thoughtful, studious, and different from any of the
other youths of the school, in habits and manners.

The change was beneficial in many respects, even then. It made him
strive to acquire knowledge of every sort and kind that came within his
reach, and he always succeeded in some degree. It made him cultivate
every talent which he felt that he possessed, and an accurate eye and a
musical ear were not neglected as far as he could obtain instruction. He
not only acquired much knowledge, but also much facility in acquiring;
and his eager and anxious zeal did not pass unnoticed by those who
taught him, so that others contributed to his first success, as well as
his own efforts.

That first success was, perhaps, unexpected by any one else. The period
came, at which he was barely qualified by age to strive in competition
with his schoolfellows, for one of those many excellent opportunities
afforded by the kindness and wisdom of past ages, for obtaining a high
education at one of the universities. He had never himself proposed to
be one of the competitors on this occasion, as there was a year open
before him to pursue his studies, and there were many boys at the school
far older than himself.

The Earl had not an idea that such a thing would take place, as Wilton
himself had always expressed the utmost anxiety to pursue a military
career. He had never, indeed, even pressed him to adopt another pursuit,
although he had pointed out to his protege, that his own influence lay
almost entirely in the political world; and his surprise, therefore, was
very great, when he heard that Wilton, at the suggestion of the head
master, had presented himself for examination on this very first
occasion, and had carried off the highest place from all his
competitors.

On his arrival in London he received him with delight, showered upon him
praises, and fitted him out liberally for his first appearance at the
University.

Here, however, Wilton's first fortune seemed to abandon him. About six
months after his matriculation, he had the grief to hear that the Earl
had been thrown from his horse in hunting, and received various severe
injuries. He hastened to one of his country seats, where that nobleman
had been sojourning for the time, but found him a very different man
from that which he had appeared before. He was not ill enough to need or
to desire nursing and tendance, but he was quite ill enough to be
irritable, impatient, and selfish; for it is a strange fact, that the
very condition which renders us the most dependent on our
fellow-creatures too often renders us likewise indifferent to their
comfort, in our absorbing consideration of our own. Although he could
sit up and walk about, and go forth into his gardens, yet he suffered
great pain, which did not seem to diminish; and a frequent spitting of
blood rendered him impatient and querulous, whenever his lowest words
were not instantly heard and comprehended.

It was a painful lesson to the youth he had brought up; and when the
time for Wilton's return to Oxford arrived, and the Earl, with seeming
satisfaction, put him in mind that it was time to go, the young
gentleman, in truth, felt it a relief from a situation in which he
neither well knew how to satisfy himself, or to satisfy the invalid,
towards whom he was so anxious to show his gratitude.

He returned, then, to the university, where the allowance made him by
the Earl, of two hundred per annum, together with the little income
which a successful competition at school had placed at his disposal,
enabled him to maintain the society of that class with which he had
always associated in life, and to do so with ease to himself; though not
without economy. [Footnote: I think that the same was the college
allowance of the well-known Evelyn.] The Earl had asked him twice, if he
had found the sum enough, and seemed much pleased when Wilton had
replied that it was perfectly so. But from that expression he easily
divined, that had it been otherwise, the Earl might have said nothing
reproachful, but would not have been well satisfied.

Wilton did not mistake the motives of the Earl: he knew him to be
anything but a penurious man; and he had long seen and been aware of the
motives on which that nobleman acted towards him. He knew that it was
with a wish to give him everything that was necessary and appropriate to
the situation in which he was placed, but by no means to encourage
expensive habits, or desires which might unfit him for the first
laborious steps which he was destined to tread in the path of life. He
felt, indeed, that there was an ambitious spirit in his own heart, and
it cost him many a struggle in thought, to regulate its action: to guide
it in the course of all that was good and right, but resolutely to
restrain it from following any other path. "Ambition," he thought, "is
like a falcon, and must be trained to fly only at what game I will. Its
proud spirit must be broken, to bend to this, and to submit to that; to
yield even to imaginary indignities, provided they imply no sacrifice of
real honour, and to strive for no false show, while I am striving for a
greater object."

Thus passed a year, but during that time the Earl's health had been in
no degree improved; and a number of painful events had taken place in
his political course which had left his mind more irritable than before,
while continual suffering had brought upon him a sort of desponding
recklessness, which made him cast behind him altogether those things
which he had previously considered the great objects of existence, and
desire nothing but to quit for ever the scene of political strife, and
pass the rest of his days in peace, if not in comfort.

Such had been the state of his mind when Wilton had last seen him in
London, towards the beginning of the year 1695; but the young gentleman
was somewhat surprised, about a month afterwards, to receive a sudden
summons to visit the Earl in town, coupled with information, that it was
his friend's design immediately to proceed to Italy, on account of his
health. The summons was very unexpected, as we have implied; but the
Earl informed him in his letter that he was going without loss of time;
and as the shortest way of reaching him, Wilton determined to mount his
horse at once, and ride part of the way to London that night. Of his
journey, however, and its results, we will speak in another chapter.



CHAPTER VIII.

That there are epochs in the life of every man, when all the concurrent
circumstances of fortune seem to form, as it were, a dam against the
current of his fate, and turn it completely into another direction, when
the trifling accident and the great event work together to produce an
entirely new combination around him, no one who examines his own
history, or marks attentively the history of others, can doubt for a
moment. It is very natural, too, to believe that there are at those
moments indications in our own hearts--from the deep latent sympathies
which exist between every part of nature and the rest--that the changes
which reason and observation do not point out are about to take place in
our destiny: for is it to be supposed, that when the fiat has gone forth
which alters a being's whole course of existence--when the electric
touch has been communicated to one end of the long chain of cause and
effect which forms the fate of every individual being--is it to be
supposed that it will not tremble to its most remote link, especially
towards that point where the greatest action is to take place?

There come upon us, it seems to me, in those times, fits of musing far
deeper and more intense, excitability of feeling--perhaps of imagination
too--more acute than at any other time. Perhaps, also, a determination,
an energy of will is added, necessary to carry us through, with power
and firmness, the struggle, or the change, or the temptation that awaits
us.

When Nelson stood upon the quarter-deck of his ship, but a few minutes
before the last great victory that closed a career of glory, he felt and
expressed a sense that his last hour was come, that the great and final
change of fate was near, and that but a few moments remained for the
accomplishment of his destiny. But the indication was given to a mind
that could employ it nobly; and he to whom the foreshadowing of his fate
had been afforded, even as a boy--when he determined that he would, and
felt that he could, be a hero--in that last moment, when he knew that
the hero's life was done, determined to die as he had lived, and used
the prescience of his coming death but to promote the objects for which
he had existed.

There may be some men who would say these things are not natural; but if
we could see all the fine relationships of one being to another, if the
mortal eye refined could view the unsubstantial as well as the
substantial world, could mark the keen sympathies and near associations,
and all the essences which fill up the apparent gaps between being and
being, we should see, undoubtedly, that these things are most natural,
and wonder at the blindness with which we have walked in darkling
ignorance through the thronged and multitudinous universe.

It was somewhat late in the afternoon when Wilton Brown put his foot in
the stirrup, and set off to ride towards London. He did not hope to
reach the metropolis that night, but he intended to go as far as he
could, so as to insure his arrival before the hour of the Earl's
breakfast on the following morning. He had ridden his horse somewhat
hard during the morning before he had received the summons to town, and
he consequently now set out at a slow pace. Not to weary the noble beast
was, in truth, and in reality, his motive; but there was, at the same
time, in his mind, a temporary inclination to deep and intense thought,
which he could by no means shake off, and which naturally disposed him
to a slow and equable pace.

The sudden announcement of the Earl's determination to go abroad,
without any intimation that the young man whom he had fostered from
youth to manhood was to accompany him, or to follow him to the
continent, might very well set Wilton musing on his circumstances and
his prospects; but that was not the cause of his meditative mood on the
present occasion, though it was the immediate cause of his giving way to
it. In truth, the inclination which he felt to low, desponding, though
deep and clear thought, had pursued him for the last four-and-twenty
hours, and it was to cast it off that he had in fact ridden so hard that
very morning. Now, however, he found it necessary to yield to it; and as
he rode along, he gave up his mind entirely to the consideration of the
past, of the present, and the future.

The Earl had announced to him at once in his letter, that he was about
to leave England, but he had made no reference whatsoever to the future
fate of him whom he had hitherto protected and supported. Was that
protection and support still to continue? Wilton asked himself. His
friend had told him that he was to win his way in the world, and was the
struggle now to begin? The next question that came was, naturally, Who
and what am I, then? and his thoughts plunged at once into a gulf where
they had often lost themselves before.

His boyhood had passed away unheeding, and he had attached no importance
to his previous fate, nor made any effort to impress upon his own
recollection the circumstances which preceded the period of his
reception into the Earl's house. Indeed, he had never thought much upon
the matter, till at length, when he had reached the age of fifteen, the
Earl had kindly and judiciously spoken with him upon his future
prospects; and in order to stimulate him to exertion, had pointed out to
him that his fortunes depended on himself. He had then, for the first
time, asked himself, "Who and what am I?" and had striven to recollect
as much as possible of the past, in order to gather thence some
knowledge of the present. His efforts had not been very successful.

Time, the great destroyer, envies even memory the power of preserving
images of the things that he has done away or altered; and he is sure,
if possible, to deface the pictures altogether, or to leave the lines
less clear. With Wilton he had done much to blot out and to confuse. At
first, memory seemed all a blank beyond the period of his schoolboy
days; but gradually one image after another rose out of the void, and
one called up another as they came. Still they were clouded and
indistinct, like the vague phantoms of a dream. It was with great
difficulty that he recollected any names, and could not at all tell in
what land it was, that some of the brightest of his memories lay. It was
all unconnected, too, with the present, and from it Wilton could derive
no clue in regard to the great change that was coming. Between him and
the future there appeared to hang a dark pall, which his eye could not
penetrate, but behind which was Fate. He tried to combat such feelings:
he tried long, as he rode, to conquer them; to put them down by the
power of a vigorous mind; to overthrow sensation by thought.

When, however, he found that he could not succeed, when, after many
efforts, the oppression--for I will not call it despondency--remained
still as powerful as ever, he mentally turned, as if to face an enemy
that pursued him, and to gaze full upon the inevitable power itself; all
the more awful as it was, in the misty grandeur which shrouded the
frowning features from his view. He nerved his heart, too, and resolved,
whatever it might be that was in store for him, whatever might be the
change, the loss, the adversity, which all his sensations seemed to
prophesy, that he would bear it with unshrinking courage, with resolute
determination; nay, with what was still more with one of his
disposition, with unmurmuring patience.

In the meanwhile, however, he strove, as he went along, to persuade
himself that the presentiment was but the work of fancy; that there was
nothing real in it; that he had excited himself to fears and
apprehensions that were groundless; that the expedition of the Earl to
Italy was but a temporary undertaking, and that it would most probably
make no change in his situation, no alteration in his fortunes.

Thus thought he, as he rode slowly onward, when, at the distance of
about a quarter of a mile, he perceived another horseman, proceeding at
a pace perhaps still slower than his own. The aspect of the country
between Oxford and London was as different in that day from that which
it is at present as it is possible to conceive. There is nothing in all
England--with all the changes which have taken place, in manners,
morals, feelings, arts, sciences, produce, manufactures, and
government--which has undergone so great a change, as the high roads of
the empire during the last hundred and fifty years. No one can now tell,
where the roads which lay between this place and that then ran. They
have been dug into, ploughed up, turned hither and thither, changed into
canals, or swallowed up in railroads. The face of the country, too, has
been altered, by many a village built, and many an old mansion pulled
down, long tracts of country brought into cultivation, and deep
plantations of old trees shadowing that ground which in those days was
unwholesome marsh, or barren moor. Even Hounslow Heath, beloved by many
of the frequenters of the King's Highway, has disappeared under the
spirit of cultivation, and left no trace of places where many a daring
deed was clone.

However that may be, the road which the young traveller was following,
lay not at all in the direction taken by either of the present roads to
Oxford; but at a short distance from High Wycombe turned off to the
right--that is, supposing the traveller to be going towards London--and
approached the banks of the Thames not far from Marlow. In so doing, it
passed over a long range of high hills, and a wide extent of flat,
common ground upon the top, which was precisely the point whereat Wilton
Brown had arrived, at the very moment we began this digression upon the
state of the King's Highways in those times.

This common ground of which we speak was as bleak as well might be, for
the winds of heaven had certainly room to visit it as roughly as they
chose; it was also uncultivated, and yet it cannot be said to have been
unproductive; for, probably, there never was a space of ground of equal
size, unless it were Maidenhead Thicket, which could show so rich and
luxuriant a crop of gorse, heath, and fern. For a shelter to the latter,
appeared scattered at unequal distances over the ground a few stunted
trees--hawthorns, beeches, and oaks. The beech, however, predominated,
in honour of the county in which the common was situated; for though,
probably, if we knew the origin of the name bestowed on each county in
England, we should find them all significant, yet none, I believe, would
be found more picturesque or appropriate than that given by our good
Saxon ancestors to the county in question--being Buchen-heim, or
Buckingham: the home or land of the beeches.

The gorse, fern, and heath, besides a small quantity of not very rich
grass, and a few wild flowers, were the only produce of the ground,
except the trees that I have mentioned; and the only tenants of the
place were a few sheep, by far too lean to need any one to look after
them. On the edges of the common, indeed, might be found an occasional
goose or two, but they were like the white settlers on the coast of
Africa: venturing rarely and timidly into the interior. A high road went
across this track, as I have shown; but it being necessary, from time to
time, that farmers' carts, and other conveyances, horses, waggons,
tinkers' asses, and flocks of sheep, should cross it in different
directions, and as each of these travelling bodies, in common with the
world in general, liked to have a way of its own, the furze and fern had
been cut down in many long straight lines; and paths for horse and foot,
as well as long tracks of wheels, and deep ruts, crossed and recrossed
each other all over the common. To have seen it--nay, to see it now, for
it exists very nearly in its primeval state--one would suppose, from all
the various tracks, that it was a place of great thoroughfare, when, to
say truth, though I have crossed it some twenty times or more, I never
saw any travelling thing upon it but a solitary tax-cart and a gipsy's
van.

It was just about the middle of this common, then, that Wilton Brown, as
I have said, perceived another horseman riding along at the same slow
pace as himself. Their faces were both turned one way, with a few
hundred yards between them; and it appeared to the young gentleman, that
the other personage whom we have mentioned was coming in an oblique line
towards the high road to which he himself was journeying. This
supposition proved to be correct, as the stranger, riding along the path
that he was following, came abreast of Wilton Brown upon the high road,
just at the spot where a comfortable direction-post pointed with the
forefinger of a rude hand carved in the wood, along a path to the left,
bearing inscribed, in large letters, "To Woburn."

The young traveller examined the other with a hasty but marking glance,
and perceived thereby, that he was a stout man of the middle age,
between the unpleasant ages of forty and fifty, but without any loss of
power or activity. He was mounted on a strong black horse, had a quick
and eager eye, and altogether possessed a fine countenance, but there
was some degree of shy suspicion in his look, which did not seem to
indicate any very great energy or force of determination.

It now wanted not more than a quarter of an hour to sunset, and there
was a bright rich yellow light in the western sky, which gave each
traveller a fair excuse for staring into the face of the other, as if
their eyes were dazzled by the beams of the declining sun.

When he had satisfied himself, Wilton Brown turned away his eyes, and
rode on, gazing quietly over the wide extent of bleak common, which, to
say sooth, offered a picturesque scene enough, with its scrubby trees,
and its large masses of tall gorse, lying in the calm evening air; while
deep blue shadows, and clear lights resting here and there in the
hollows and upon the swells, marked them out distinctly to the view.

In a moment after, however, Wilton's ears were saluted by the stranger's
voice, saying, "Give you good evening, young gentleman--it has been a
fine afternoon."

Now this might appear somewhat singular in the present day--when human
beings have adopted a particular sort of mysterious ordinance, by which
alone they can become thoroughly known and acquainted with each
other--and when no man, upon any pretence or consideration whatsoever,
dare speak to a fellow-creature, until some one known to both of them
has whispered some cabalistic words between them, which, in general,
neither of them hear distinctly. At the time I speak of, however,
acquaintance was much more easily made, so far, at least, as common
civility and the ordinary charities of life went. A man might speak to
another at that time, if any accidental circumstances threw them close
together, without any risk of being taken for a fool, a swindler, or a
brute; and there was, in short, a good-humoured frankness and simplicity
in those days, which formed, to say the truth, the best part about them;
for the good old times, as they are called, were certainly desperately
coarse, and a trifle more vicious than the present.

Such being the case then, Wilton Brown was not in the least surprised at
the address of the stranger, but turned, and replied civilly; and being,
indeed, somewhat dissatisfied with the companionship of his own
thoughts, he suffered his horse to jog on side by side with the beast of
the stranger, and entered into conversation with him willingly enough.
He found him an intelligent and clever man, with a tone and manner
superior, in many points, to his dress and equipage. He seemed to speak
with authority, and was conversant with the great world of London, with
the court, and the camp. He knew something also of France, and its
self-called great monarch. He spoke with a shrug of the shoulder and an
Alas! of the court of Saint Germain, and the exiled royal family of
England; but he said nothing that could commit him to either one party
or the other; and though he certainly left room for Wilton to express
his own sentiments, if he chose to do so, he did not absolutely strive
to lead him to any political subject, which formed in those days a more
dangerous ground than at present.

Wilton, however, had not the slightest inclination to discuss politics
with a stranger. Brought up by a Whig minister, educated in the
Protestant religion, and fond of liberty upon principle, it may easily
be imagined, that he not only looked upon those who now swayed, and were
destined to sway, the British sceptre as the lawful and rightful
possessors of power in the country, but he regarded the actual sovereign
himself--though he might not love him in his private character, or
admire him in those acts, where the man and the monarch were too
inseparably blended to be considered apart--as a great deliverer of this
country, from a tyranny which had been twice tried and twice repudiated.
At the same time, however, he felt for the exiled monarch. But he felt
still more for his noble wife, and for his unhappy son. His own heart
told him that those two had been unjustly dealt with, the one
calumniated, the other punished without a fault. Nor did he blame the
true and faithful servants whom adversity could not shake, and who were
only loyal to a crime, who still adhered to their old allegiance, loved
still the sovereign, who had never ill-treated them, and were ready
again to shed their blood for the house in whose service so much noble
blood had already flowed. He did not--he did not in his own heart--blame
them, and he loved not to consider what necessity there might be for
putting down with the strong and unsparing hand of law the frequent
renewal of those claims which had been decided upon by the awful
sentence of a mighty nation.

But upon none of these subjects spoke he with the stranger. He refrained
from all such topics, though they were with some skill thrown in his
way; and thus the journey passed pleasantly enough for about half an
hour. By that time the sun had gone down; but it was a clear, bright
evening with a long twilight; and the evening rays, like gay children
unwilling to go to sleep, lingered long in rosy sport with the light
clouds before they would sink to rest beneath the western sky. The
twilight was becoming grey, however, and the light falling short, when,
at about the distance of half a mile before they reached the spot where
the common terminated, the two travellers approached a rise and fall in
the ground, beyond which ran a little stream with a small old bridge of
one arch, not in the best repair, carrying the highway over the water
with a sharp and sudden turn. Scattered about in the neighbourhood of
the bridge, and on the slope that led down to it, perched upon sundry
knolls and banks, and pieces of broken ground, were a number of old
beeches, mostly hollowed out by time, but still flourishing green in
their decay. These trees, together with the twilight, prevented the
bridge itself from being seen by the travellers; but as they came near,
they heard a sudden cry, as if called forth by either terror or
surprise, and Wilton instantly checked his horse to listen.

"Did you not hear a scream?" he said, addressing his companion in a low
voice.

"Yes," answered the other, "I thought I did: let us ride on and see."

Wilton's spurs instantly touched his horse's side, and he rode quickly
down the slope towards the bridge, which he well remembered, when a
scene was suddenly presented to his view, which for a moment puzzled and
confounded him.

Just at the turn of the bridge lay overturned upon the road one of the
large, heavy, wide-topped vehicles, called a coach in those days, while
round about it appeared a group of persons whose situation, for a
moment, seemed to him dubious, but which soon became more plain. A
gentleman, somewhat advanced in life--perhaps about fifty-eight or
fifty-nine, if not more--stood by the door of the carriage, from which
he had recently emerged, and with him two women, one of whom was a young
lady, apparently of about seventeen years of age, and the other her
maid. Three men--servants stood about their master; but they had not the
slightest appearance of any intention of giving aid to any one; for,
though sundry were the situations and attitudes in which they stood,
each of those attitudes betokened, in a greater or a less degree, the
uncomfortable sensation of fear. One of them, indeed, had a brace of
pistols in his two hands, but those hands dropped, as it were, powerless
by his side, and his knees were bent into a crooked line, which
certainly indicated no great firmness of heart.

To account for the trepidation displayed by several of the persons
present, it may be necessary to state that round the overthrown vehicle
stood five personages, each of whom held a cocked pistol in his hand,
and, in two instances, the hands that held those pistols were raised in
an attitude of menace not to be mistaken. In one instance, the weapon of
offence was pointed towards the gentleman who appeared to be the owner
of the carriage; in the other, it was directed towards the head of the
poor girl, his daughter, who seemed to have not the slightest intention
of resisting.

This formidable gesture was accompanied by words, which were spoken loud
enough for Wilton to hear, as he pushed his horse down the hill; and
those words were, "Come, madam! your ear-rings, quick: do not keep us
all night with your hands shaking. By the Lord, I will get them out in a
quicker fashion, if you do not mind."

Before we can proceed to describe what occurred next, it may be
necessary to state one feature in the case, which was very
peculiar--this was, that at about forty yards from the spot where the
robbery was taking place, upon the top of a small bank, with his horse
grazing near, and his arms crossed upon his chest, stood a man of
gentlemanly appearance and powerful frame, taking no part whatsoever in
the affray; not opposing the proceedings of the plunderers, indeed, but
gnawing his nether lip, as if anything rather than well contented. He
fixed a keen, even a fierce eye upon Wilton as he rode down; but neither
the young gentleman himself, nor the other traveller, who followed him
at full speed, took any notice of him, but coming on with their pistols
drawn from their holsters, they were soon in the midst of the group
round the carriage.

Wilton, unaccustomed to such encounters, was not very willing to shed
blood, and therefore--the chivalrous spirit in his heart leading him at
once towards one particular spot in the circle--he struck the man who
was brutally pointing his pistol at the girl, a blow of his clenched
fist, which hitting him just under the ear, as he turned at the sound of
the horse's feet, laid him in a moment motionless and stunned upon the
ground.

The young gentleman, by the same impulse, and almost at the same
instant, sprang from his horse, and cast himself between the lady and
the assailants; but at that moment the voice of his travelling companion
met his ear, exclaiming, in a thundering tone, "That is right! that is
right! Now stand upon the defensive till my men come up!"

Wilton did not at all understand what this might mean; but turning to
the servants already on the spot, he exclaimed, in a sharp tone, "Stand
forward like men, you scoundrels!" and they, seeing some help at hand,
advanced a little with a show of courage.

The gentlemen of the King's Highway, however, had heard the words which
Wilton's companion had shouted to him; and seeing themselves somewhat
overmatched in point of numbers already, they did not appear to approve
of more men coming up on the other side, before they had taken their
departure. There was, consequently, much hurrying to horse. The man who
had been knocked down by Wilton was dragged away by the heels, from the
spot where he lay somewhat too near to the other party; and the sharp
application of the gravel to his face, as one of his companions pulled
him along by the legs, proved sufficiently reviving to make him start
up, and nearly knock his rescuer down.

Wilton--not moved by the spirit of an ancient Greek--felt no
inclination to fight for the dead or the living body of his foe; and the
whole party of plunderers were speedily in the saddle and on the
retreat, with the exception of the more sedate personage on the bank.
He, indeed, was more slow to mount, calling the man who had been knocked
down "The Knight of the Bloody Nose" as he passed him; and then with a
light laugh springing into the saddle, he followed the rest at an easy
canter.

"Ha! ha! ha!" exclaimed Wilton's companion of the road, laughing, "let
me be called the master of stratagems for the rest of my life! Those
five fools have suffered themselves to be terrified from their booty,
simply by three words from my mouth and their own imaginations."

"Then you have no men coming up?" said Wilton.

"Not a man," replied the other: "all my men are busy in my own house at
this minute; most likely saying grace over roast pork and humming ale."



CHAPTER IX.

The events that happen to us in life gather themselves together in
particular groups, each group separated in some degree from that which
follows and that which goes before, but yet each united, in its own
several parts, by some strong bond of connexion, and each by a finer and
less apparent ligament attached to the other groups that surround it. In
short, if, as the great poet moralist has said, "All the world is a
stage, and all the men and women in it only players," the life of each
man is a drama, with the events thereof divided into separate scenes,
the scenes gathered into grand acts, and the acts all tending to the
great tragic conclusion of the whole. Happy were it for man if he, like
a great dramatist, would keep the ultimate conclusion still in view.

In the life of Wilton Brown, the scene of the robbers ended with the
words which we have just said were spoken by his travelling companion,
and a new scene was about to begin.

The elderly gentleman to whom the carriage apparently belonged, took a
step forward as the stranger spoke the last sentence, exclaiming,
"Surely I am not mistaken--Sir John Fenwick, I believe." The stranger
pulled off his hat and bowed low. "The same, your grace," he replied:
"it is long since we have met, and I am happy that our meeting now has
proved, in some degree, serviceable to you."

"Most serviceable, indeed, Sir John," replied the Duke, shaking him
warmly by the hand; "and how is your fair wife, my Lady Mary? and my
good Lord of Carlisle, and all the Howards?"

"Well, thank your grace," replied Sir John Fenwick, "all well. This, I
presume, is your fair daughter, my Lady."

"She is, sir, she is," interrupted the Duke: "you have seen her as a
child, Sir John. But pray, Sir John, introduce us to your gallant young
friend, to whom we are also indebted for so much."

"He must do that for himself," replied Sir John Fenwick: "we are but the
companions of the last half hour, and comrades in this little
adventure."

Although accustomed to mingle with the best society; and, in all
ordinary cases, free and unrestrained in his own manners, Wilton Brown
felt some slight awkwardness in introducing himself upon the present
occasion. He accordingly merely gave his name, expressing how much
happiness he felt at the opportunity he had had of serving the Duke; but
referred not at all to his own station or connexion with the Earl of
Sunbury.

"Wilton Brown!" said the Duke, with a meaning smile, and gazing at him
from head to foot, while he mentally contrasted his fine and lofty
appearance, handsome dress, and distinguished manners, with the somewhat
ordinary name which he had given. "Wilton Brown! a NOM DE GUERRE, I
rather suspect, my young friend?"

"No, indeed, my lord," replied Wilton: "were it worth anybody's while to
search, it would be found so written in the books of Christchurch."

"Oh! an Oxonian," cried the Duke, "and doubtless now upon your way to
London. But how is this, my young friend, you are in midst of term
time!"

Wilton smiled at the somewhat authoritative and parental tone assumed by
the old gentleman. "The fact is, my Lord Duke," he said, "that I am
obliged to absent myself, but not without permission. The illness of my
best friend, the Earl of Sunbury, and his approaching departure for
Italy, oblige me to go to London now to see him before he departs."

"Oh, the Earl of Sunbury, the Earl of Sunbury," replied the Duke: "a
most excellent man, and a great statesman, one on whom all parties rely.*
That alters the case, my young friend; and indeed, whatever might be the
cause of your absence from Alma Mater, we have much to thank that cause
for your gallant assistance--especially my poor girl here. Let me shake
hands with you--and now we must think of what is to be done next, for
it is well nigh dark: the carriage is broken by those large stones which
they must have put in the way, doubtless, to stop us; and it is hopeless
to think of getting on farther to-night."

[*Footnote: Let it be remarked that this was not the Earl of Sunderland,
of whom the exact reverse might have been said.]

"Hopeless, indeed, my lord," replied Sir John Fenwick; "but your grace
must have passed on the way hither a little inn, about half a mile
distant, or somewhat more. There I intended to sleep to-night, and most
probably my young friend, too, for his horse seems as tired as mine. If
your grace will follow my advice, you would walk back to the inn, make
your servants take everything out of the carriage, and send some people
down afterwards to drag it to the inn-yard till to-morrow morning."

"It is most unfortunate!" said the Duke, who was fond of retrospects.
"We sent forward the other carriage about three hours before us, in
order that the house in London might be prepared when we came."

The proposal of Sir John Fenwick, however, was adopted; and after giving
careful and manifold orders to his servants, the Duke took his way back
on foot towards the inn, conversing as he went with the Knight. His
daughter followed with Wilton Brown by her side; and for a moment or two
they went on in silence; but at length seeing her steps not very steady
over the rough road upon which they were, Wilton offered his left arm to
support her, having the bridle of his horse over the right.

She took it at once, and he felt her hand tremble as it rested on his
arm, which was explained almost at the same moment. "It is very foolish,
I believe," she said, in a low, sweet voice, "and you will think me a
terrible coward, I am afraid; but I know not how it is, I feel more
terrified and agitated, now that this is all over, than I did at the
time."

The communication being thus begun, Wilton soon found means to soothe
and quiet her. His conversation had all that ease and grace which,
combined with carefulness of proprieties, is only to be gained by long
and early association with persons of high minds and manners. There was
no restraint, no stiffness--for to avoid all that could give pain or
offence to any one was habitual to him--and yet, at the same time, there
was joined to the high tone of demeanour a sort of freshness of ideas, a
picturesqueness of language and of thought, which were very captivating,
even when employed upon ordinary subjects. It is an art--perhaps I might
almost call it a faculty--of minds like his, insensibly and naturally to
lead others from the most common topics, to matters of deeper interest,
and thoughts of a less every-day character. It is as if two persons were
riding along the high road together, and one of them, without his
companion remarking it, were to guide their horses into some bridle-path
displaying in its course new views and beautiful points in the scenery
around.

Thus ere they reached the inn, the fair girl, who leaned upon the arm of
an acquaintance of half an hour, seemed to her own feelings as well
acquainted with him as if she had known him for years, and was talking
with him on a thousand subjects on which she had never conversed with
any one before.

The Duke, who, although good-humoured and kindly, was somewhat stately,
and perhaps a very little ostentatious withal, on the arrival of the
party at the inn, insisted upon the two gentlemen doing him the honour
of supping with him that night, "as well," he said, "as the poorness of
the place would permit;" and a room apart having been assigned to him,
he retired thither, with the humbly bowing host, to issue his own orders
regarding their provision. The larder of the inn, however, proved to be
miraculously well stocked; the landlord declared that no town in
Burgundy, no, nor Bordeaux itself, could excel the wine that he would
produce; and while the servants with messengers from the inn brought in
packages, which seemed innumerable, from the carriage, the cook toiled
in her vocation, the host and hostess bustled about to put all the rooms
in order, Sir John Fenwick and Wilton Brown talked at the door of the
inn, and Lady Laura retired to alter her dress, which had been somewhat
deranged by the overthrow of the carriage.

At length, however, it was announced that supper was ready, and Wilton
with his companion entered the room, where the Duke and his daughter
awaited them. On going in, Wilton was struck and surprised; and, indeed,
he almost paused in his advance, at the sight of the young lady, as she
stood by her father. In the grey of the twilight, he had only remarked
that she was a very pretty girl; and as they had walked along to the
inn, she had shown so little of the manner and consciousness of a
professed beauty, that he had not even suspected she might be more than
he had first imagined. When he saw her now, however, in the full light,
he was, as we have said, struck with surprise by the vision of radiant
loveliness which her face and form presented. Wilton was too wise,
however, and knew his own situation too well, even to dream of falling
in love with a duke's daughter; and though he might, when her eyes were
turned a different way, gaze upon her and admire, it was but as a man
who looks at a jewel in a king's crown, which he knows he can never
possess.

Well pleased to please, and having nothing in his thoughts to embarrass
or trouble him on that particular occasion, he gave way to his natural
feelings, and won no small favour and approbation in the eyes of the
Duke and his fair daughter. The evening, which had begun with two of the
party so inauspiciously, passed over lightly and gaily; and after
supper, Wilton rose to retire to rest, with a sigh, perhaps, from some
ill-defined emotions, but with a recollection of two or three happy
hours to be added to the treasury of such sweet things which memory
stores for us in our way through life.

As the inn was very full, the young gentleman had to pass through the
kitchen to reach the staircase of his appointed room. Standing before
the kitchen fire, and talking over his shoulder to the landlord, who
stood a step behind him, was a tall, broad-shouldered, powerful man,
dressed in a good suit of green broad cloth, laced with gold. His face
was to the fire, and his back to Wilton, and he did not turn or look
round while the young gentleman was there. The landlord hastened to give
his guest a light, and show him his room; and Wilton passed a night,
which, if not dreamless, was visited by no other visions but sweet ones.

On the following morning he was up early, and approached the window of
his room to throw it open, and to let in the sweet early air to visit
him, while he dressed himself; but the moment he went near the window,
he saw that it looked into a pretty garden laid out in the old English
style. That garden, however, was already tenanted by two persons
apparently deep in earnest conversation. One of those two persons was
evidently Sir John Fenwick, and the other was the stranger in green and
gold, whom Wilton had remarked the night before at the kitchen fire.

Seeing how earnestly they were speaking, he refrained from opening his
window, and proceeded to dress himself; but he could not avoid having,
every now and then, a full view of the faces of the two, as they turned
backwards and forwards at the end of the garden. Something that he there
saw puzzled and surprised him: the appearance of the stranger in green
seemed more familiar to him than it could have become by the casual
glance he had obtained of it in the inn kitchen; and he became more and
more convinced, at every turn they took before him, that this personage
was no other than the man he had beheld standing on the bank, taking no
part with the gentlemen of the road, indeed, but evidently belonging to
their company.

This puzzled him, as we have said, not a little. Sir John Fenwick was a
gentleman of good repute, whom he had heard of before now. He had
married the Lady Mary Howard, daughter of the Earl of Carlisle, and,
though a stanch Jacobite, it was supposed, he was nevertheless looked
upon as a man of undoubted probity and honour. What could have been his
business, then, with thieves, or at best with the companions of thieves?
This was a question which Wilton could no ways solve; and after having
teased himself for some time therewith, he at length descended to the
little parlour of the inn, and ordered his horse to be brought round as
speedily as possible. He felt in his own bosom, indeed, some inclination
to wait for an hour or two, in order to take leave of the Duke and his
fair daughter; but remembering his own situation with the Earl, as well
as feeling some of his gloomy sensations of the day before returning
upon him, he determined to set out without loss of time. He mounted
accordingly, and took his way towards London at a quick pace, in order
to arrive before the Earl's breakfast hour.

There are, however, in that part of the country, manifold hills, over
which none but a very inhumane man, unless he were pursued by enemies,
or pursuing a fox, would urge his horse at a rapid rate; and as Wilton
Brown was slowly climbing one of the first of these, he was overtaken by
another horseman, who turned out to be none other than the worthy
gentleman in the green coat.

"Good morrow to you, Master Wilton Brown," said the stranger, pulling up
his horse as soon as he had reached him: "we are riding along the same
road, I find, and may as well keep companionship as we go. These are sad
times, and the roads are dangerous."

"They are, indeed, my good sir," replied Wilton, who was, in general,
not without that capability of putting down intrusion at a word, which,
strangely enough, is sometimes a talent of the lowest and meanest order
of frivolous intellects, but is almost always found in the firm and
decided--"they are, indeed, if I may judge by what you and I saw last
night."

The stranger did not move a muscle, but answered, quite coolly, "Ay, sad
doings though, sad doings: you knocked that fellow down smartly--a neat
blow, as I should wish to see: I thought you would have shot one of
them, for my part."

"It is a pity you had not been beforehand with me," answered Wilton:
"you seemed to have been some time enjoying the sport when we came up."

The stranger now laughed aloud. "No, no," he said, "that would not do; I
could not interfere; I am not conservator of the King's Highway; and,
for my part, it should always be open for gentlemen to act as they
liked, though I would not take any share in the matter for the world."

"There is such a thing," replied Wilton, not liking his companion at
all--"there is such a thing as taking no share in the risk, and a share
in the profit."

A quick flush passed over the horseman's cheek, but remained not a
moment. "That is not my case," he replied, in a graver tone than he had
hitherto used; "not a stiver would I have taken that came out of the
good Duke's pocket, had it been to save me from starving. I take no
money from any but an enemy; and when we cannot carry on the war with
them in the open field, I do not see why we should not carry it on with
them in any way we can. But to attack a friend, or an indifferent
person, is not at all in my way."

"Oh! I begin to understand you somewhat more clearly," replied Wilton;
"but allow me to say, my good sir, that it were much better not to talk
to me any more upon such subjects. By so doing, you run a needless risk
yourself, and can do neither of us any good. Of course," he added,
willing to change the conversation, "it was Sir John Fenwick who told
you my name."

"Yes," replied the other; "but it was needless, for I knew it before."

"And yet," said Wilton, "I do not remember that we ever met."

"There you are mistaken," answered the traveller; "we met no longer ago
than last Monday week. You were going down the High-street in your cap
and gown, and you saw some boys looking into a tart shop, and gave them
some pence to buy what they longed for."

The ingenuous colour came up into Wilton Brown's cheek, as he remembered
the little circumstance to which the man alluded. "I did not see you,"
he said.

"But I saw you," answered the man, "and was pleased with what I saw; for
I am one of those whom the hard lessons of life have taught to judge
more by the small acts done in private, than by the great acts that all
mankind must see. Man's closet acts are for his own heart and God's eye;
man's public deeds are paintings for the world. However, I was pleased,
as I have said, and I have seen more things of you also that have
pleased me well. You saw me, passed me by, and would not know me again
in the same shape to-morrow; but I take many forms, when it may suit my
purposes; and having been well pleased with you once or twice, I take
heed of what you are about when I do see you."

Wilton Brown mused over what he said for a moment or two, and then
replied, "I should much like to know what it was first induced you to
take any notice of my actions at all--there must have been some motive,
of course."

"Oh, no," replied the other--"there is no MUST! It might have been
common curiosity. Every likely youth, with a pair of broad shoulders and
a soldier-like air, is worth looking after in these times of war and
trouble. But the truth is, I know those who know something of you, and,
if I liked, I could introduce you to one whom you have not seen for many
a year."

"What is his name?" demanded Wilton Brown, turning sharply upon the
stranger, and gazing full in his face.

"Oh! I name no names," replied the stranger; "I know not whether it
would be liked or not. However, some day I will do what I have said, if
I can get leave; and now I think I will wish you good morning, for here
lies my road, and there lies yours."

"But stay, stay, yet a moment," said Wilton, checking his horse; "how am
I to hear of you, or to see you again?"

"Oh!" replied the stranger, in a gay tone, "I will contrive that, fear
not!--Nevertheless, in case you should need it, you can ask for me at
the tavern at the back of Beaufort House: the Green Dragon, it is
called."

"And your name, your name?" said Wilton, seeing the other about to ride
away.

"My name! ay, I had forgot--why, your name is Brown--call me Green, if
you like. One colour's just as good as another, and I may as well keep
the complexion of my good friend, the Dragon, in countenance. So you
wont forget, it is Mister Green, at the Green Dragon, in the Green Lane
at the back of Beaufort House; and now, Mister Brown, I leave you a
brown study, to carry you on your way."

So saying, he turned his horse's head, and cantered easily over the
upland which skirted the road to the left. After he had gone about a
couple of hundred yards, Wilton saw him stop and pause, as if
thoughtfully, for a minute. But without turning back to the road, he
again put spurs to his horse, and was out of sight in a few moments.

Wilton then rode on to London, without farther pause or adventure of any
kind; but it were vain to say that, in this instance, "care did not sit
behind the horseman;" for many an anxious thought, and unresolved
question, and intense meditation, were his companions on his onward way.
Fortunately, however, his horse was not troubled in the same manner; and
about five minutes before the hour he had proposed to himself, Wilton
was standing before the house of the Earl in St. James's-square. The
servants were all rejoiced to see him, for, unlike persons in his
situation in general, he was very popular amongst them; but the Earl, he
was informed, had not yet risen, and the account the young gentleman
received of his health made him sad and apprehensive.



CHAPTER X.

IN about an hour's time, the Earl of Sunbury descended to breakfast; and
he expressed no small pleasure at the unexpected appearance of his young
protege.

"You were always a kind and an affectionate boy, Wilton," he said; "and
you have kept your good feelings unchanged, I am happy to find. Depend
upon it, when one can do so, amongst all the troubles, and cares, and
corrupting things of this world, we find in the feelings of the heart
that consolation, when sorrows and disappointments assail us, which no
gift or favour of man can impart. I believe, indeed, that within the
last six months, with all the bodily pains and mental anxieties I have
had to suffer, I should either have died or gone mad, had not my mind
obtained relief, from time to time, in the enjoyment of the beauties of
nature, the works of art, and the productions of genius. Nor have my
thoughts been altogether unoccupied with you," he added, after a
moment's pause, "and that occupation would have been most pleasant to my
mind, Wilton, inasmuch as through your whole course you have given me
undivided satisfaction. But, alas! I cannot do for you all that I should
wish to do. You know that my own estates are all entailed upon distant
relatives, whom I do not even know. I am not a man, as you are well
aware, to accumulate wealth; and all I can possibly assure to you is the
enjoyment of the same income I have hitherto allowed you, and which, in
case of my death, I will take care shall be yours."

Wilton listened, as may be supposed, with affection and gratitude; but
he tried, after expressing all he felt, and assuring the Earl that he
possessed as much as he desired, to put an end to a conversation which
was rendered the more painful to him by the marked alteration which he
perceived in the person of his friend since he had last seen him.

The Earl, however, would not suffer the subject to drop, replying, "I
know well that you are no way extravagant, Wilton, and maintain the
appearance of a gentleman upon smaller means than many could or would;
but yet, my good youth, you are naturally ambitious; and there are a
thousand wants, necessities, and desires still to be gratified, which at
present you neither perceive nor provide for. You are not destined,
Wilton, to go on all your life, content in the seclusion of a college,
with less than three hundred a year. Every man should strive to fulfil
to the utmost his destiny--I mean, should endeavour to reach the highest
point in any way which God has given him the capability of attaining.
You must become more than you are, greater, higher, richer, by your own
exertions. Had my health suffered me to remain here, I could have easily
facilitated your progress in political life. Now I must trust your
advancement to another; and you will perhaps think it strange, that the
person I do trust it to should not be any of my old and intimate
political friends. But I have my reasons for what I do, which you will
some day know; and before I go, I must exact one promise of you, which
is to put yourself under the guidance of the person whom I have
mentioned, and to accept whatever post he may think the best calculated
to promote your future views. As he now holds one of the highest
stations in the ministry, I could have wished him to name you his
private secretary, but that office is at present filled, and he has
promised me most solemnly to find you some occupation within the next
half-year. Your allowance shall be regularly transmitted to you till my
return; and, until you receive some appointment, you had better remain
at Oxford, which may give you perhaps the means of taking your first
degree. And now, my dear boy, that I have explained all this, what were
you about to say regarding the adventures you met with in your journey?"

"First let me ask, sir," replied Wilton, "who is the gentleman you have
so kindly interested for me?"

"Oh! I thought you had divined: it is the Earl of Byerdale, now all
potent in the counsels of the King--at least, so men suppose and say.
However, I look upon it that you have given me the promise that I ask."

"Undoubtedly, my lord," replied Wilton: "in such a case, I must ever
look upon your wishes as a command."

The conversation then turned to other and lighter matters, and Wilton
amused his friend with the detail of the adventures of the preceding
night.

"Sir John Fenwick!" exclaimed the Earl, as soon as Wilton came to the
events that succeeded the robbery--"he is a dangerous companion, Sir
John Fenwick! We know him to be disaffected, a nonjuror, and a plotter
of a dark and intriguing character. Who was the Duke he met with? Duke
of what?"

"On my word, I cannot tell you, sir," replied Wilton; "I did not hear
his name: they called his daughter Lady Laura."

"You are a strange young man, Wilton," replied the Earl; "there are
probably not two men in Europe who would have failed to inquire, if it
were no more than the name of this pretty girl you mention."

"If there had been the slightest probability of my ever meeting her
again," replied Wilton, "I most likely should have inquired. But my
story is not ended yet;" and he went on to detail what had occurred
during his ride that morning.

This seemed to strike and interest the Earl more than the rest; and he
immediately asked his young companion a vast number of questions, all
relating to the personal appearance of the gentleman in green, who had
been the comrade of his early ride.

After all these interrogatories had been answered, he mused for a minute
or two, and then observed, "No, no, it could not be. This personage in
green, Wilton, depend upon it, is some agent of Sir John Fenwick, and
the Jacobite party. He has got some intimation of your name and
situation, and has most likely seen you once or twice in Oxford, where,
I am sorry to say, there are too many such as himself. They have fixed
their eyes upon you, and, depend upon it, there will be many attempts to
gain your adherence to an unsuccessful and a desperate party. Be wise,
my dear Wilton, and shun all communication with such people. No one who
has not filled such a station as I have, can be aware of their manifold
arts."

Wilton promised to be upon his guard, and the conversation dropped
there. It had suggested, however, a new train of ideas to the mind of
the young gentleman--new, I mean, solely in point of combination, for
the ideas themselves referred to subjects long known and often thought
of. It appeared evident to him, that the question which the Earl had put
to himself in secret, when he heard of his conversation with the man in
green, was, "Can this be any one, who really knows the early history of
Wilton Brown?" and the question which Wilton in turn asked himself was,
"How is the Earl connected with that early history?"

Many painful doubts had often suggested themselves to the mind of Wilton
Brown in regard to that very subject; and those doubts themselves had
prevented him from pressing on the Earl questions which might have
brought forth the facts, but which, at the same time, he thought, might
pain that nobleman most bitterly, if his suspicions should prove
accurate.

The Earl himself had always carefully avoided the subject, and when any
accidental words led towards it, had taken evident pains to change the
conversation. What had occurred that morning, however, weighed upon
Wilton's mind, and he more than once asked himself the question--"Who
and what am I?"

There was a painful solution always ready at hand; but then again he
replied to his own suspicions--"The Earl certainly treats me like a
noble and generous friend, but not like a father." The conclusion of all
these thoughts was,--

"Even though I may give the Earl a moment's pain, I must ask him the
question before he goes to Italy;" and he watched his opportunity for
several days, without finding any means of introducing such a topic.

At length, one morning, when the Earl happened to be saying something
farther regarding the young man's future fate, Wilton seized the
opportunity, and replied, "With me, my dear lord, the future and the
past are alike equally dark and doubtful. I wish, indeed, that I might
be permitted to know a little of the latter, at least." "Do not let us
talk upon that subject at present, Wilton," said the Earl, somewhat
impatiently; "you will know it all soon enough. At one-and-twenty you
shall have all the information that can be given to you."

But few words more passed on that matter, and they only conveyed a
reiteration of the Earl's promise more distinctly. On the afternoon of
that day another person was added to the dinner table of the Earl of
Sunbury. Wilton knew not that anybody was coming, till he perceived that
the Earl waited for some guest; but at length the Earl of Byerdale was
announced, and a tall good-looking man, of some fifty years of age, or
perhaps less, entered the room, with that calm, slow, noiseless sort of
footstep, which generally accompanies a disposition either naturally or
habitually cautious. It is somewhat like the footstep of a cat over a
dewy lawn.

Between the statesman's brows was a deep-set wrinkle, which gave his
countenance a sullen and determined character, and the left-hand corner
of his mouth, as well as the marking line between the lips and the
cheek, were drawn sharply down, as if he were constantly in the presence
of somebody he disliked and rather scorned. Yet he strove frequently to
smile, made gay and very courteous speeches too, and said small pleasant
things with a peculiar grace. He was, indeed, a very gentlemanly and
courtly personage, and those who liked him were wont to declare, that it
was not his fault if his countenance was somewhat forbidding. By some
persons, indeed--as is frequently the case with people of weak and
subservient characters--the very sneer upon his lip, and the
authoritative frown upon his brow, were received as marks of dignity,
and signs of a high and powerful mind.

Such things, however, did not at all impose upon a man so thoroughly
acquainted with courts and cabinets as the Earl of Sunbury, and the
consequence was, that Lord Byerdale, with all his coolness,
self-confidence, and talent, felt himself second in the company of the
greater mind, and though he liked not the feeling, yet stretched his
courtesy and politeness farther than usual.

When he entered, he advanced towards the Earl with one of his most
bright and placid smiles, apologized for being a little later than his
time, was delighted to see the Earl looking rather better, and then
turned to see who was the other person in the room, in order to
apportion his civility accordingly. When he beheld Wilton Brown, the
young gentleman's fine person, his high and lofty look, and a certain
air of distinction and self-possession about him, though so young,
appeared to strike and puzzle him; but the Earl instantly introduced his
protege to the statesman, saying, "The young friend, my lord, of whom I
spoke to you, Mr. Wilton Brown."

Lord Byerdale was now as polite as he could be, assured the young
gentleman that all his small interest could command should be at his
service; and while he did so, he looked from his countenance to that of
the Earl, and from the Earl's to his, as if he were comparing them with
one another. Then, again, he glanced his eyes to a beautiful picture by
Kneller, of a lady dressed in a fanciful costume, which hung on one side
of the drawing-room.

Wilton remarked the expression of his face as he did so; and his own
thoughts, connecting that expression with foregone suspicions, rendered
it painful. Quitting the room for a moment before dinner was announced,
he retired to his own chamber, and looked for an instant in the glass.
He was instantly struck by an extraordinary resemblance, between himself
and the picture, which had never occurred to him before.

In the meanwhile, as soon as he had quitted the room, the Earl said, in
a calm, grave tone to his companion, pointing at the same time to the
picture which the other had been remarking, "The likeness is indeed very
striking, and might, perhaps, lead one to a suspicion which is not
correct."

"Oh, my dear lord," replied the courtier, "you must not think I meant
anything of the kind. I did remark a slight likeness, perhaps; but I was
admiring the beauty of the portrait. That is a Kneller, of course; none
could paint that but Kneller."

The Earl bowed his head and turned to the window. "It is the portrait,"
he said, "of one of my mother's family, a third or fourth cousin of my
own. Her father, Sir Harry Oswald, was obliged to fly, you know, for one
of those sad affairs in the reign of Charles the Second, and his estates
and effects were sold. I bought that picture at the time, with several
other things, as memorials of them, poor people."

"She must have been very handsome," said Lord Byerdale.

"The painter did her less than justice," replied the Earl, in the same
quiet tone: "she and her father died in France, within a short time of
each other; and there is certainly a strong likeness between that
portrait and Wilton.--There is no relationship, however."

Notwithstanding the quiet tone in which the Earl spoke, Lord Byerdale
kept his own opinion upon the subject, but dropped it as a matter of
conversation. The evening passed over as pleasantly as the illness of
the Earl would permit; and certainly, if Wilton Brown was not well
pleased with the Earl of Byerdale, it was not from any lack of
politeness on the part of that gentleman. That he felt no particular
inclination towards him is not to be denied; but nevertheless he was
grateful for his kindness, even of demeanour, and doubted not--such was
his inexperience of the world--that the Earl of Byerdale would always
treat him in the same manner.

After this day, which proved, in reality, an eventful one in the life of
Wilton Brown, about a week elapsed before the Earl set out for the
Continent. Wilton saw him on board, and dropped down the river with him;
and after his noble friend had quitted the shores of England, he turned
his steps again towards Oxford, without lingering at all in the capital.
It must be confessed, that he felt a much greater degree of loneliness,
than he had expected to experience on the departure of the Earl. He knew
now, for the first time, how much he had depended upon, and loved and
trusted, the only real friend that he ever remembered to have had. It is
true, that while the Earl was resident in London, and he principally in
Oxford, they saw but little of each other; but still it made a great
change, when several countries, some at peace and some at war with
England, lay between them, and when the cold melancholy sea stretched
its wide barrier to keep them asunder. He felt that he had none to
appeal to for advice or aid, when advice or aid should be wanting; that
the director of his youth was gone, and that he was left to win for
himself that dark experience of the world's ways, which never can be
learned, without paying the sad price of sorrow and disappointment.

Such were naturally his first feelings; and though the acuteness of them
wore away, the impression still remained whenever thought was turned in
that direction. He was soon cheered, however, by a letter from the Earl,
informing him of his having arrived safely in Piedmont; and shortly
after, the first quarter of his usual allowance was transmitted to him,
with a brief polite note from the Earl of Byerdale, in whose hands Lord
Sunbury seemed entirely to have placed him. Wilton acknowledged the note
immediately, and then applied himself to his studies again; but shortly
after, he was shocked by a rumour reaching him, that his kind friend had
been taken prisoner by the French. While he was making inquiries, as
diligently as was possible in that place, and was hesitating, as to
whether, in order to learn more, he should go to London or not, he
received a second epistle froth the Earl of Byerdale, couched in much
colder terms than his former communication, putting the question of the
Earl's capture beyond doubt, and at the same time stating, that as he
understood this circumstance was likely to stop the allowance which had
usually been made to Mr. Brown, he, the Earl of Byerdale, was anxious to
give him some employment as speedily as possible, although that
employment might not be such as he could wish to bestow. He begged him,
therefore, to come to London with all speed, to speak with him on the
subject, and ended, by assuring him that he was--what Wilton knew him
not to be--his very humble and most obedient servant.

On first reading the note, Wilton had almost formed a rash
resolution--had almost determined neither to go to London at all, nor to
repose upon the friendship and assistance of the Earl of Byerdale. But
recollecting his promise to his noble friend before his departure, he
resolved to endure anything rather than violate such an engagement; and
consequently wrote to say he would wait upon the Earl as soon as the
term was over, to the close of which there wanted but a week or two at
that time.

In that week or two, however, Wilton was destined to feel some of the
first inconveniences attending a sudden change in his finances.
Remembering, that, for the time at least, more than two-thirds of his
income was gone, he instantly began to contract all his expenses, and
suffered, before the end of the term, not a few of the painful followers
of comparative poverty.

He now felt, and felt bitterly, that the small sum which he received
from his college would not be sufficient to maintain him at the
University, even with the greatest economy; so that, besides his promise
to the Earl, to accept whatever Lord Byerdale should offer him, absolute
necessity seemed to force him as a dependent upon that nobleman, at
least till he could hear some news of his more generous friend.

It is an undoubted fact, that small annoyances are often more difficult
to bear than evils of greater magnitude; and Wilton felt all those
attendant upon his present situation most acutely. To appear differently
amongst his noble comrades at the University; to have no longer a horse,
to join them in their rides; to be obliged to sell the fine books he had
collected, and one or two small pictures by great masters which he had
bought; to be questioned and commiserated by the acquaintances who cared
the least for him;--all these were separate sources of great and acute
pain to a feeling and sensitive heart, not yet accustomed to adversity.
Wilton, however, had not been schooling his own mind in vain for the
last two years; and though he felt as much as any one, every privation,
yet he succeeded in bearing them all with calmness and fortitude, and
perhaps even curtailed every indulgence more sternly than was absolutely
necessary at the time, from a fear that the reluctance which he felt
might in any degree blind his eyes to that which was just and right.

A few instruments of music, a few books not absolutely required in his
studies, his implements for drawing, and all the little trinkets or
gifts of any kind which he had received from the Earl of Sunbury, were
the only things that he still preserved, which merited in any degree the
name of superfluities. With the sum obtained from the sale of the rest,
he discharged to the uttermost farthing all the expenses of the
preceding term, took his first degree with honour, and then set out upon
his journey to London.

No adventure attended him upon the way; and on the morning after his
arrival, he presented himself at an early hour at the house of the Earl
of Byerdale. After waiting for some time, he was received by that
nobleman with a cold and stately air; and having given him a hint, that
it would have been more respectful if he had come up immediately to
London, instead of waiting at Oxford till the end of the term, the Earl
proceeded to inform him of his views.

"Our noble and excellent friend, the Earl of Sunbury," said the
statesman, "was very anxious, Mr. Brown, that I should receive you as my
private secretary. Now, as I informed him, the gentleman whom I have
always employed cannot of course be removed from that situation without
cause; but, at the same time, what between my public and my private
business, I have need of greater assistance than he can render me. I
have need, in fact, of two private secretaries, and one will naturally
succeed the other, when, as will probably be the case, in about six
months the first is removed by appointment to a higher office. I will
give you till to-morrow to consider, whether the post I now offer you is
worth your acceptance. The salary we must make the same as the allowance
which has lately unfortunately ceased; and I am only sorry that I can
give you no further time for reflection, as I have already delayed three
weeks without deciding between various applicants, in order to give you
time to arrive in London."

Wilton replied not at the moment; for there was certainly not one word
said by the Earl which could give him any assignable cause of offence,
and yet he was grieved and offended. It was the tone, the manner, the
cold haughtiness of every look and gesture that pained him. He was not
moved by any boyish conceit; he was always willing, even in his own
mind, to offer deep respect to high rank, or high station, or high
talents. He would have been ready to own at once, that the Earl was far
superior to himself in all these particulars; but that which did annoy
him, as it might annoy any one, was to be made to feel the superiority,
at every word, by the language and demeanour of the Earl himself.

He retired, then, to the inn, where, for the first time during all his
many visits to London, he had taken up his residence; and there, pacing
up and down the room, he thought bitterly over Lord Byerdale's proposal.
The situation offered to him was far inferior to what he had been led to
expect; and he evidently saw, that the demeanour of the Earl himself
would render every circumstance connected with it painful, or at least
unpleasant. Yet, what was he to do? There were, indeed, a thousand other
ways of gaining his livelihood, at least till the Earl of Sunbury were
set free; but then, his promise that he would not refuse anything which
was offered by Lord Byerdale again came into his mind, and he
determined, with that resolute firmness which characterized him even at
an early age, to bear all, and to endure all; to keep his word with the
Earl to the letter, and to accept an office in the execution of which he
anticipated nothing but pain, mortification, and discomfort.

Such being the case, he thought it much better to write his resolutions
to the Earl, than to expose himself to more humiliation by speaking with
him on the subject again. He had suffered sufficiently in their last
conversation on that matter, and he felt that he should have enough to
endure in the execution of his duties. He wrote, indeed, as coldly as
the Earl had spoken; but he made no allusion to his disappointment, or
to any hopes of more elevated employment.

He expressed himself ready to commence his labours as soon as the Earl
thought right; and in the course of three days was fully established as
the second private secretary of the Earl.

The next three or four months of his life we shall pass over as briefly
as possible, for they were chequered by no incident of very great
interest. The Earl employed him daily, but how did he employ him?--As a
mere clerk. No public paper, no document of any importance, passed
through his hands. Letters on private business, the details of some
estates in Shropshire, copies of long and to him meaningless accounts,
and notes and memorandums, referring to affairs of very little interest,
were the occupations given to a man of active, energetic, and cultivated
mind, of eager aspirations, and a glowing fancy. It may be asked, how
did the Earl treat him, too?--As a clerk! and not as most men of
gentlemanly feeling would treat a clerk. Seldom any salutation marked
his entrance into the room, and cold, formal orders were all that he
received.

Wilton bore it all with admirable patience; he murmured not, otherwise
than in secret; but often when he returned to his own solitary room, in
the small lodging he had taken for himself in London, the heart within
his bosom felt like a newly-imprisoned bird, as if it would beat itself
to death against the bars that confined it.

Amidst all this, there was some consolation came. A letter arrived one
morning, after this had continued about two months, bearing one postmark
from Oxford, and another from Italy. It was from the Earl of Sunbury,
who was better, and wrote in high spirits. He had been arrested by the
French, and having been taken for a general officer of distinction, bad
been detained for several weeks. But he had been well treated, and set
at liberty, as soon as his real name and character were ascertained.
Only one of Wilton's letters, and that of an early date, had reached
him, so that he knew none of the occurrences which placed his young
friend in so painful a situation, but conceived him to be still at
Oxford, and still possessing the allowance which he had made him.

The moment he received these tidings, Wilton replied to it with a
feeling of joy and a hope of deliverance, which showed itself in every
line of the details he gave. This letter was more fortunate than the
others, and the Earl's answer was received within a month. That answer,
however, in some degree disappointed his young friend. Lord Sunbury
praised his conduct much for accepting the situation which had been
offered; but he tried to soothe him under the conduct of the Earl of
Byerdale, while he both blamed that conduct and censured the Earl in
severe terms, for having suffered the allowance which he had authorized
him to pay to drop in so sudden and unexpected a manner. To guard
against the recurrence of such a thing for the future, the Earl enclosed
an order on his steward for the sum, with directions that it should be
paid in preference to anything else whatsoever. At the same time,
however, he urged Wilton earnestly not to quit the Earl of Byerdale, but
to remain in the employment which he had accepted, at least till the
return of a more sincere friend from the Continent should afford the
prospect of some better and more agreeable occupation.

Wilton resolved to submit; and as he saw that the Earl was anxious upon
the subject, wrote to him immediately, to announce that such was the
case. Hope gave him patience; and the increased means at his command
afforded him the opportunity of resuming the habits of that station in
which he had always hitherto moved. In these respects, he was now
perfectly at his ease, for his habits were not expensive; and he could
indulge in all, to which his wishes led him, without those careful
thoughts which had been forced upon him by the sudden straitening of his
means. Such, then, was his situation when, towards the end of about
three months, a new change came over his fate, a new era began in the
history of his life.



CHAPTER XI.

How often is it that a new acquaintance, begun under accidental
circumstances, forms an epoch in life? How often does it change in every
respect the current of our days on earth--ay! and affect eternity
itself? The point of time at which we form such an acquaintance is, in
fact, the spot at which two streams meet. There, the waters of both are
insensibly blended together--the clear and the turbid, the rough and the
smooth, the rapid and the slow. Each not only modifies the manner, and
the direction, and the progress of the other with which it mingles, but
even if any material object separates the united stream again into two,
the individuality of both those that originally formed it is lost, and
each is affected for ever by the progress they have had together.

Wilton Brown was now once more moving at ease. He had his horses and his
servant, and his small convenient apartments at no great distance from
the Earl of Byerdale's. He could enjoy the various objects which the
metropolis presented from time to time to satisfy the taste or the
curiosity of the public, and he could mingle in his leisure hours with
the few amongst the acquaintances he had made in passing through a
public school, or residing at the University, whom he had learned to
love or to esteem. He sought them not, indeed, and he courted no great
society; for there was not, perhaps, one amongst those he knew whose
taste, and thoughts, and feelings, were altogether congenial with his
own. Indeed, when any one has found such, in one or two instances,
throughout the course of life, he may sit himself down, saying, "Oh!
happy that I am, in the wide universe of matter and of spirit I am not
alone! There are beings of kindred sympathies linked to myself by ties
of love which it never can be the will of Almighty Beneficence that
death itself should break!"

If Wilton felt thus towards any one, it was towards the Earl of Sunbury;
but yet there was a difference between his sensations towards that kind
friend and those of which we have spoken, on which we need not pause in
this place. Except in his society, however, Wilton's thoughts were
nearly alone. There were one or two young noblemen and others, for whom
he felt a great regard, a high esteem, a certain degree of habitual
affection, but that was all, and thus his time in general passed
solitarily enough.

With the Earl of Byerdale he did not perhaps interchange ten words in
three months, although when he was writing in the same room with him he
had more than once remarked the eyes of the Earl fixed stern and intent
upon him from beneath their overhanging brows, as if he would have asked
him some dark and important question, or proposed to him some dangerous
and terrible act which he dared hardly name.

"Were he some Italian minister," thought Wilton, sometimes, "and I, as
at present, his poor secretary, I should expect him every moment to
commend the assassination of some enemy to my convenient skill in such
affairs."

At length one morning when he arrived at the house of the Earl to pursue
his daily task, he saw a travelling carriage at the door with two
servants, English and foreign, disencumbering it from the trunks which
were thereunto attached in somewhat less convenient guise than in the
present day. He took no note, however, and entered as usual, proceeding
at once to the cabinet, where he usually found the Earl at that hour. He
was there and alone, nor did the entrance of Wilton create any farther
change in his proceedings than merely to point to another table, saying,
"Three letters to answer there, Mr. Brown--the corners are turned down,
with directions."

Wilton sat down and proceeded as usual; but he had scarcely ended the
first letter and begun a second, when the door of the apartment was
thrown unceremoniously open, and a young gentleman entered the room,
slightly, but very gracefully made, extremely handsome in features, but
pale in complexion, and with a quick, wandering, and yet marking eye,
which seemed to bespeak much of intelligence, but no great steadiness of
character. He was dressed strangely enough, in a silk dressing-gown of
the richest-flowered embroidery, slippers of crimson velvet
embroidered with gold upon his feet, and a crimson velvet nightcap with
gold tassels on his head.

"Why, my dear sir, this is really cruel," cried he, advancing towards
the Earl, and speaking in a tone of light reproach, "to go away and
leave me, when I come back from twelve or fourteen hundred miles'
distance, without even waiting to see my most beautiful dressing-gown.
Really you fathers are becoming excessively undutiful towards your
children! You have wanted some one so long to keep you in order, my
lord, that I see evidently, I shall be obliged to hold a tight hand over
you. But tell me, in pity tell me, did you ever see anything so
exquisite as this dressing-gown? Its beauty would be nothing without its
superbness, and its splendour nothing without its delicacy. The richness
of the silk would be lost without the radiant colours of the flowers,
and the miraculous taste of the embroidery would be entirely thrown away
upon any other stuff than that. In short, one might write a catechism
upon it, my lord. There is nothing on all the earth equal to it. No man
has, or has had, or will have, anything that can compete with it. Gold
could not buy it. I was obliged to seduce the girl that worked it; and
then, like Ulysses with Circe, I bound her to perform what task I liked.
'Produce me,' I exclaimed, 'a dressing-gown!' and, lo! it stands before
you."

Wilton Brown turned his eyes for an instant to the countenance of the
Earl of Byerdale, when, to his surprise, he beheld there, for the first
time, something that might be called a good-humoured smile. The change
of Wilton's position, slight as it was, seemed to call the attention of
the young gentleman, who instantly approached the table where he sat,
exclaiming, "Who is this? I don't know him. What do you mean, sir," he
continued, in the same light tone--"what do you mean, by suffering my
father to run riot in this way, while I am gone? Why, sir, I find he has
addicted himself to courtierism, and to cringing, and to sitting in
cabinets, and to making long speeches in the House of Lords; and to all
sorts of vices of the same kind, so as nearly to have fallen into prime
ministerism. All this is very bad--very bad, indeed--"

"My dear boy," said the Earl, "you will gain the character of a madman
without deserving it."

"Pray, papa, let me alone," replied the young man, affecting a boyish
tone; "you only interrupt me: may I ask, sir, what is your name?" he
continued, still addressing Wilton.

"My name, sir," replied the other, slightly colouring at such an abrupt
demand, "is Wilton Brown."

"Then, Wilton, I am very glad to see you," replied the other, holding
out his hand--"you are the very person I wanted to see; for it so
happens, that my wise, prudent, and statesmanlike friend, the Earl of
Sunbury, having far greater confidence in the security of my noddle than
has my worthy parent here, has entrusted to me for your behoof one long
letter, and innumerable long messages, together with a strong
recommendation to you, to take me to your bosom, and cherish me as any
old man would do his grandson; namely, with the most doting,
short-sighted, and depraving affection, which can be shown towards a
wayward, whimsical, tiresome, capricious boy; and now, if you don't like
my own account of myself, or the specimen you have had this morning, you
had better lay down your pen, and come and take a walk with me, in order
to shake off your dislike; for it must be shaken off, and the sooner it
is done the better."

The Earl's brow had by this time gathered into a very ominous sort of
frown, and he informed his son in a stern tone, that his clerk, Mr.
Brown, was engaged in business of importance, and would not be free from
it, he feared, till three o'clock.

"Well, my lord, I will even go and sleep till three," replied the young
man. "At that hour, Mr. Brown, I will come and seek you. I have an
immensity to say to you, all about nothing in the world, and therefore
it is absolutely necessary that I should disgorge myself as soon as
possible."

Thus saying, he turned gaily on his heel, and left the Earl's cabinet.

"You must excuse him, Mr. Brown," said the Earl, as soon as he was gone;
"he is wild with spirits and youth, but he will soon, I trust, demean
himself more properly." Wilton made no reply, but thought that if the
demeanour of the son was not altogether pleasant, the demeanour of the
father was ten times worse. When the three letters were written, Lord
Byerdale immediately informed Wilton that he should have no farther
occupation for him that day, although the clock had not much passed the
first hour after noon; and as it was evident that he had no inclination
to encourage any intimacy between him and his son, the young gentleman
retired to his own lodgings, and ordering his horse to be brought round
quickly, prepared to take a lengthened ride into the country.

Before the horse could be saddled, however, a servant announced Lord
Sherbrooke, and the next moment the son of the Earl of Byerdale entered
the room. There was something in the name that sounded familiar in the
ears of Wilton Brown, he could not tell why. He almost expected to see
a familiar face present itself at the open door; for so little had been
the communication between himself and the Earl of Byerdale, that he had
never known till that morning that the Earl had a son, nor ever heard
the second title of the family before. He received his visitor, however,
with pleasure, not exactly for the young nobleman's own sake, but rather
on account of the letters and messages which he had promised from the
Earl of Sunbury.

Lord Sherbrooke was now dressed as might well become a man of rank in
his day; with a certain spice of foppery in his apparel, indeed, and
with a slight difference in the fashion and materials of his clothes
from those ordinarily worn in England, which might just mark, to an
observing eye, that they had been made in a foreign country.

His demeanour was much more calm and sedate than it had been in the
morning; and sitting down, he began by a reproach to Wilton, for having
gone away without waiting to see him again.

"The fact is, my lord," replied Wilton, "that the Earl, though he did
not absolutely send me away, gave me such an intimation to depart, that
I could not well avoid it."

"It strikes me, Wilton," said Lord Sherbrooke, familiarly, "that my
father is treating you extremely ill; Lord Sunbury gave me a hint of the
kind, when I saw him in Rome; and I see that he said even less than the
truth."

"I have no right to complain, my lord," answered Wilton, after pausing
for a moment to master some very painful emotions--"I have no reason to
complain, my lord, of conduct that I voluntarily endure."

"Very well answered, Wilton!" replied the young lord, "but not
logically, my good friend. Every gentleman has a right to expect
gentlemanly treatment. He has a right to complain if he does not meet
with that which he has a right to expect; and he does not bar himself of
that right of complaint, because any circumstances render it expedient
or right for him not to resist the ill-treatment at which he murmurs.
However, it is more to your honour that you do not complain; but I know
my father well, and, of course, amongst a great many high qualities,
there are some not quite so pleasant. We must mend this matter for you,
however, and what I wish to say to you now, is, that you must not spoil
all I do, by any pride of that kind which will make you hold back when I
pull forward."

"Indeed, my lord," replied Wilton, "you would particularly oblige me by
making no effort to change the position in which I am placed. All the
communication which takes place between your lordship's father and
myself is quite sufficient for the transaction of business, and we can
never stand in any other relation towards each other than that of
minister and private secretary."

"Or CLERK, as he called you to me to-day," said Lord Sherbrooke, drily.

"The name matters very little, my lord," replied Wilton; "he calls me
SECRETARY to myself, and such he stated me to be in the little
memorandum of my appointment, which he gave me, but if it please him
better to call me clerk, why, let him do it."

"Oh! I shall not remonstrate," replied Lord Sherbrooke; "I never argue
with my father. In the first place, it would be undutiful and
disrespectful, and I am the most dutiful of all sons; and in the next
place, he generally somehow gets the better of me in argument--the more
completely the more wrong he is. But, nevertheless, I can find means to
drive him, if not to persuade him; to lead him, if not to convince him;
and having had my own way from childhood up to the present hour--alas!
that I should say it, after having taken the way that I have taken--I do
not intend to give it up just now, so I will soon drive him to a
different way with you, while you have no share in the matter, but that
of merely suffering me to assume, at once, the character of an old
friend, and not an insincere one. On the latter point, indeed, you must
believe me to be just as sincere as my father is insincere, for you very
well know, Wilton, that, in this world of ours, it is much more by
avoiding the faults than by following the virtues of our parents, that
we get on in life. Every fool can see where his father is a fool, and
can take care not to be foolish in the same way; but it is a much more
difficult thing to appreciate a father's wisdom, and learn to be wise
like him."

"The latter, my lord, I should think, would be the nobler endeavour,"
replied Wilton; "though I cannot say what would have been my own case,
if I had ever had the happiness of knowing a father's care."

Lord Sherbrooke for a moment or two made no reply, but looked down upon
the ground, apparently struck by the tone in which Wilton spoke. He
answered at length, however, raising his eyes with one of his gay looks,
"After all, we are but mortals, my dear Wilton, and we must have our
little follies and vices. I would not be an angel for the world, for my
part; and besides--for so staid and sober a young man as you are--you
forget that I have a duty to perform towards my father, to check him
when I see him going wrong, and to put him in the right way; to afford
him, now and then, a little filial correction, and take care of his
morals and his education. Why, if he had not me to look after him, I do
not know what would become of him. However, I see," he added in a graver
tone, "that I must not jest with you, until you know me and understand
me better. What I mean is, that we are to be friends, remember. It is
all arranged between the Earl of Sunbury and myself. We are to be
friends, then; and such being the case, I will take care that my lord of
Byerdale does not call my friend his clerk, nor treat him in any other
manner than as my friend. And now, Wilton, set about the matter as fast
as ever you can. There is my letter of recommendation from the Earl of
Sunbury, which I hope will break down some barriers, the rest I must do
for myself. You will find me full of faults, full of follies, and full
of vices; for though it may be a difficult thing to be full of three
things at once, yet the faults, follies, and vices within me seem to
fill me altogether, each in turn, and yet altogether. In fact, they put
me in mind of two liquids with which I once saw an Italian conjurer
perform a curious trick. He filled a glass with a certain liquid, which
looked like water, up to the very brim, and then poured in a
considerable quantity of another liquid without increasing the liquid in
the glass by a drop. Now sometimes my folly seems to fill me so
completely, that I should think there was no room for vices, but those
vices find some means to slip in, without incommoding me in the least.
However, I will leave you now to read your letters, and to wonder at
your sage and prudent friend, the Earl of Sunbury, having introduced to
your acquaintance, and recommended to your friendship, one who has made
half the capitals of Europe ring with his pranks. The secret is, Wilton,
that the Earl knows both me and you. He pays you the high compliment of
thinking you can be the companion of a very faulty man, without
acquiring his faults; and he knows that, though I cannot cure myself of
my own errors, I hate them too much to wish any one to imitate them.
When you have done reading," he added, "come and join me at Monsieur
Faubert's Riding School, in the lane going up to the Oxford Road: I see
your horse at the door--I will get one there, and we will have a ride
in the country. By heavens, what a beautiful picture! It is quite a
little gem. That child's head must be a Correggio."

"I believe it is," replied Wilton: "I saw it accidentally at an auction,
and bought it for a mere trifle."

"You have the eye of a judge," replied his companion.

"Do not be long ere you join me;" and looking at every little object of
ornament or luxury that the room contained, standing a minute or two
before another picture, taking up, and examining all over, a small
bronze urn, that stood on one of the tables, and criticising the hilts
of two or three of Wilton's swords, that stood in the corner of the
room, he made his way out, like Hamlet, "without his eyes," and left his
new acquaintance to read his letter in peace.

In that letter, which was in every respect most kind, Wilton found that
the Earl gave a detailed account of the character of the young nobleman
who had just left him. He represented him, very much as he had
represented himself, full of follies, and, unfortunately, but too much
addicted to let those follies run into vices. "Though he neither gambled
nor drank for pleasure," the Earl said, "yet, as if for variety, he
would sometimes do both to excess. In other respects, he had lived a
life of great profligacy, seeming utterly careless of the reproaches of
any one, and rather taking means to make any fresh act of licence
generally known, than to conceal it. Nor is this," continued the Earl,
"from that worst of all vanities, which attaches fame to what is
infamous, and confounds notoriety with renown, but rather from a sort of
daringness of disposition, which prompts him to avow openly any act to
which there may be risk attached. With all these bad qualities," the
Earl proceeded, "there are many good ones. To be bold as a lion is but a
corporeal endowment, but he adds to that the most perfect sincerity and
frankness.

"He would neither falsify his word nor deny an act that he has committed
for the world. His mind is sufficiently acute, and his heart
sufficiently good, to see distinctly the evils of unbridled licence, and
to condemn it in his own case; and he is the last man in the world who
would lead or encourage any one in that course which he has pursued
himself. In short, his own passions are as the bonds cast around the
Hebrew giant when he slept, to give him over into the hands of any one
who chooses to lead him into wrong. The consecrated locks of the
Nazarite--I mean, purity and innocence of heart--have been shorn away
completely in the lap of one Delilah or another; and though he hates
those who hold him captive, he is constrained to follow where they lead.
I think you may do him good, Wilton; I am certain he can do you no harm:
I believe that he is capable, and I am certain that he is willing, to
make your abode in London more pleasant to you, and to open that path
for your advancement, which his father would have put you in, if he had
fulfilled the promises that he made to me."



CHAPTER XII.

A few weeks made a considerable change in the progress of the life of
Wilton Brown. He found the young Lord Sherbrooke all that he had been
represented to be in every good point of character, and less in every
evil point. He did not, it is true, studiously veil from his new friend
his libertine habits, or his light and reckless character; but it so
happened, that when in society with Wilton, his mind seemed to find food
and occupation of a higher sort, and, on almost all occasions, when
conversing with him, he showed himself, as he might always have
appeared, a high-bred and well-informed gentleman, who, though somewhat
wild and rash, possessed a cultivated mind, a rich and playful fancy,
and a kind and honourable heart.

Wilton soon discovered that he could become attached to him, and ere
long he found a new point of interest in the character of his young
companion, which was a sort of dark and solemn gloom that fell upon him
from time to time, and would seize him in the midst of his gayest
moments, leaving him, for the time, plunged in deep and sombre
meditations. This strange fit was very often succeeded by bursts of
gaiety and merriment, to the full as wild and joyous as those that went
before; and Wilton's curiosity and sympathy were both excited by a state
of mind which he marked attentively, and which, though he did not
comprehend it entirely, showed him that there was some grief hidden but
not vanquished in the heart.

Lord Sherbrooke did not see the inquiring eyes of his friend fixed upon
him without notice; and one day he said,

"Do not look at me in these fits, Wilton; and ask me no questions.
It is the evil spirit upon me, and he must have his hour."

As the time passed on, Wilton and the young lord became daily
companions, and the Earl could not avoid showing, at all events, some
civility to the constant associate of his son. He gradually began to
converse with him more frequently. He even ventured, every now and then,
upon a smile. He talked for an instant, sometimes, upon the passing
events of the day; and, once or twice, asked him to dine, when he and
his son would otherwise have been tete-a-tete. All this was pleasant to
Wilton; for Lord Sherbrooke managed it so well, by merely marking a
particular preference for his society, that there was no restraint or
force in the matter, and the change worked itself gradually without any
words or remonstrance. In the midst of all this, however, one little
event occurred, which, though twenty other things might have been of
much more importance and much more disagreeable in their consequences,
pained Wilton in a greater degree than anything he had endured.

One day, when the Earl was confined to his drawing-room by a slight fit
of gout, Wilton had visited him for a moment, to obtain more particular
directions in regard to something which he had been directed to write.
Just as he had received those directions, and was about to retire, the
Duke of Gaveston was announced; and in passing through a second room
beyond, into which the Earl could see, Wilton came suddenly upon the
Duke, and in him at once recognised the nobleman whom he had aided in
delivering from the clutches of some gentlemen practitioners on the
King's Highway. Their meeting was so sudden, that the Duke, though he
evidently recollected instantly the face of Wilton Brown, could not
connect it with the circumstances in which he had seen it. Wilton, on
his part, merely bowed and passed on; and the Duke, advancing to Lord
Byerdale, asked at once, "Who is that young gentleman?--his face is
quite familiar to me."

"It is only my clerk," replied the Earl, in a careless tone. "I hope
your grace received my letter."

Wilton had not yet quitted the room, and heard it all; but he went out
without pause. When the door was closed behind him, however, he stood
for a moment gazing sternly upon the ground, and summoning every good
and firm feeling to his aid. Nor was he unsuccessful: he once more
conquered the strong temptation to throw up his employment instantly;
and, asking himself, "What have I to do with pride?" he proceeded with
his daily task as if nothing had occurred.

No consequences followed at the moment; but before we proceed to the
more active business of our story, we must pause upon one other
incident, of no great apparent importance, but which the reader will
connect aright with the other events of the tale.

Two mornings after that of which we have spoken, the Earl came suddenly
into the room where Wilton was writing, and interrupted him in what he
was abort, by saying, "I wish, Mr. Brown, you would have the goodness to
write, under my dictation, a letter, which is of some importance."

Brown bowed his head, and taking fresh paper, proceeded to write down
the Earl's words, as follows:--

    "Sir,--Immediately upon the receipt of this, you will be
    pleased to proceed to the village of ------, in the county
    of ------, and make immediate inquiries, once more, in
    regard to the personages concerning whom you instituted an
    investigation some ten or twelve years ago. Any additional
    documents you may procure, concerning Colonel Sherbrooke,
    Colonel Lennard Sherbrooke, or any of the other parties
    concerned in the transactions which you know of as taking
    place at that time, you will be pleased to send to me forthwith."

Wilton perceiving that the Earl did not proceed, looked up, as if to see
whether he had concluded or not. The Earl's eyes were fixed upon him
with a stern, intense gaze, as if he would have read his very soul.
Wilton's looks, on the contrary, were so perfectly unconsc

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