[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D. W. ]

THE AMAZING MARRIAGE

By George Meredith

1895

BOOK 2. 

X. SMALL CAUSESXI. THE PRISONER OF HIS WORDXII. HENRIETTA'S LETTER TREATING OF THE GREAT EVENTXIII. AN IRRUPTION OF MISTRESS GOSSIP IN BREACH OF THE CONVENTIONXIV. A PENDANT OF THE FOREGOINGXV. OPENING STAGE OF THE HONEYMOONXVI. IN WHICH THE BRIDE FROM FOREIGN PARTS IS GIVEN A TASTE OF OLD ENGLANDXVII. RECORDS A SHADOW CONTEST CLOSE ON THE FOREGOINGXVIII. DOWN WHITECHAPEL WAYXIX. THE GIRL MADGE

CHAPTER X

SMALL CAUSES

A clock sounded one of the later morning hours of the night as GowerWoodseer stood at his hotel door, having left Fleetwood with a band ofrevellers. The night was now clear. Stars were low over the ridge ofpines, dropped to a league of our strange world to record the doings. Beneath this roof lay the starry She. He was elected to lie beneath italso: and he beheld his heavenly lady floating on the lull of soft whitecloud among her sister spheres. After the way of imaginative young men, he had her features more accurately now she was hidden, and he idealizedher more. He could escape for a time from his coil of similes and paintfor himself the irids of her large, long, grey eyes darkly rimmed; purestwater-grey, lucid within the ring, beneath an arch of lashes. He hadthem fast; but then he fell to contemplating their exceeding rareness;And the mystery of the divinely grey swung a kindled fancy to the flightwith some queen-witch of woods, of whom a youth may dream under the spellof twilights, East or West, among forest branches. 

She had these marvellous eyes and the glamour for men. She had not yetmet a man with the poetical twist in the brain to prize her elementally. All admitted the glamour; none of her courtiers were able to name it, even the poetical head giving it a name did not think of the witch in herlooks as a witch in her deeds, a modern daughter of the mediaeval. Toher giant squire the eyes of the lady were queer: they were unlit glasslamps to her French suppliant; and to the others, they were attractivelyuncommon; the charm for them being in her fine outlines, her stature, carriage of her person, and unalterable composure; particularly herlatent daring. She had the effect on the general mind of a lofty crag-castle with a history. There was a whiff of gunpowder exciting theatmosphere in the anecdotal part of the history known. 

Woodseer sat for a certain time over his note-book. He closed it with athrilling conceit of the right thing written down; such as entomologistsfeel when they have pinned the rare insect. But what is butterfly orbeetle compared with the chiselled sentences carved out of air toconstitute us part owner of the breathing image and spirit of an adoredfair woman? We repeat them, and the act of repeating them makes her comeclose on ours, by virtue of the eagle thought in the stamped gold of thelines. 

Then, though she is not ever to be absolutely ours (and it is animpoverishing desire that she should be), we have beaten out the goldensentence--the essential she and we in one. But is it so precious afterall? A suspicious ring of an adjective drops us on a sickening descent. 

The author dashed at his book, examined, approved, keenly enjoyed, and hemurderously scratched the adjective. She stood better without it, as abright planet star issuing from clouds, which are perhaps an adornment toour hackneyed moon. This done, he restored the book to his coat'sbreast-pocket, smiling or sneering at the rolls of bank-notes there, disdaining to count them. They stuffed an inner waistcoat pocket and histrousers also. They at any rate warranted that we can form a calculationof the chances, let Lord Fleetwood rave as he may please. 

Woodseer had caught a glimpse of the elbow-point of his coat whenflinging it back to the chair. There was distinctly abrasion. Philosophers laugh at such things. But they must be the very ancientpallium philosophers, ensconced in tubs, if they pretend to merrimentover the spectacle of nether garments gapped at the spot where man ismost vulnerable. He got loose from them and held them up to the candle, and the rays were admitted, neither winking nor peeping. Serviceable oldclothes, no doubt. Time had not dealt them the final kick before theyscored a good record. 

They dragged him, nevertheless, to a sort of confession of some weakness, that he could not analyze for the swirl of emotional thoughts in the way;and they had him to the ground. An eagle of the poetic becomes a meresquat toad through one of these pretty material strokes. Where then isPhilosophy? But who can be philosopher and the fervent admirer of aglorious lady? Ask again, who in that frowzy garb can presume to thinkof her or stand within fifty miles of her orbit?

A dreary two hours brought round daylight. Woodseer quitted his restlessbed and entered the abjured habiliments, chivalrous enough to keep fromdenouncing them until he could cast the bad skin they now were to hisuneasy sensations. He remembered having stumbled and fallen on the slopeof the hill into this vale, and probably then the mischief had occurredthough a brush would have, been sufficient, the slightest collision. Only, it was odd that the accident should have come to pass just previousto his introduction. How long antecedent was it? He belaboured hismemory to reckon how long it was from the moment of the fall to the firstsight of that lady. 

His window looked down on the hotel stable-yard. A coach-house door wasopen. Odd or not--and it certainly looked like fate--that he should bebowing to his lady so shortly after the mishap expelling him, he had toleave the place. A groom in the yard was hailed, and cheerily informedhim he could be driven to Carlsruhe as soon as the coachman had finishedhis breakfast. At Carlsruhe a decent refitting might be obtained, and hecould return from exile that very day, thanks to the praiseworthy earlyhours of brave old Germany. 

He had swallowed a cup of coffee with a roll of stale bread, in the bestof moods, and entered his carriage; he was calling the order to startwhen a shout surprised his ear: 'The fiddler bolts!'

Captain Abrane's was the voice. About twenty paces behind, Abrane, Fleetwood, and one whom they called Chummy Potts, were wildly wavingarms. Woodseer could hear the captain's lowered roar: 'Race you, Chummy, couple of louis, catch him first!' The two came pelting up to thecarriage abreast. 

They were belated revellers, and had been carelessly strolling under thepinky cloudlets bedward, after a prolonged carousal with the sons anddaughters of hilarious nations, until the apparition of Virgin Luck onthe wing shocked all prospect of a dead fight with the tables that day. 

'Here, come, no, by Jove, you, Mr. Woodsir! won't do, not a bit! can'tlet you go, ' cried Abrane, as he puffed. 'What! cut and run and leaveus, post winnings--bankers--knock your luck on the head! What a fellow!Can't let you. Countess never forgive us. You promised--swore it--playfor her. Struck all aheap to hear of your play! You've got the trick. Her purse for you in my pocket. Never a fellow played like you. Cool asa cook over a-gridiron! Comme un phare! St. Ombre says--that Frenchman. You astonished the Frenchman! And now cut and run? Can't allow it. Honour of the country at stake. '

'Hands off!' Woodseer bellowed, feeling himself a leaky vessel in dock, his infirmities in danger of exposure. 'If you pull!--what the deuce doyou want? Stop!'

'Out you come, ' said the giant, and laughed at the fun to his friends, who were entirely harmonious when not violently dissenting, as is the waywith Night's rollickers before their beds have reconciled them to theday-beams. 

Woodseer would have had to come and was coming; he happened to say:'Don't knock my pipe out of my mouth, ' and touched a chord in the giant. 

'All--right; smoke your pipe, ' was answered to his remonstrance. 

During the amnesty, Fleetwood inquired: 'Where are you going?'

'Far a drive, --to be sure. Don't you see!'

'You'll return?'

'I intend to return. '

'He's beastly excited, ' quoth Abrane. 

Fleetwood silenced him, though indeed Woodseer appeared suspiciouslyrestive. 

'Step down and have a talk with me before you start. You're not to goyet. '

'I must. I'm in a hurry. '

'What 's the hurry?'

'I want to smoke and think. '

'Takes a carriage on the top of the morning to smoke and think! Hark atthat!' Abrane sang out. 'Oh, come along quietly, you fellow, there's agood fellow! It concerns us all, every man Jack; we're all bound up inyour fortunes. Fellow with luck like yours can't pretend to behaveindependently. Out of reason!'

'Do you give me your word you return?' said Fleetwood. 

Woodseer replied: 'Very well, I do; there, I give my word. Hang it!now I know what they mean by "anything for a quiet life. " Just a shakebrings us down on that cane-bottomed chair!'

'You return to-day?'

'To-day, yes, yes. '

Fleetwood signified the captive's release; and Abrane immediatelysuggested:

'Pop old Chummy in beside the fellow to mount guard. '

Potts was hustled and precipitated into the carriage by the pair, withwhom he partook this last glimmer of their night's humorousextravagances, for he was an easy creature. The carriage drove off. 

'Keep him company!' they shouted. 

'Escort him back!' said he, nodding. 

He remarked to Woodseer: 'With your permission, ' concerning the seat hetook, and that 'a draught of morning air would do him good. ' Then helaughed politely, exchanged wavy distant farewells with his comrades, touched a breast-pocket for his case of cigars, pulled forth one, obtained 'the loan of a light, ' blew clouds and fell into the anticipatedcomposure, quite understanding the case and his office. 

Both agreed as to the fine morning it was. Woodseer briefly assented tohis keeper's reiterated encomium on the morning, justified on oath. Afine morning, indeed. 'Damned if I think I ever saw so fine a morning!'Potts cried. He had no other subject of conversation with this hybrid:and being equally disposed for hot discourse or for sleep, the deprivation of the one and the other forced him to seek amusementin his famous reading of character; which was profound among the bipedequine, jockeys, turfmen, sharpers, pugilists, demireps. He frontedWoodseer with square shoulders and wide knees, an elbow on one, a fist onthe other, engaged in what he termed the 'prodding of his eel, ' or'nicking of his man, ' a method of getting straight at the riddle of thefellow by the test of how long he could endure a flat mute stare andreturn look for look unblinking. The act of smoking fortifies and partlycovers the insolence. But if by chance an equable, not too narrowlyfocussed, counterstare is met, our impertinent inquisitor may resemblethe fisherman pulled into deep waters by his fish. Woodseer perused hisman, he was not attempting to fathom him: he had besides other stuff inhis head. Potts had naught, and the poor particle he was wriggled underdetection. 

'Tobacco before breakfast!' he said disgustedly tossing his cigar to theroad. 'Your pipe holds on. Bad thing, I can tell you, that smoking onan empty stomach. No trainer'd allow it, not for a whole fee or double. Kills your wind. Let me ask you, my good sir, are you going to turn?We've sat a fairish stretch. I begin to want my bath and a shave, linenand coffee. Thirsty' as a dog. '

He heard with stupefaction, that he could alight on the spot, if hepleased, otherwise he would be driven into Carlsruhe. And now they had alingual encounter, hot against cool; but the eyes of Chummy Potts havingbeen beaten, his arguments and reproaches were not backed by the powerfullooks which are an essential part of such eloquence as he commanded. They fled from his enemy's currishly, even while he was launchingepithets. His pathetic position subjected him to beg that Woodseer woulddirect the driver to turn, for he had no knowledge of 'their Germanlingo. ' And said he: 'You've nothing to laugh at, that I can see. I'mat your mercy, you brute; caught in a trap. I never walk;--and the sunfit to fry a mackerel along that road! I apologize for abusing you; Ican't do more. You're an infernally clever player--there! And, upon mysoul, I could drink ditchwater! But if you're going in for transactionsat Carlsruhe, mark my words, your luck's gone. Laugh as much as youlike. '

Woodseer happened to be smiling over the excellent reason for not turningback which inflicted the wofulness. He was not without sympathy for athirsty wretch, and guessing, at the sight of an avenue of limes to theleft of the road, that a wayside inn was below, he said: 'You can havecoffee or beer in two minutes, ' and told the driver where to pull up. 

The sight of a grey-jacketed, green-collared sportsman, dog at heel, crossing the flat land to the hills of the forest, pricked him enviously, and caused him to ask what change had come upon him, that he should behurrying to a town for a change of clothes. Just as Potts was about tojump out, a carriage, with a second behind it, left the inn door. Herubbed a hand on his unshaven chin, tried a glance at his shirt-front, and remarking: 'It won't be any one who knows me, ' stood to let thecarriages pass. In the first were a young lady and a gentleman: the ladybrilliantly fair, an effect of auburn hair and complexion, despite thesigns of a storm that had swept them and had not cleared from hereyelids. Apparently her maid, a damsel sitting straight up, occupied thecarriage following; and this fresh-faced young person twice quickly andbluntly bent her head as she was driven by. Potts was unacquainted withthe maid. But he knew the lady well, or well enough for her inattentionto be the bigger puzzle. She gazed at the Black Forest hills in thesteadiest manner, with eyes betraying more than they saw; which solvedpart of the puzzle, of course. Her reasons for declining to see him wereexposed by the presence of the gentleman beside her. At the same time, in so highly bred a girl, a defenceless exposure was unaccountable. Halfa nod and the shade of a smile would have been the proper course; and hergoing along on the road to the valley seemed to say it might easily havebeen taken; except that there had evidently been a bit of a scene. 

Potts ranked Henrietta's beauty far above her cousin Livia's. He wastherefore personally offended by her disregard of him, and her bit of ascene with the fellow carrying her off did him injury on behalf of hisfriend Fleetwood. He dismissed Woodseer curtly. Thirsting more togossip than to drink, he took a moody draught of beer at the inn, and bythe aid of a conveyance, hastily built of rotten planks to serve hisneeds, and drawn by a horse of the old wars, ' as he reported on hisarrival at Baden, --reached that home of the maltreated innocents twentyminutes before the countess and her party were to start for lunch up theLichtenthal. Naturally, he was abused for letting his bird fly: but ashe was shaven, refreshed, and in clean linen, he could pull his shirt-cuffs and take seat at his breakfast-table with equanimity while Abranedenounced him. 

'I'll bet you the fellow's luck has gone, ' said Potts. 'He 's no newhand and you don't think him so either, Fleet. I've looked into thefellow's eye and seen a leery old badger at the bottom of it. Talks vilestuff. However, 'perhaps I didn't drive out on that sweltering Carlsruheroad for nothing. '

He screwed a look at the earl, who sent Abrane to carry a message andheard the story Potts had to tell. 

'Henrietta Fakenham! no mistake about her; driving out from a pothouse;man beside her, military man; might be a German. And, if you please, quite unacquainted with your humble servant, though we were as close asyou to me. Something went wrong in that pothouse. Red eyes. There hadbeen a scene, one could swear. Behind the lady another carriage, and hermaid. Never saw the girl before, and sets to bowing and smirking at me, as if I was the-fellow of all others! Comical. I made sure they werebound for this place. They were on the Strasburg road. No sign ofthem?'

'You speak to me?' said Fleetwood. 

Potts muttered. He had put his foot into it. 

'You have a bad habit of speaking to yourself, ' Fleetwood remarked, andleft him. He suffered from the rustics he had to deal with among hisclass, and it was not needed that he should thunder at them to make hiswrath felt. 

Livia swam in, asking: 'What has come to Russett? He passed me in one ofhis black fits. '

The tale of the Carlsruhe road was repeated by Potts. She reproved him. 'How could you choose Russett for such a report as that! The admiral wason the road behind. Henrietta--you're sure it was she? German girlshave much the same colouring. The gentleman with her must have been oneof the Court equerries. They were driving to some chateau or battlefieldthe admiral wanted to inspect. Good-looking man? Military man?'

'Oh! the man! pretty fair, I dare say, ' Potts rejoined. 'If it wasn'tHenrietta Fakenham, I see with the back of my head. German girl! Themaid was a German girl. '

'That may well be, ' said Livia. 

She conceived the news to be of sufficient importance for her tocountermand the drive up the Lichtenthal, and take the Carlsruhe roadinstead; for Henrietta was weak, and Chillon Kirby an arch-plotter, andpleader too, one of the desperate lovers. He was outstaying his leave ofabsence already, she believed; he had to be in England. If he feared tolose Henrietta, he would not hesitate to carry her off. Livia knew him, and knew the power of his pleading with a firmer woman than Henrietta. 

CHAPTER XI

THE PRISONER OF HIS WORD

Nothing to rouse alarm was discovered at Carlsruhe. Livia's fair cousinwas there with the red-haired gaunt girl of the mountains; and it wasfrankly stated by Henrietta, that she had accompanied the girl a certaindistance along the Strasburg road, for her to see the last of her brotherChillon on his way to England. Livia was not the woman to pushinquiries. On that subject, she merely said, as soon as they were alonetogether:

'You seem to have had the lion's share of the parting. '

'Yes, we passed Mr. Chumley Potts, ' was Henrietta's immediate answer; andher reference to him disarmed Livia. 

They smiled at his name transiently, but in agreement: the tattler-spoutof their set was, a fatal person to encounter, and each deemed the suddenapparition of him in the very early morning along the Carlsruhe roadrather magical. 

'You place particular confidence in Russett's fidelity to his word, Riette--as you have been hearing yourself called. You should be seriousby this time. Russett won't bear much more. I counted on the night ofthe Ball for the grand effect. You will extinguish every woman there--and if he is absent?'

'I shall excuse him. '

'You are not in a position to be so charitable. You ought to know yourposition, and yourself too, a little better than you do. How could youendure poverty? Chillon Kirby stands in his uniform, and all's told. Hecan manoeuvre, we know. He got the admiral away to take him to thosereviews cleverly. But is he thinking of your interests when he does it?He requires twenty years of active service to give you a roof to yourhead. I hate such allusions. But look for a moment at your character:you must have ordinary luxuries and pleasures, and if you were to findyourself grinding against common necessities--imagine it! Russett isquite manageable. He is, trust me! He is a gentleman; he has moreability than most young men: he can do anything he sets his mind to do. He has his great estates and fortune all in his own hands. We call himeccentric. He is only young, with a lot of power. Add, he's in love, and some one distracts him. Not love, do you say?--you look it. Heworships. He has no chance given him to show himself at his best. Perhaps he is off again now. Will you bet me he is not?'

'I should incline to make the bet, if I betted, ' said Henrietta. 'Hispride is in his word, and supposing he's in love, it's with his pride, which never quits him. '

'There's firmness in a man who has pride of that kind. You must let metake you back to Baden. I hold to having you with me to-day. You mustmake an appearance there. The admiral will bring us his Miss Kirby to-morrow, if he is bound to remain here to-night. There's no harm in hisbachelor dinners. I suspect his twinges of gout come of the prospect ofaffairs when he lands in England. Remember our bill with MadameClemence. There won't be the ghost of a bank-note for me if Russettquits the field; we shall all be stranded. '

Henrietta inquired: 'Does it depend on my going with you to-day?'

'Consider, that he is now fancying a thousand things. We won't talk ofthe road to Paris. '

A shot of colour swept over Henrietta. 

'I will speak to papa:--if he can let me go. He has taken to MissKirby. '

'Does she taste well?'

Henrietta debated. 'It's impossible to dislike her. Oh! she is wild!She knows absolutely nothing of the world. She can do everything wecan't--or don't dare to try. --Men would like her. Papa's beginning todoat. He says she would have made a first-rate soldier. She fears bloodas little as her morning cup of milk. One of the orderlies fell ratherbadly from a frightened horse close by our carriage. She was out in amoment and had his head on her lap, calling to papa to keep the carriagefast and block the way of the squadron, for the man's leg was hurt. Ireally thought we were lost. At these manoeuvres anything may happen, atany instant. Papa will follow the horse-artillery. You know his vanityto be a military quite as much as a naval commander like the Greeks andRomans, he says. We took the bruised man into our carriage and drove himto camp, Carinthia nursing him on the way. '

'Carinthia! She's well fitted with her name. What with her name and herhair and her build and her singular style of attire, one wonders at hercoming into civilized parts. She 's utterly unlike Chillon. '

Henrietta reddened at the mention of one of her own thoughts in thecontrasting of the pair. 

They had their points of likeness, she said. 

It did not concern Livia to hear what these were. Back to Baden, withmeans to procure the pleasant shocks of the galvanic battery there, washer thought; for she had a fear of the earl's having again departed in ahuff at Henrietta's behaviour. 

The admiral consented that his daughter should go, as soon as he heardthat Miss Kirby was to stay. He had when a young man met her famousfather; he vowed she was the Old Buccaneer young again in petticoats andhad made prize of an English man-of-war by storm; all the profit, however, being his. This he proved with a courteous clasp of the girland a show of the salute on her cheek, which he presumed to take at thenight's farewell. 'She's my tonic, ' he proclaimed heartily. She seemedto Livia somewhat unstrung and toneless. The separation from her brotherin the morning might account for it. And a man of the admiral's agecould be excused if he exalted the girl. Senility, like infancy, is fondof plain outlines for the laying on of its paints. The girl had ruggedbrows, a short nose, red hair; no young man would look at her twice. Shewas utterly unlike Chillon! Kissing her hand to Henrietta from the stepsof the hotel, the girl's face improved. 

Livia's little squire, Sir Meeson Corby, ejaculated as they were drivingdown the main street, 'Fleetwood's tramp! There he goes. Now see, MissFakenham, the kind of object Lord Fleetwood picks up and calls friend!--calls that object friend! . . But, what? He has been to a tailor anda barber!'

'Stop the coachman. Run, tell Mr. Woodseer I wish him to join us, ' Liviasaid, and Sir Meeson had to thank his tramp for a second indignity. Heprotested, he simulated remonstrance, --he had to go, really feeling asickness. 

The singular-looking person, whose necessities or sense of the decencieshad, unknown to himself and to the others, put them all in motion thatday, swung round listening to the challenge to arms, as the puffy littleman's delivery of the countess's message sounded. He was respectablyclad, he thought, in the relief of his escape from the suit of clothesdiscarded, and he silently followed Sir Meeson's trot to the carriage. 'Should have mistaken you for a German to-day, sir, ' the latter said, and trotted on. 

'A stout one, ' Woodseer replied, with his happy indifference to hisexterior. 

His dark lady's eyes were kindly overlooking, like the heavens. Her faircousin, to whom he bowed, awakened him to a perception of the spectaclecausing the slight, quick arrest of her look, in an astonishment notunlike the hiccup in speech, while her act of courtesy proceeded. Atonce he was conscious of the price he paid for respectability, and sawthe Teuton skin on the slim Cambrian, baggy at shoulders, baggy at seat, pinched at the knees, short at the heels, showing outrageously every spotwhere he ought to have been bigger or smaller. How accept or how rejectthe invitation to drive in such company to Baden!

'You're decided enough, sir, in your play, they tell me, ' the vindictivelittle baronet commented on his hesitation, and Woodseer sprang to theproffered vacant place. But he had to speak of his fly waiting for himat the steps of a certain hotel. 

'Best hotel in the town!' Sir Beeson exclaimed pointedly to Henrietta, reading her constraint with this comical object before her. It was theadmiral's hotel they stopped at. 

'Be so good as to step down and tell the admiral he is to bring MadameClemence in his carriage to-morrow; and on your way, you will dismiss Mr. Woodseer's fly, ' Livia mildly addressed her squire. He stared: again hehad to go, muttering: 'That nondescript's footman!' and his mischance inbeing checked and crossed and humiliated perpetually by a dirty-fistedvagabond impostor astounded him. He sent the flyman to the carriage fororders. 

Admiral Fakenham and Carinthia descended. Sir Meeson heard her cry out:'Is it you!' and up stood the pretentious lout in the German sack, affecting the graces of a born gentleman fresh from Paris, --bowing, smirking, excusing himself for something; and he jumped down to the younglady, he talked intimately with her, with a joker's air; he roused theadmiral to an exchange of jokes, and the countess and Miss Fakenham morethan smiled; evidently at his remarks, unobservant of the preposterousfigure he cut. Sir Meeson Corby had intimations of the disintegration ofhis country if a patent tramp burlesquing in those clothes could bepermitted to amuse English ladies of high station, quite at home withthem. Among the signs of England's downfall, this was decidedly one. What to think of the admiral's favourite when, having his arm paternallyon her shoulder, she gave the tramp her hand at parting, and thenblushed! All that the ladies had to say about it was, that a spread ofcolour rather went to change the character of her face. 

Carinthia had given Woodseer her hand and reddened under the recollectionof Chillon's words to her as they mounted the rise of the narrow vale, after leaving the lame gentleman to his tobacco on the grass below therocks. Her brother might have counselled her wisely and was to beobeyed. Only, the great pleasure in seeing the gentleman again inspiredgratitude: he brought the scene to her; and it was alive, it chatted andit beckoned; it neighboured her home; she had passed it on her walk awayfrom her home; the gentleman was her link to the mountain paths; he wasjust outside an association with her father and mother. At least, herthinking of them led to him, he to them. Now that she had lost Chillon, no one was near to do so much. Besides, Chillon loved Henrietta; he washer own. His heart was hers and his mind his country's. This gentlemanloved the mountains; the sight of him breathed mountain air. To see himnext day was her anticipation: for it would be at the skirts of hillyforest land, where pinetrees are a noble family, different from the dustyfirs of the weariful plains, which had tired her eyes of late. 

Baden was her first peep at the edges of the world since she had grown tobe a young woman. She had but a faint idea of the significance ofgambling. The brilliant lights, the band music, the sitting groups andcompany of promenaders were novelties; the Ball of the ensuing night atthe Schloss would be a wonder, she acknowledged in response to Henrietta, who was trying to understand her; and she admired her ball-dress, shesaid, looking unintelligently when she heard that she would be guilty ofslaying numbers of gentlemen before the night was over. Madame Clemencethought her chances in that respect as good as any other young lady's, if only she could be got to feel interested. But at a word of the pineforest, and saying she intended to climb the hills early with the lightin the morning, a pointed eagerness flushed Carinthia, the cold engravingbecame a picture of colour. 

She was out with the earliest light. Yesterday's parting between Chillonand Henrietta had taught her to know some little about love; and if hervoice had been heeded by Chillon's beloved, it would not have been aparting. Her only success was to bring a flood of tears from Henrietta. The tears at least assured her that her brother's beautiful girl had nolove for the other one, --the young nobleman of the great wealth, who wasto be at the Ball, and had 'gone flying, ' Admiral Fakenham shrugged tosay; for Lord Fleetwood was nowhere seen. 

The much talk of him on the promenade overnight fetched his name to herthoughts; he scarcely touched a mind that her father filled when she wasonce again breathing early morning air among the stems of climbing pines, broken alleys of the low-sweeping spruce branches and the bare straightshafts carrying their heads high in the march upward. Her old father wasarch-priest of such forest land, always recoverable to her there. Thesuggestion of mountains was enough to make her mind play, and her oldfather and she were aware of one another without conversing in speech. He pointed at things to observe; he shared her satisfied hunger for thesolitudes of the dumb and growing and wild sweet-smelling. He would notlet a sorrowful thought backward or an apprehensive idea forward disturbthe scene. A half-uprooted pine-tree stem propped mid-fall by standingcomrades, and the downy drop to ground and muted scurry up the bark oflong-brush squirrels, cocktail on the wary watch, were noticed by him aswell as by her; even the rotting timber drift, bark and cones on theyellow pine needles, and the tortuous dwarf chestnut pushing level out, with a strain of the head up, from a crevice of mossed rock, among ivyand ferns; he saw what his girl saw. Power of heart was her conjuringmagician. 

She climbed to the rock-slabs above. This was too easily done. The poorbit of effort excited her frame to desire a spice of danger, her walk wastowering in the physical contempt of a mountain girl for petty lowlandobstructions. And it was just then, by the chance of things--by thedirection of events, as Dame Gossip believes it to be--while colour, expression, and her proud stature marked her from her sex, that agentleman, who was no other than Lord Fleetwood, passed Carinthia, coming out of the deeper pine forest. 

Some distance on, round a bend of the path, she was tempted to adventureby a projected forked head of a sturdy blunted and twisted little rock-fostered forest tree pushing horizontally for growth about thirty feetabove the lower ground. She looked on it, and took a step down to thestem soon after. 

Fleetwood had turned and followed, merely for the final curious peep atan unexpected vision; he had noticed the singular shoot of thick timberfrom the rock, and the form of the goose-neck it rose to, the sprout ofbranches off the bill in the shape of a crest. And now a shameful spasmof terror seized him at sight of a girl doing what he would have dreadedto attempt. She footed coolly, well-balanced, upright. She seatedherself. 

And there let her be. She was a German girl, apparently. She had an airof breeding, something more than breeding. German families of the noblesgive out, here and there, as the Great War showed examples of, intrepidyoung women, who have the sharp lines of character to render themindependent of the graces. But, if a young woman out alone in the woodswas hardly to be counted among the well-born, she held rank above them. Her face and bearing might really be taken to symbolize the forest life. She was as individual a representative as the Tragic and Comic masks, andshould be got to stand between them for sign of the naturally straight-growing untrained, a noble daughter of the woods. 

Not comparable to Henrietta in feminine beauty, she was on an upperplateau, where questions as to beauty are answered by other than theshallow aspect of a girl. But would Henrietta eclipse her if they wereside by side? Fleetwood recalled the strange girl's face. There was init a savage poignancy in serenity unexampled among women--or modernwomen. One might imagine an apotheosis of a militant young princess ofGoths or Vandals, the glow of blessedness awakening her martial ardoursthrough the languor of the grave:--Woodseer would comprehend and hit onthe exact image to portray her in a moment, Fleetwood thought, and longedfor that fellow. 

He walked hurriedly back to the stunted rock tree. The damsel hadvanished. He glanced below. She had not fallen. He longed to tellWoodseer he had seen a sort of Carinthia sister, cousin, one of thefamily. A single glimpse of her had raised him out of his grovellingperturbations, cooled and strengthened him, more than diverting thecourse of the poison Henrietta infused, and to which it disgraced himto be so subject. He took love unmanfully; the passion struck at hisweakness; in wrath at the humiliation, if only to revenge himself forthat, he could be fiendish; he knew it, and loathed the desired faircreature who caused and exposed to him these cracks in his nature, whencethere came a brimstone stench of the infernal pits. And he was made forbetter. Of this he was right well assured. Superior to station and towealth, to all mundane advantages, he was the puppet of a florid puppetgirl; and he had slept at the small inn of a village hard by, because itwas intolerable to him to see the face that had been tearful over herlover's departure, and hear her praises of the man she trusted to keephis word, however grievously she wounded him. 

He was the prisoner of his word;--rather like the donkeys known asmarried men: rather more honourable than most of them. He had to bepresent at the ball at the Schloss and behold his loathed Henrietta, suffer torture of chains to the rack, by reason of his having promisedthe bitter coquette he would be there. So hellish did the misery seem tohim, that he was relieved by the prospect of lying a whole day long inloneliness with the sunshine of the woods, occasionally conjuring up theantidote face of the wood-sprite before he was to undergo it. But, as he was not by nature a dreamer, only dreamed of the luxury of beingone, he soon looked back with loathing on a notion of relief to come fromthe state of ruminating animal, and jumped up and shook off another ofmen's delusions--that they can, if they have the heart to suffer pain, deaden it with any semi-poetical devices, similar to those which RufusAbrane's 'fiddler fellow' practised and was able to carry out because hehad no blood. The spite of a present entire opposition to Woodseer'sprofessed views made him exult in the thought, that the mouther ofsentences was likely to be at work stultifying them and himself in thehalls there below during the day. An imp of mischief offered consolatorysport in those halls of the Black Goddess; already he regarded his recentsubservience to the conceited and tripped peripatetic philosopher asamong the ignominies he had cast away on his road to a general contempt;which is the position of a supreme elevation for particularly sensitiveyoung men. 

Pleasure in the scenery had gone, and the wood-sprite was a flittedvapour; he longed to be below there, observing Abrane and Potts and thephilosopher confounded, and the legible placidity of Countess Livia. Nevertheless, he hung aloft, feeding where he could, impatient of thesolitudes, till night, when, according to his guess, the ladies were attheir robing. 

Half the fun was over: but the tale of it, narrated in turn by Abrane andhis Chummy Potts on the promenade, was a very good half. The fiddler hadplayed for the countess and handed her back her empty purse, with a bowand a pretty speech. Nothing had been seen of him since. He had lostall his own money besides. 'As of course he would, ' said Potts. 'Afellow calculating the chances catches at a knife in the air. '

'Every franc-piece he had!' cried Abrane. 'And how could the jackassexpect to keep his luck! Flings off his old suit and comes back herewith a rig of German bags--you never saw such a figure!--Shoreditch Jew'sholiday!--why, of course, the luck wouldn't stand that. '

They confessed ruefully to having backed him a certain distance, notwithstanding. 'He took it so coolly, just as if paying for goodsacross a counter. '

'And he had something to bear, Braney, when you fell on him, ' said Potts, and murmured aside: 'He can be smartish. Hears me call Braney Rufus, andsays he, like a fellow-chin on his fiddle--"Captain Mountain, Rufus Mus'. Not bad, for a counter. "'

Fleetwood glanced round: he could have wrung Woodseer's hand. He sawyoung Cressett instead, and hailed him: 'Here you are, my gallant! Youshall flash your maiden sword tonight. When I was under your age by along count, I dealt sanctimoniousness a flick o' the cheek, and youshall, and let 'em know you're a man. Come and have your first boar-huntalong with me. Petticoats be hanged. '

The boy showed some recollection of the lectures of his queen, but he hadnot the vocables for resistance to an imperative senior at work uponsneaking inclinations. 'Promised Lady F. '--do you hear him?' Fleetwoodcalled to the couple behind; and as gamblers must needs be parasites, manly were the things they spoke to invigorate the youthful plunger andsecond the whim of their paymaster. 

At half-past eleven, the prisoner of his word entered under the Schlosspartico, having vowed to himself on the way, that he would satisfy theformulas to gain release by a deferential bow to the great personages, and straightway slip out into the heavenly starlight, thence down amongthe jolly Parisian and Viennese Bacchanals. 

CHAPTER XII

HENRIETTA'S LETTER TREATING OF THE GREAT EVENT

By the first light of an autumn morning, Henrietta sat at her travelling-desk, to shoot a spark into the breast of her lover with the story of thegreat event of the night. For there had been one, one of our biggest, beyond all tongues and trumpets and possible anticipations. Wonder at ithammered on incredulity as she wrote it for fact, and in writing hadvision of her lover's eyes over the page. 

'Monsieur Du Lac!

'Grey Dawn. 'You are greeted. This, if you have been tardy on thejourney home, will follow close on the heels of the prowest, I believetruest, of knights, and bear perhaps to his quick mind some help to thesolution he dropped a hint of seeking. 

'The Ball in every way a success. Grand Duke and Duchess perfect incourtesy, not a sign of the German morgue. Livia splendid. Compared toDay and Night. But the Night eclipses the Day. A summer sea of dancing. Who, think you, eclipsed those two?

'I tell you the very truth when I say your Carinthia did. If you hadseen her, --the "poor dear girl" you sigh to speak of, --with the dolefuloutlook on her fortunes: "portionless, unattractive!" Chillon, she wasmagical!

You cannot ever have seen her irradiated with happiness. Her pleasure inthe happiness of all around her was part of the charm. One should be apoet to describe her. It would task an artist to paint the rose-crystalshe became when threading her way through the groups to be presented. This is not meant to say that she looked beautiful. It was the somethingabove beauty--more unique and impressive--like the Alpine snow-cloaktowering up from the flowery slopes you know so well and I a little. 

'You choose to think, is it Riette who noticed my simple sister soclosely before . . . ? for I suppose you to be reading this letter asecond time and reflecting as you read. In the first place, acquaintancewith her has revealed that she is not the simple person--only in hermanner. Under the beams of subsequent events, it is true I see her morepicturesquely. But I noticed also just a suspicion of the "grenadier"stride when she was on the march to make her curtsey. But Livia had nocause for chills and quivers. She was not the very strange birdrequiring explanatory excuses; she dances excellently, and after thefirst dance, I noticed she minced her steps in the walk with her partner. She catches the tone readily. If not the image of her mother, she hasinherited her mother's bent for the graces; she needs but a small amountof practice. 

'Take my assurance of that; and you know who has critical eyes. Youranxiety may rest; she is equal to any station. 

'As expected by me, my Lord Tyrant appeared, though late, near midnight. I saw him bowing to the Ducal party. Papa had led your "simple sister"there. Next I saw the Tyrant and Carinthia conversing. Soon they weredancing together, talking interestedly, like cheerful comrades. Whateverhis faults, he has the merit of being a man of his word. He said hewould come, he did not wish to come, and he came. 

'His word binds him--I hope not fatally; irrevocably, it certainly does. There is charm of character in that. His autocrat airs can be forgivento a man who so profoundly respects his word. 

'It occurred during their third dance. Your Riette was not in thequadrille. O but she was a snubbed young woman last night! I refrain--the examples are too minute for quotation. 

'A little later and he had vanished. Carinthia Kirby may already bewritten Countess of Fleetwood! His hand was offered and hers demanded inplain terms. Her brother would not be so astounded if he had seen thebrilliant creature she was--is, I could say; for when she left me here, to go to her bed, she still wore the "afterglow. " She tripped over to mein the ball-room to tell me. I might doubt, she had no doubt whatever. I fancied he had subjected her to some degree of trifling. He was in amood. His moods are known to me. But no, he was precise; her report ofhim strikes the ear as credible, in spite of the marvel it insists on ourswallowing. 

"'Lord Fleetwood had asked me to marry him. " Neither assurance norbashfulness; newspaper print; aid an undoubting air of contentment. 

'Imagine me hearing it. 

'"To be his wife?"

'"He said wife. "

'"And you replied?"

'"I--said I would. "

'"Tell me all?"

'"He said we were plighted. "

'Now, "wife" is one of the words he abhors; and he loathes the hearing ofa girl as "engaged. " However, "plighted" carried a likeness. 

'I pressed her: "My dear Carinthia, you thought him in earnest?"

'"He was. "

'"How do you judge?"

'"By his look when he spoke. "

'"Not by his words?"

"'I repeat them to you. "

'She has repeated them to me here in my bedroom. There is no variation. She remembers every syllable. He went so far as to urge her to saywhether she would as willingly utter consent if they were in a church anda clergyman at the altar-rails. 

'That was like him. 

'She made answer: "Wherever it may be, I am bound, if I say yes. "

'She then adds: "He told me he joined hands with me. "

'"Did he repeat the word 'wife'?"

'"He said it twice. "

'I transcribe verbatim scrupulously. There cannot be an error, Chillon. It seems to show, that he has embraced the serious meaning of the word--or seriously embraced the meaning, reads' better. I have seen his lipsform "wife. "

'But why wonder so staringly? They both love the mountains. Both arewildish. She was looking superb. And he had seen her do a daring thingon the rocks on the heights in the early morning, when she was out byherself, unaware of a spectator, he not knowing who she was;--the Fateshad arranged it so. That was why he took to her so rapidly. So he toldher. She likes being admired. The preparation for the meeting doesreally seem "under direction. " She likes him too, I do think. Betweenher repetitions of his compliments, she praised his tone of voice, hisfeatures. She is ready to have the fullest faith in the sincerity of hisoffer; speaks without any impatience for the fulfilment. If it shouldhappen, what a change in the fortunes of a girl--of more than one, possibly. 

'Now I must rest "eyelids fall. " It will be with a heart galloping. No rest for me till this letter flies. Good morning is my good night toyou, in a world that has turned over. '

Henrietta resumes:

'Livia will not hear of it, calls up all her pretty languor to put itaside. It is the same to-day as last night. "Why mention Russett'snonsense to me?" Carinthia is as quietly circumstantial as at first. She and the Tyrant talked of her native home. Very desirous to see it!means to build a mansion there! "He said it must be the most romanticplace on earth. "

'I suppose I slept. I woke with my last line to you on my lips, and thegreat news thundering. He named Esslemont and his favourite--alwaysuninhabited--Cader Argau. She speaks them correctly. She has anunfailing memory. The point is, that it is a memory. 

'Do not forget also--Livia is affected by her distaste--that he is agentleman. He plays with his nobility. With his reputation ofgentleman, he has never been known to play. You will understand theslightly hypocritical air--it is not of sufficient importance for it tobe alluded to in papa's presence--I put on with her. 

'Yes, I danced nearly all the dances. One, a princeling in scarletuniform, appearing fresh from under earth; Prussian: a weighty young Grafin green, between sage and bottle, who seemed to have run off a tree inthe forest, and was trimmed with silver like dew-drops: one in yourAustrian white, dragon de Boheme, if I caught his French rightly. Othersas well, a list. They have the accomplishment. They are drilled in ityoung, as girls are, and so few Englishmen--even English officers. Howit may be for campaigning, you can pronounce; but for dancing, thepantalon collant is the perfect uniform. Your critical Henrietta had notto complain of her partners, in the absence of the one. 

'I shall be haunted by visions of Chillon's amazement until I hear or wemeet. I serve for Carinthia's mouthpiece, she cannot write it, she says. It would be related in two copybook lines, if at all. 

'The amazement over London! The jewel hand of the kingdom gone in aflash, to "a raw mountain girl, " as will be said. I can hear Lady Endor, Lady Eldritch, Lady Cowry. The reasonable woman should be LadyArpington. I have heard her speak of your mother, seen by her when shewas in frocks. 

'Enter the "plighted. " Poor Livia! to be made a dowager of by any but adamsel of the family. She may well ridicule "that nonsense of Russett'slast night"! Carinthia kisses, embraces, her brother. I am to say:"What Henrietta tells you is true, Chillon. " She is contented though shehas not seen him again and has not the look of expecting to see him. Shestill wears the kind of afterglow. 

'Chillon's Viennese waltz was played by the band: played a second time, special request, conveyed to the leader by Prince Ferdinand. True, mosttrue, she longs to be home across the water. But be it admitted, that toany one loving colour, music, chivalry, the Island of Drab is an exile. Imagine, then, the strange magnetism drawing her there! Could warmerproof be given?

'Adieu. Livia's "arch-plotter" will weigh the letter he reads to thesmallest fraction of a fraction before he moves a step. 

'I could leave it and come to it again and add and add. I foresee inLivia's mind a dread of the aforesaid "arch, " and an interdict. So theletter must be closed, sealed and into the box, with the hand I stillcall mine, though I should doubt my right if it were contested fervently. I am singing the waltz. 

 'Adieu, 'Ever and beyond it, 'Your obedient Queen, 'HENRIETTA. 

'P. S. -My Lord Tyrant has departed--as on other occasions. The prisonerof his word is sure to take his airing before he presents himself toredeem it. His valet is left to pay bills, fortunately for Livia. Sheentrusted her purse yesterday to a man picked up on the road by my lord, that he might play for her. Captain Abrane assured her he had a star, and Mr. Potts thought him a rush compere, an adept of those dreadfulgambling tables. Why will she continue to play! The purse was returnedto her, without so much as a piece of silver in it; the man has flown. Sir M. Corby says, he is a man whose hands betray him--or did to Sir M. ;expects to see him one day on the wrong side of the criminal bar. Hestruck me as not being worse than absurd. He was, in any case, an unfitcompanion, and our C. Would help to rescue the Eccentric from suchcomplicating associates. I see worlds of good she may do. Happily, heis no slave of the vice of gambling; so she would not suffer thatanxiety. I wish it could be subjoined, that he has no malicious pleasurein misleading others. Livia is inconsolable over her pet, young LordCressett, whom he yesterday induced to "try his luck"--with the result. We leave, if bills are paid, in two days. Captain Abrane and Mr. Pottsleft this afternoon; just enough to carry them home. Papa and yourblissful sister out driving. Riette within her four walls and signingherself, 'THE PRISONER OF CHILLON. '

CHAPTER XIII

AN IRRUPTION. OF MISTRESS GOSSIP IN BREACH OF THE CONVENTION

'It is a dark land, ' Carinthia said, on seeing our Island's loweredclouds in swift motion, without a break of their folds, above the sheerwhite cliffs. 

--She said it, we know. That poor child Carinthia Jane, when first shebeheld Old England's shores, tossing in the packet-boat on a wild Channelsea, did say it and think it, for it is in the family that she did; andno wonder that she should, the day being showery from the bed of the sun, after a frosty three days, at the close of autumn. We used to have aneye of our own for English weather before printed MeteorologicalObservations and Forecasts undertook to supplant the shepherd and thepoacher, and the pilot with his worn brown leather telescope tuckedbeneath his arm. All three would have told you, that the end of a threedays' frost in the late season of the year and the early, is likely todraw the warm winds from the Atlantic over Cornish Land's End and Lizard. 

Quite by chance of things, Carinthia Jane looked on the land of herfather and mother for the first time under those conditions. There canbe no harm in quoting her remark. Only--I have to say it--experiencecauses apprehension, that we are again to be delayed by descriptions, andan exposition of feelings; taken for granted, --of course, in a seriousnarrative; which it really seems these moderns think designed for afrequent arrest of the actors in the story and a searching of theinternal state of this one or that one of them: who is laid out starknaked and probed and expounded, like as in the celebrated picture by agreat painter--and we, thirsting for events as we are, are to stop toenjoy a lecture on Anatomy. And all the while the windows of thelecture-room are rattling, if not the whole fabric shaking, with exterioroccurrences or impatience for them to come to pass. Every explanation issure to be offered by the course events may take; so do, in mercy, I say, let us bide for them. 

She thought our Island all the darker because Henrietta had induced herto talk on the boat of her mountain home and her last morning there forthe walk away with Chillon John. Soon it was to appear supernaturallybright, a very magician's cave for brilliancy. 

Now, this had happened--and comment on it to yourselves, rememberingalways, that Chillon John was a lover, and a lover has his excuses, though they will not obviate the penalties he may incur; and dreadfulthey were. After reading Henrietta's letter to him, he rode out of hisCanterbury quarters across the country to the borders of Sussex, wherehis uncle Lord Levellier lived, on the ridge of ironstone, near the wildland of a forest, Croridge the name of the place. Now, Chillon John knewhis uncle was miserly, and dreaded the prospect of having to support aniece in the wretched establishment at Lekkatts, or, as it was popularlycalled, Leancats; you can understand why. But he managed to assurehimself he must in duty consult with the senior and chief member of . Hisfamily on a subject of such importance as the proposal of marriage to hislordship's niece. 

The consultation was short: 'You will leave it to me, ' his uncle said:and we hear of business affairs between them, involving payment of moneysdue to the young man; and how, whenever he touched on them, his uncleimmediately fell back on the honour of the family and Carinthia Jane'sreputation, her good name to be vindicated, and especially that theremust be no delays, together with as close a reckoning as he could make ofthe value of Lord Fleetwood's estates in Kent and in Staffordshire andSouth Wales, and his house property in London. 

'He will have means to support her, ' said the old lord, shrugging as ifat his own incapacity for that burden. 

The two then went to the workshops beside a large pond, where there wasan island bordered with birch trees and workmen's cottages near the mainbuilding; and that was an arsenal containing every kind of sword andlance and musket, rifle and fowling-piece and pistol, and more gunpowderthan was, I believe, allowed by law. For they were engaged in inventinga new powder for howitzer shells, of tremendous explosive power. 

Nothing further did either of them say, concerning the marriage. Nor didCarinthia Jane hear any mention of Lord Fleetwood from her brother on thelandingplace at Dover. She was taken to Admiral Baldwin Fakenham's housein Hampshire; and there she remained, the delight of his life, during twomonths, patiently expecting and rebuking the unmaidenliness of herexpectations, as honest young women in her position used to do. So didthey sometimes wait for years; they have waited until they withered intotheir graves, like the vapours of a brief winter's day: a moving pictureof a sex restrained by modesty in those purer times from the taking ofone step forward unless inquired for. 

Two months she waited in our 'dark land. ' January arrived, and herbrother. Henrietta communicated the news:

'My Janey, you are asked by Lord Fleetwood whether it is your wish thathe should marry you. '

Now, usually a well-born young woman's answer, if a willing one, is anexample of weak translation. Here it was the heart's native tongue, without any roundabout, simple but direct. 

'Oh, I will, I am ready, tell him. '

Remember, she was not speaking publicly. 

Henrietta knew the man enough to be glad he did not hear. She herselfwould have felt a little shock on his behalf: only, that answer suitedthe scheme of the pair of lovers. 

How far those two were innocent in not delivering the whole of LordFleetwood's message to Carinthia Jane through Lord Levellier, we areunable to learn. We may suspect the miserly nobleman of curtailing itfor his purposes; and such is my idea. But the answer would have beenthe same, I am sure. 

In consequence and straight away, Chillon John betakes him to AdmiralBaldwin and informs him of Lord Fleetwood's proposal on the night atBaden, and renewal of it through the mouth of Lord Levellier, notcommunicating, however (he may really not have known), the story of howit had been wrung from the earl by a surprise movement on the part of theone-armed old lord, who burst out on him in the street from the ambush ofa Club-window, where he had been stationed every day for a fortnight, indefatigably to watch for the passing of the earl, as there seemed noother way to find him. They say, indeed, there was a scene, judging bythe result, and it would have been an excellent scene for the stage;though the two noblemen were to all appearance politely exchanging theirremarks. But the audience hearing what passes, appreciates the courteousrestraint of an attitude so contrasting with their tempers. Behind theostentation of civility, their words were daggers. 

For it chanced, that the young earl, after a period of refuge at hisWelsh castle, supposing, as he well might, that his latest mad freak ofthe proposal of his hand and title to the strange girl in a quadrille ata foreign castle had been forgotten by her, and the risks of annoyance onthe subject had quite blown over, returned to town, happy in having donethe penance for his impulsiveness, and got clean again--that is to say, struck off his fetters and escaped from importunities--the very morningof the day when Lord Levellier sprang upon him! It shows the oldcampaigner's shrewdness in guessing where his prey would come, and notputting him on his guard by a call at his house. Out of the window helooked for all the hours of light during an entire fortnight. 'In theservice of my sister's child, ' he said. 'To save him from the cost ofmaintaining her, ' say his enemies. At any rate he did it. 

He was likely to have done the worse which I suspect. 

Now, the imparting of the wonderful news to Admiral Baldwin Fakenhamwas, we read, the whiff of a tropical squall to lay him on his beam ends. He could not but doubt; and his talk was like the sails of a big shiprattling to the first puff of wind. He had to believe; and then, weread, he was for hours like a vessel rolling in the trough of the sea. Of course he was a disappointed father. Naturally his glance at the lossto Henrietta of the greatest prize of the matrimonial market of allEurope and America was vexing and saddening. Then he woke up to think ofthe fortunes of his 'other girl, ' as he named her, and cried: 'Crinnycatches him!'

He cried it in glee and rubbed his hands. 

So thereupon, standing before him, Chillon John, from whom he had thenews, bent to him slightly, as his elegant manner was, and lengthened theadmiral's chaps with another proposal; easy, deliberate, precise, quitethe respectful bandit, if you please, determined on having his daughterby all means, only much preferring the legal, formal, and friendly. Uponthat, in the moment of indecision, Henrietta enters, followed by AdmiralBaldwin's heroine, his Crinny, whom he embraced and kissed, congratulatedand kissed again. One sees the contrivance to soften him. 

So it was done, down in that Hampshire household on the heights near thedowns, whence you might behold, off a terra firma resembling a roll ofbillows, England's big battle-ships in line fronting the island; whenthey were a spectacle of beauty as well as power: which now they are nomore, but will have to be, if they are both to float and to fight. For Ihave, had quoted to me by a great admirer of the Old Buccaneer, one ofthe dark sayings in his MAXIMS FOR MEN, where Captain John Peter Kirbycommends his fellow-men to dissatisfaction with themselves if they havenot put an end to their enemy handsomely.. And he advises the copying ofNature in this; whose elements have always, he says, a pretty, besides athorough, style of doing it, when they get the better of us; and the oneby reason of the other. He instances the horse, the yacht, and chieflythe sword, for proof, that the handsomest is the most effective. And heprints large: 'UGLY IS ONLY HALF WAY TO A THING. ' To an invention, Isuppose he intends to say. But looking on our huge foundering sea-monsters and the disappearance of the unwieldy in Nature, and thecountenances of criminals, who are, he bids us observe, always in thelong run beaten, I seem to see a meaning our country might meditate on. 

So, as I said, it was done; for Admiral Baldwin could refuse his Crinnynothing; as little as he would deny anything to himself, the heartiestof kindly hosts, fathers, friends. Carinthia Jane's grand good fortunecovered that pit, the question of money, somehow, and was, we mayconceive, a champagne wine in their reasoning faculties. The admiral wasin debt, Henrietta had no heritage, Chillon John was the heir of amiserly uncle owing him sums and evading every application for them, yetthey behaved as people who had the cup of golden wishes. Perhaps it wasbecause Henrietta and her lover were so handsome a match as to make itseem to them and others they must marry; and as to character, her fathercould trust her to the man of her choice more readily than to the wealthyyoung nobleman; of whose discreetness he had not the highest opinion. Hereconciled this view with his warm feeling for the Countess of Fleetwoodto be, by saying: 'Crinny will tame him!' His faith was in her dauntlessbold spirit, not thinking of the animal she was to tame. 

Countess Livia, after receiving Henrietta's letter of information, descended on them and thought them each and all a crazed set. Love, as a motive of action for a woman, she considered the female's lunacyand suicide. Men are born subject to it, happily, and thus the balancebetween the lordly half of creation and the frail is rectified. We womendress, and smile, sigh, if you like, to excite the malady. But if we arethe fools to share it, we lose our chance; instead of the queens, we arethe slaves, and instead of a life of pleasure, we pass from fever tofever at a tyrant's caprice: he does rightly in despising us. Ay, andmany a worthy woman thinks the same. Educated in dependency as they are, they come to the idea of love to snatch at it for their weapon of theman's weakness. For which my lord calls them heartless, and poets areangry with them, rightly or wrongly. 

It must, I fear, be admitted for a truth, that sorrow is the portion ofyoung women who give the full measure of love to the engagement, marryingfor love. At least, Countess Livia could declare subsequently she hadforetold it and warned her cousin. Not another reflection do you hearfrom me, if I must pay forfeit of my privilege to hurry you on pastdescriptions of places and anatomy of character and impertinent talkabout philosophy in a story. When we are startled and offended by theinsinuated tracing of principal incidents to a thread-bare spot in thenether garments of a man of no significance, I lose patience. 

Henrietta's case was a secondary affair. What with her passion--it wasnothing less--and her lover's cunning arts, and her father's consentgiven, and in truth the look of the two together, the dissuasion of themfrom union was as likely to keep them apart as an exhortation addressedto magnet and needle. Countess Livia attacked Carinthia Jane and theadmiral backing her. But the admiral, having given his consent to hisdaughter's marriage, in consequence of the earl's pledged word to 'hisother girl, ' had become a zealot for this marriage and there was only nota grand altercation on the subject because Livia shunned annoyances. Alone with Carinthia Jane, as she reported to Henrietta, she spoke to ablock, that shook a head and wore a thin smile and nursed its own idea ofthe better knowledge of Edward Russett, Earl of Fleetwood, gained in therun of a silly quadrille at a ball:

What is a young man's word to his partner in a quadrille?

Livia put the question, she put it twice rather sternly, and the girlcame out with: 'Oh, he meant it!'

The nature, the pride, the shifty and furious moods of Lord Fleetwoodwere painted frightful to her. 

She had conceived her own image of him. 

Whether to set her down as an enamoured idiot or a creature not a whitless artful than her brother, was Countess Livia's debate. Herinclination was to misdoubt the daughter of the Old Buccaneer: she mightbe simple, at her age, and she certainly was ignorant; but she clung toher prize. Still the promise was extracted from her, that she would notworry the earl to fulfil the word she supposed him to mean in its fullmeaning. 

The promise was unreluctantly yielded. No, she would not write. AdmiralFakenham, too, engaged to leave the matter to a man of honour. 

Meanwhile, Chillon John had taken a journey to Lekkatts; following which, his uncle went to London. Lord Fleetwood heard that Miss Kirby kept himbound. He was again the fated prisoner of his word. 

And following that, not so very long, there was the announcement of themarriage of Chillon John Kirby Levellier, Lieutenant in the King's OwnHussars, and Henrietta, daughter of Admiral Baldwin Fakenham. A countynewspaper paragraph was quoted for its eulogy of the Beauty of Hampshire--not too strong, those acquainted with her thought. Interest at Courtobtained an advancement for the bridegroom: he was gazetted Captainduring his honeymoon, and his prospects under his uncle's name wereconsiderd fair, though certain people said at the time, it was likely tobe all he would get while old Lord Levellier of Leancats remained in theflesh. 

Now, as it is good for those to tell who intend preserving their tastefor romance and hate anatomical lectures, we never can come to the exactmotives of any extraordinary piece of conduct on the part of man orwoman. Girls are to read; and the study of a boy starts from the monkey. But no literary surgeon or chemist shall explain positively the cause ofthe behaviour of men and women in their relations together; and speakingto rescue my story, I say we must with due submission accept the facts. We are not a bit the worse for wondering at them. So it happened thatLord Fleetwood's reply to Lord Levellier's hammer--hammer by post andmessenger at his door, one may call it, on the subject of the celebrationof the marriage of the young Croesus and Carinthia Jane, in which therewas demand for the fixing of a date forthwith, was despatched on the daywhen London had tidings of Henrietta Pakenham's wedding. 

The letter, lost for many years, turned up in the hands of a Kentishauctioneer, selling it on behalf of a farm-serving man, who had it fromLord Levellier's cook and housemaid, among the things she brought him asher wifely portion after her master's death, and this she had not foundsaleable in her husband's village at her price, but she had got the habitof sticking to the scraps, being proud of hearing it said that she hadskinned Leancats to some profit: and her expectation proved correct afterher own demise, for her husband putting it up at the auction; ourrelative on the mother's side, Dr. Glossop, interested in the documentsand particulars of the story as he was, had it knocked down to him, incontest with an agent of a London gentleman, going as high as two poundsten shillings, for the sum of two pounds and fifteen shillings. Countthe amount that makes for each word of a letter a marvel of brevity, considering the purport! But Dr. Glossop was right in saying he had itcheap. The value of that letter may now be multiplied by ten: nor forthat sum would he part with it. 

Thus it ran, I need not refer to it in Bundle No. 3:

 'MY LORD: I drive to your church-door on the fourteenth of the month at ten A. M. , to keep my appointment with Miss C. J. Kirby, if I do not blunder the initials. 'Your lordship's obedient servant, 'FLEETWOOD. '

That letter will ever be a treasured family possession with us. 

That letter was dated from Lord Fleetwood's Kentish mansion, Esslemont, the tenth of the month. He must have quitted London for Esslemont, forchange of scene, for air, the moment after the news of Henrietta'smarriage. Carinthia Jane received the summons without transmission ofthe letter from her uncle on the morning of the twelfth. It was aperemptory summons. 

Unfortunately, Admiral Fakenham, a real knight and chevalier of thosepast times, would not let her mount the downs to have her farewell viewof the big ships unaccompanied by him; and partly and largely in purechivalry, no doubt; but her young idea of England's grandeur, as shown inher great vessels of war, thrilled him, too, and restored his youthfulenthusiasm for his noble profession or made it effervesce. However itwas, he rode beside her and rejoiced to hear the young girl's talk of herfather as a captain of one of England's thunderers, and of the cruelty ofthat Admiralty to him: at which Admiral Baldwin laughed, but had not theheart to disagree with her, for he could belabour the Admiralty inseason, cause or no cause. Altogether he much enjoyed the ride, notwithstanding intimations of the approach of 'his visitor, ' as hecalled his attacks of gout. 

Riding home, however, the couple passed through a heavy rainfall, and thenext day, when he was to drive with the bride to Lekkatts, gout, thefiercest he had ever known, chained him fast to his bed. Such are thepetty accidents affecting circumstances. They are the instruments ofDestiny. 

There he lay, protesting that the ceremony could not possibly be for thefourteenth, because Countess Livia had, he now remembered, written of herengagement to meet Russett on the night of that day at a ball at Mrs. Cowper Quillett's place, Canleys, lying south of the Surrey hills: ahouse famed for its gatherings of beautiful women; whither Lord Fleetwoodwould be sure to engage to go, the admiral now said; and it racked himlike gout in his mind, and perhaps troubled his conscience about handingthe girl to such a young man. But he was lying on his back, the posturefor memory to play the fiend with us, as we read in the BOOK of MAXIMS ofthe Old Buccaneer. Admiral Baldwin wished heartily to be present at hisCrinny's wedding 'to see her launched, ' if wedding it was to be, and hevowed the date of the fourteenth, in Lord Levellier's announcement of it, must be an error and might be a month in advance, and ought to be. Butit was sheer talking and raving for a solace to his disappointment or hisanxiety. He had to let Carinthia Jane depart under the charge of hishousekeeper, Mrs. Carthew, a staid excellent lady, poorly gifted withobservation. 

Her report of the performance of the ceremony at Croridge village church, a half mile from Lekkatts, was highly reassuring to the anxious oldadmiral still lying on his back with memory and gout at their fiend'splay, and livid forecasts hovering. He had recollected that there hadbeen no allusion in Lord Levellier's message to settlements or anylawyer's preliminaries, and he raged at himself for having to own itwould have been the first of questions on behalf of his daughter. 

'All passed off correctly, ' Mrs. Carthew said. 'The responses of thebride and bridegroom were particularly articulate. '

She was reserved upon the question of the hospitality of Lekkatts. Theplace had entertained her during her necessitated residence there, andhonour forbade her to smile concordantly at the rosy admiral's mention ofLeancats. She took occasion, however, to praise the Earl of Fleetwood'seminently provident considerateness for his bride, inasmuch as he hadpacked a hamper in his vehicle, which was a four-in-hand, driven byhimself. 

Admiral Baldwin inquired: 'Bride inside?'

He was informed: 'The Countess of Fleetwood sat on the box on the left ofmy lord. '

She had made no moan about the absence of bridesmaids. 

'She appeared too profoundly happy to meditate an instant upondeficiencies. '

'How did the bridegroom behave?'

'Lord Fleetwood was very methodical. He is not, or was not, voluntarilya talker. '

'Blue coat, brass buttons, hot-house flower? old style or new?'

'His lordship wore a rather low beaver and a buttoned white overcoat, notout of harmony with the bride's plain travelling-dress. '

'Ah! he's a good whip, men say. Keeps first-rate stables, hacks, andbloods. Esslemont hard by will be the place for their honeymoon, Iguess. And he's a lucky dog, if he knows his luck. '

So said Admiral Baldwin. He was proceeding to say more, for he had aprodigious opinion of the young countess and the benefit of her marriageto the British race. As it concerned a healthy constitution andmotherhood, Mrs. Carthew coughed and retired. Nor do I reprove eitherof them. The speculation and the decorum are equally commendable. Masculine ideas are one thing; but let feminine ever be feminine, or ourcivilization perishes. 

At Croridge village church, then, one of the smallest churches in thekingdom, the ceremony was performed and duly witnessed, names written inthe vestry book, the clergyman's fee, the clerk, and the pew-woman, paidby the bridegroom. And thus we see how a pair of lovers, blind with theone object of lovers in view; and a miserly uncle, all on edge to savehimself the expense of supporting his niece; and an idolatrous oldadmiral, on his back with gout; conduced in turn and together to themarriage gradually exciting the world's wonder, till it eclipsed thestory of the Old Buccaneer and Countess Fanny, which it caused to bediscussed afresh. 

Mrs. Carthew remembered Carinthia Jane's last maiden remark and her firstbridal utterance. On the way, walking to the church of Croridge fromLekkatts, the girl said: 'Going on my feet, I feel I continue themountain walk with my brother when we left our home. ' And after leavingthe church, about to mount the coach, she turned to Mrs. Carthew, saying, as she embraced her:

'A happy bride's kiss should bring some good fortune. ' And looking downfrom her place on the top of the coach:

'Adieu, dear Mrs. Carthew. A day of glory it is to-day. ' She mustactually have had it in her sight as a day of glory: and it was a day ofthe clouds off our rainy quarter, similar in every way to the day of herstepping on English soil and saying: 'It is a dark land. ' For the heartis truly declared to be our colourist. A day having the gale in itsbreast, sweeping the whole country and bending the trees for the twigs tohiss like spray of the billows around our island, was a day of goldensplendour to the young bride of the Earl of Fleetwood, though he scarcelyaddressed one syllable to her, and they sat side by side all but dumb, he like a coachman driving an unknown lady fare, on a morning after anight when his wife's tongue may have soured him for the sex. 

CHAPTER XIV

A PENDANT OF THE FOREGOING

Mention has been omitted or forgotten by the worthy Dame, in her vagrantfowl's treatment of a story she cannot incubate, will not relinquish, andmay ultimately addle, that the bridegroom, after walking with adisengaged arm from the little village church at Croridge to his coachand four at the cross of the roads to Lekkatts and the lowland, abruptly, and as one pursuing a deferential line of conduct he had prescribed tohimself, asked his bride, what seat she would prefer. 

He shouted: 'Ives!'

A person inside the coach appeared to be effectually roused. 

The glass of the window dropped. The head of a man emerged. It was thehead of one of the bargefaced men of the British Isles, broad, andbattered flattish, with sentinel eyes. 

In an instant the heavy-headed but not ill-looking fellow was nimble andjumped from the coach. 

'Napping, my lord, ' he said. 

Heavy though the look of him might be, his feet were light; they flippeda bar of a hornpipe at a touch of the ground. Perhaps they were allowedto go with their instinct for the dance, that his master should have asample of his wakefulness. He quenched a smirk and stood to take orders;clad in a flat blue cap, a brown overcoat, and knee-breeches, as thetemporary bustle of his legs had revealed. 

Fleet-wood heard the young lady say: 'I would choose, if you please, tosit beside you. '

He gave a nod of enforced assent, glancing at the vacated box. 

The man inquired: 'A knee and a back for the lady to mount up, my lord?'

'In!' was the smart command to him; and he popped in with the agility ofhis popping out. 

Then Carinthia made reverence to the grey lean figure of her uncle andkissed Mrs. Carthew. She needed no help to mount the coach. Fleetwood'sarm was rigidly extended, and he did not visibly wince when this foreigngirl sprang to the first hand-grip on the coach and said: 'No, myhusband, I can do it'; unaided, ' was implied. 

Her stride from the axle of the wheel to the step higher would have beena graceful spectacle on Alpine crags. 

Fleetwood swallowed that, too, though it conjured up a mockingrecollection of the Baden woods, and an astonished wild donkey preparinghimself for his harness. A sour relish of the irony in his presentposition sharpened him to devilish enjoyment of it, as the finest formof loathing: on the principle that if we find ourselves consigned to thenether halls, we do well to dance drunkenly. He had cried for Romance--here it was!

He raised his hat to Mrs. Carthew and to Lord Levellier. Previous to theceremony, the two noblemen had interchanged the short speech of manneredduellists punctiliously courteous in the opening act. Their civility wasmaintained at the termination of the deadly work. The old lord's bosomthanked the young one for not requiring entertainment and a repast; theyoung lord's thanked the old one for a strict military demeanour at anexecution and the abstaining from any nonsensical talk over the affair. 

A couple of liveried grooms at the horses' heads ran and sprang to thehinder seats as soon as their master had taken the reins. He sounded thewhip caressingly: off those pretty trotters went. 

Mrs. Carthew watched them, waving to the bride. She was on the presentoccasion less than usually an acute or a reflective observer, owing toher admiration of lordly state and masculine commandership; and herthought was: 'She has indeed made a brilliant marriage!'

The lady thought it, notwithstanding an eccentricity in the weddingceremony, such as could not but be noticeable. But very wealthy noblemenwere commonly, perhaps necessarily, eccentric, for thus they provedthemselves egregious, which the world expected them to be. 

Lord Levellier sounded loud eulogies of the illustrious driver's team. His meditation, as he subsequently stated to Chillon, was upon hisvanquished antagonist's dexterity, in so conducting matters, that he hadto be taken at once, with naught of the customary preface and apology fortaking to himself the young lady, of which a handsome settlement, is thememorial. 

We have to suppose, that the curious occupant of the coach inside arousedno curiosity in the pair of absorbed observers. 

Speculations regarding the chances of a fall of rain followed the coachuntil it sank and the backs of the two liveried grooms closed the chapterof the wedding, introductory to the honeymoon at Esslemont, seven milesdistant by road, to the right of Lekkatts. It was out of sight that thecoach turned to the left, Northwestward. 

CHAPTER XV

OPENING STAGE OF THE HONEYMOON

A famous maxim in the book of the Old Buccaneer, treating of PRECAUTION, as 'The brave man's clean conscience, ' with sound counsel to theadventurous, has it:--

'Then you sail away into the tornado, happy as a sealed bottle of ripewine. '

It should mean, that brave men entering the jaws of hurricanes are foundto have cheerful hearts in them when they know they have done their best. But, touching the picture of happiness, conceive the bounteous Bacchicspirit in the devoutness of a Sophocles, and you find comparisonneighbour closely between the sealed wine-flask and the bride, who isbeing driven by her husband to the nest of the unknown on her marriagemorn. 

Seated beside him, with bosom at heave and shut mouth, in a strange land, travelling cloud-like, rushing like the shower-cloud to the vale, thisCarinthia, suddenly wedded, passionately grateful for humbleness exalted, virginly sensible of treasures of love to give, resembled the inanimateand most inspiring, was mindless and inexpressive, past memory, beyondthe hopes, a thing of the thrilled blood and skylark air, since she laidher hand in this young man's. His not speaking to her was accepted. Her blood rather than recollection revived their exchanges during thedance at Baden, for assurance that their likings were one, their aimsrapturously one; that he was she, she he, the two hearts making one soul. 

Could she give as much as he? It was hardly asked. If we feel we cangive our breath of life, the strength of the feeling fully answers. Itbubbles perpetually from the depth like a well-spring in tumult. Twohearts that make one soul do not separately count their gifts. 

For the rest, her hunger to admire disposed her to an absorbing sentienceof his acts; the trifles, gestures, manner of this and that; which wereseized as they flew, and swiftly assimilated to stamp his personality. Driving was the piece of skill she could not do. Her husband's masteryof the reins endowed him with the beauty of those harmonious trotters heguided and kept to their pace; and the humming rush of the pace, thesmooth torrent of the brown heath-knolls and reddish pits and hedge-linesand grass-flats and copses pouring the counter-way of her advance, belonged to his wizardry. The bearing of her onward was her abandonmentto him. Delicious as mountain air, the wind sang; it had a song of manyvoices. Quite as much as on the mountains, there was the keen, theblissful, nerve-knotting catch of the presence of danger in the steepdescents, taken as if swallowed, without swerve or check. She was in herhusband's hands. At times, at the pitch of a rapid shelving, that waslike a fall, her heart went down; and at the next throb exalted before itrose, not reasoning why;--her confidence was in him; she was his comradewhatever chanced. Up over the mountain-peaks she had known edgedmoments, little heeded in their passage, when life is poised as a crystalpitcher on the head, in peril of a step. Then she had been dependent onherself. Now she had the joy of trusting to her husband. 

His hard leftward eye had view of her askant, if he cared to see how shebore the trial; and so relentlessly did he take the slopes, that the maninside pushed out an inquiring pate, the two grooms tightened arms acrosstheir chests. Her face was calmly set, wakeful, but unwrinkled: thecreature did not count among timid girls--or among civilized. She hadgot what she wanted from her madman--mad in his impulses, mad in hisreading of honour. She was the sister of Henrietta's husband. Henriettabore the name she had quitted. Could madness go beyond the marrying ofthe creature? He chafed at her containment, at her courage, her silence, her withholding the brazen or the fawnish look-up, either of which hewould have hated. 

He, however, was dragged to look down. Neither Gorgon nor Venus, nor amingling of them, she had the chasm of the face, recalling the face ofhis bondage, seen first that night at Baden. It recalled and it was notthe face; it was the skull of the face, or the flesh of the spirit. Occasionally she looked, for a twinkle or two, the creature or vision shehad been, as if to mock by reminding him. She was the abhorred delusion, who captured him by his nerves, ensnared his word--the doing of a foulwitch. How had it leapt from his mouth? She must have worked for it. The word spoken--she must have known it--he was bound, or the detestedHenrietta would have said: Not even true to his word!

To see her now, this girl, insisting to share his name, for a slip of histongue, despite the warning sent her through her uncle, had that facemuch as a leaden winter landscape pretends to be the country radiant incolour. She belonged to the order of the variable animals--a womanindeed!--womanish enough in that. There are men who love women--the ideaof woman. Woman is their shepherdess of sheep. He loved freedom, loathed the subjection of a partnership; could undergo it only inadoration of an ineffable splendour. He had stepped to the altarfancying she might keep to her part of the contract by appearing themiracle that subdued him. Seen by light of day, this bitter objectbeside him was a witch without her spells; that is, the skeleton of theseductive, ghastliest among horrors and ironies. Let her have the creditof doing her work thoroughly before the exposure. She had done it. She might have helped--such was the stipulation of his mad freak inconsenting to the bondage--yes, she might have helped to soften the stingof his wound. She was beside him bearing his name, for the perpetualpouring of an acid on the wound that vile Henrietta--poisoned honey of agirl!--had dealt. 

He glanced down at his possession:--heaven and the yawning pit were thecontrast! Poisoned honey is after all honey while you eat it. Herethere was nothing but a rocky bowl of emptiness. And who was she? Shewas the sister of Henrietta's husband. He was expected to embrace thesister of Henrietta's husband. Those two were on their bridal tour. 

This creature was also the daughter of an ancient impostor and desperadocalled the Old Buccaneer; a distinguished member of the family of theLincolnshire Kirbys, boasting a present representative grimly acquitted, men said, on a trial for murder. An eminent alliance! Societyconsidered the Earl of Fleetwood wildish, though he could manage hisaffairs. He and his lawyers had them under strict control. How ofhimself? The prize of the English marriage market had taken to his bosomfor his winsome bride the daughter of the Old Buccaneer. He was to mixhis blood with the blood of the Lincolnshire Kirbys, lying pallid underthe hesitating acquittal of a divided jury. 

How had he come to this pass, which swung him round to think almostregretfully of the scorned multitude of fair besiegers in the market, some of whom had their unpoetic charms?

He was renowned and unrivalled as the man of stainless honour: theone living man of his word. He had never broken it--never would. Therewas his distinction among the herd. In that, a man is princely aboveprinces. The nobility of Edward Russett, Earl of Fleetwood, surpassedthe nobility of common nobles. But, by all that is holy, he pays forhis distinction. 

The creature beside him is a franked issue of her old pirate of a fatherin one respect--nothing frightens her. There she sits; not a screw ofher brows or her lips; and the coach rocked, they were sharp on a spillmidway of the last descent. It rocks again. She thinks it scarce worthwhile to look up to reassure him. She is looking over the country. 

'Have you been used to driving?' he said. 

She replied: 'No, it is new to me on a coach. '

Carinthia felt at once how wild the wish or half expectation that hewould resume the glowing communion of the night which had plighted them. 

She did not this time say 'my husband, ' still it flicked a whip at hisears. 

She had made it more offensive, by so richly toning the official titlejust won from him as to ring it on the nerves; one had to block it or beinvaded. An anticipation that it would certainly recur haunted everyopening of her mouth. 

Now that it did not, he felt the gap, relieved, and yet pricked toimagine a mimicry of her tones, for the odd foreignness of the word andthe sound. She had a voice of her own besides her courage. At thealtar, her responses had their music. No wonder: the day was hers. 'My husband' was a manner of saying 'my fish. '

He, spoke very civilly. 'Oblige me by telling me what name you areaccustomed to answer to. '

She seemed unaware of an Arctic husband, and replied: 'My father calledme Carin--short for Carinthia. My mother called me Janey; my second nameis Jane. My brother Chillon says both. Henrietta calls me Janey. '

The creature appeared dead flesh to goads. But the name of her sister-in-law on her lips returned the stroke neatly. She spared him one whip, to cut him with another. 

'You have not informed me which of these names you prefer. '

'Oh, my husband, it is as you shall please. '

Fleetwood smartened the trot of his team, and there was a to-do with therakish leaders. 

Fairies of a malignant humour in former days used to punish theunhappiest of the naughty men who were not favourites, by suddenlyplanting a hump on their backs. Off the bedevilled wretches pranced, and they kicked, they snorted, whinnied, rolled, galloped, outflying thewind, but not the dismal rider. Marriage is our incubus now. Noexplanation is offered of why we are afflicted; we have simply offended, or some one absent has offended, and we are handy. The spiteful hag ofpower ties a wife to us; perhaps for the reason, that we behaved in thespirit of a better time by being chivalrously honourable. Wives are justas inexplicable curses, just as ineradicable and astonishing as humpsimposed on shapely backs. 

Fleetwood lashed his horses until Carinthia's low cry of entreaty rose tosurprise. That stung him. 

'Leave the coachman to his devices: we have an appointment and must keepit, ' he said. 

'They go so willingly. '

'Good beasts, in their way. '

'I do not like the whip. '

'I have the same objection. '

They were on the level of the vale, going along a road between farms andmansions, meadows and gardenplots and park-palings. A strong warm winddrove the pack of clouds over the tree-tops and charged at the branches. English scenery, animating air; a rouse to the blood and the mind. Carinthia did not ask for hues. She had come to love of the dark landwith the warm lifting wind, the big trees and the hedges, and the statelyhouses, and people requiring to be studied, who mean well and are warmsomewhere below, as chimneypots are, though they are so stiff. 

English people dislike endearments, she had found. It might be that herhusband disliked any show of fondness. He would have to be studied verymuch. He was not like others, as Henrietta had warned her. Fromthinking of him fervidly, she was already past the marvel of the thoughtthat she called him husband. At the same time, a curious intimation, gathered she knew not whence, of the word 'husband' on a young wife'slips as being a foreign sound in England, advised her to withhold it. His behaviour was instructing her. 

'Are you weather-wise?--able to tell when the clouds will hold off orpelt, ' he said, to be very civil to a neighbour. 

She collected her understanding, apparently; treating a conversationalrun of the tongue as a question to be pondered; and the horses paid forit. Ordinarily he was gentle with his beasts. He lashed at her in hisheart for perverting the humanest of men. 

'Father was, ' she replied. 

'Oh! I have heard of him. '

Her face lightened. 'Father had a great name in England. '

'The Old Buccaneer, I think. '

'I do not know. He was a seaman of the navy, like Admiral Fakenham is. Weather at sea, weather on the mountains, he could foretell it always. He wrote a book; I have a copy you will read. It is a book of Maxims. He often speaks of the weather. English weather and women, he says. But not my mother. My mother he stood aside by herself--pas capricieusedu tout! Because she would be out in the weather and brave the weather. She rode, she swam, best of any woman. If she could have known you, whatpleasure for me! Mother learnt to read mountain weather from father. I did it too. But sometimes on the high fields' upper snows it is verysurprising. Father has been caught. Here the cloud is down near theearth and the strong wind keeps the rain from falling. How long the windwill blow I cannot guess. But you love the mountains. We spoke . . . And mountains' adventures we both love. I will talk French if you like, for, I think, German you do not speak. I may speak English better thanFrench; but I am afraid of my English with you. '

'Dear me!' quoth Fleetwood, and he murmured politely and cursorily, attentive to his coachman business. She had a voice that clove the noiseof the wheels, and she had a desire to talk--that was evident. Talk ofher father set her prattling. It became clear also to his not dishonest, his impressionable mind, that her baby English might be natural. Or shewas mildly playing on it, to give herself an air. 

He had no remembrance of such baby English at Baden. There, however, she was in a state of enthusiasm--the sort of illuminated transparencythey show at the end of fireworks. Mention of her old scapegrace of afather lit her up again. The girl there and the girl here were no doubtthe same. It could not be said that she had duped him; he had done itfor himself--acted on by a particular agency. This creature had not thecapacity to dupe. He had armed a bluntwitted young woman with hisidiocy, and she had dealt the stroke; different in scarce a degree bynature from other young women of prey. 

But her look at times, and now and then her voice, gave sign that shecounted on befooling him as well, to reconcile him to his bondage. Thecalculation was excessive. No woman had done it yet. Idiocy plunged himthe step which reawakened understanding; and to keep his whole mind alerton guard against any sort of satisfaction with his bargain, he franklyreferred to the cause. Not female arts, but nature's impulses, it washis passion for the wondrous in the look of a woman's face, the newmorning of the idea of women in the look, and the peep into imaginarynovel character, did the trick of enslaving him. Call it idiocy. Suchit was. Once acknowledged, it is not likely to recur. An implacablereason sits in its place, with a keen blade for efforts to carry theimposture further afield or make it agreeable. Yet, after giving hisword to Lord Levellier, he had prodded himself to think the burden ofthis wild young woman might be absurdly tolerable and a laugh at theworld. 

A solicitude for the animal was marked by his inquiry 'You are not hungryyet?'

'Oh no, not yet, ' said she, oddly enlivened. 

They had a hamper and were independent of stoppages for provision, heinformed her. What more delightful? cried her look, seeing the firstmid-day's rest and meal with Chillon on the walk over the mountain fromtheir empty home. 

She could get up enthusiasm for a stocked hamper! And when told of somebusiness that drew him to a meadow they were nearing, she said she wouldbe glad to help, if she could. 'I learn quickly, I know. '

His head acquiesced. The daughter of the Old Buccaneer might learn thebusiness quickly, perhaps; a singularly cutting smile was on his tightlips, in memory of a desire he had as a boy to join hands with anAmazonian damsel and be out over the world for adventures, comrade andbride as one. Here the creature sat. Life is the burlesque of youngdreams; or they precipitate us on the roar and grin of a recognized beastworld. 

The devil possessing him gnawed so furiously that a partial mitigation ofthe pain was afforded by sight of waving hats on a hill-rise of the road. He flourished his whip. The hats continued at wind-mill work. Itsignified brisk news to him, and prospect of glee to propitiate anynumber of devils. 

'You will want a maid to attend on you, ' he said. 

She replied: 'I am not used to attendance on me. Henrietta's maid wouldhelp. I did not want her. I had no maid at home. I can do for myself. Father and mother liked me to be very independent. '

He supposed he would have to hear her spelling her words out next. 

The hill-top was gained; twenty paces of pretty trotting brought up thecoach beside an inn porch, in the style of the finish dear to whips, andeven imperative upon them, if they love their art. Two gentlemen stoodin the road, and a young woman at the inn door; a dark-haired girl of ananxious countenance. Her puckers vanished at some signal from inside thecoach. 

'All right, Madge; nothing to fear, ' Fleetwood called to her, and shecurtseyed. 

He alighted, saying to her, before he spoke to his friends: 'I've broughthim safe; had him under my eye the last four and twenty hours. He'll dothe trick to-day. You don't bet?'

'Oh! my lord, no. '

'Help the lady down. Out with you, Ines!'

The light-legged barge-faced man touched ground capering. He was greeted'Kit' by the pair of gentlemen, who shook hands with him, after he hadfaintly simulated the challenge to a jig with Madge. She flounced fromhim, holding her arms up to the lady. Landlord, landlady, and hostlerbesought the lady to stay for the fixing of a ladder. Carinthia stepped, leaped, and entered the inn, Fleetwood remarking:

'We are very independent, Chummy Potts. '

'Cordy bally, by Jove!' Potts cried. But the moment after thisdisengaged ejaculation, he was taken with a bewilderment. 'At theOpera?' he questioned of his perplexity. 

'No, sir, not at the Opera, ' Fleetwood rejoined. 'The lady's last publicappearance was at the altar. '

'Sort of a suspicion of having seen her somewhere. Left her husbandbehind, has she?'

'You see: she has gone in. '

The scoring of a proposition of Euclid on the forehead of Potts amusedhim and the other gentleman, who was hailed 'Mallard!' and cared nothingfor problems involving the female of man when such work was to the foreas the pugilistic encounter of the Earl of Fleetwood's chosen Kit Ines, with Lord Brailstone's unbeaten and well-backed Ben Todds. 

Ines had done pretty things from the age of seventeen to his twenty-thirdyear. Remarkably clever things they were, to be called great in theannals of the Ring. The point, however, was, that the pockets of hisbackers had seriously felt his latest fight. He received a dog's lickingat the hands of Lummy Phelps, his inferior in skill, fighting two to oneof the odds; and all because of his fatal addiction to the breaking ofhis trainer's imposed fast in liquids on, the night before the battle. Right through his training, up to that hour, the rascal was devout; themajority's money rattled all on the snug safe side. And how did he getat the bottle? His trainers never could say. But what made him turnhimself into a headlong ass, when he had only to wait a night to sitamong friends and worshippers drinking off his tumbler upon tumbler withthe honours? It was past his wits to explain. Endurance of hisprivation had snapped in him; or else, which is more likely, this Geniusof the Ring was tempted by his genius on the summit of his perfectedpowers to believe the battle his own, and celebrate it, as became avictor despising the drubbed antagonist. 

In any case, he drank, and a minor man gave him the dog's licking.. 'Went into it puffy, came out of it bunged, ' the chronicle resoundingover England ran. Old England read of an 'eyeless carcase' heroicallystepping up to time for three rounds of mashing punishment. If he hadwon the day after all, the country would have been electrified. Itsympathized on the side of his backers too much to do more than nod ashort approval of his fortitude. To sink with flag flying is next tosinking the enemy. There was talk of a girl present at the fight, and ofhow she received the eyeless, almost faceless, carcase of her sweetheartKit, and carried him away in a little donkey-cart, comfortably cushionedto meet disaster. This petty incident drew the attention of the Earl ofFleetwood, then beginning to be known as the diamond of uncounted facets, patron of the pick of all departments of manly activity in England. 

The devotion of the girl Madge to her sweetheart was really a fine story. Fleetwood touched on it to Mr. Mallard, speaking of it like the gentlemanhe could be, while Chumley Potts wagged impatient acquiescence in aromantic episode of the Ring, that kept the talk from the hotter theme. 

'Money's Bank of England to-day, you think?' he interposed, and had hisanswer after Mallard had said:

'The girl 's rather good-looking, too. '

'You may double your bets, Chummy. I had the fellow to his tea at mydinner-table yesterday evening; locked him in his bedroom, and had himup and out for a morning spin at six. His trainer, Flipper's on thefield, drove from Esslemont at nine, confident as trumps. '

'Deuce of a good-looking girl, ' Potts could now afford to say; and hesang out: 'Feel fit, lucky dog?'

'Concert pitch!' was the declaration of Kit Ives. 

'How about Lord Brailstone's man?'

'Female partner in a quadrille, sir. '

'Ah!' Potts doated on his limbs with a butcher's eye for prize joints. 

'Cock-sure has crowed low by sunset, ' Mallard observed. 

Fleetwood offered him to take his bets. 

'You're heavy on it with Brailstone?' said Mallard. 

'Three thousand. '

'I'd back you for your luck blindfold. '

A ruffle of sourness shot over the features of the earl, and was noticedby both eager betters, who exchanged a glance. 

Potts inspected his watch, and said half aloud: 'Liver, ten to one! Thatnever meant bad luck--except bad to act on. We slept here last night, you know. It 's a mile and a quarter from the Royal Sovereign to thefield of glory. Pretty well time to start. Brailstone has a drive of acouple of miles. Coaches from London down by this time. Abrane's deadon Ben Todds, any odds. Poor old Braney! "Steady man, Todds. " Backshim because he's a "respectable citizen, "--don't drink. A prize-fightertotal abstainer has no spurts. Old Braney's branded for the losing side. You might bet against Braney blindfold, Mallard. How long shall you taketo polish him off, Kit Ines?'

The opponent of Ben Todds calculated. 

'Well, sir, steady Benny ought to be satisfied with his dose in, say, about forty minutes. Maybe he won't own to it before an hour and ten. He's got a proud English stomach. '

'Shall we be late?' Potts asked. 

'Jump in, ' Fleetwood said to his man. 'We may be five minutes aftertime, Chummy. I had a longer drive, and had to get married on the way, and--ah, here they are!'

'Lady coming?'

'I fancy she sticks to the coach; I don't know her tastes. Madge mustsee her through it, that's positive. '

Potts deferred his astonishment at the things he was hearing and seeing, which were only Fleetwood's riddles. The fight and the bets rang everyother matter out of his head. He beheld the lady, who had come down fromthe coach like a columbine, mount it like Bean-stalk Jack. Madge was nothalf so clever, and required a hand at her elbow. 

After, giving hurried directions to Rundles, the landlord of the RoyalSovereign, Fleetwood took the reins, and all three gentlemen touched hatsto the curtseying figure of Mrs. Rundles. 

'You have heard, I dare say--it's an English scene, ' he spoke, partlyturning his face, to Carinthia; 'particularly select to-day. TheirMajesties might look on, as the Caesars did in Rome. Pity we can'tpersuade them. They ought to set the fashion. Here we have the Englishpeople at their grandest, in prime condition, if they were not drunkovernight; and dogged, perfectly awake, magnanimous, all for fair play;fine fellows, upon my word. A little blood, of course. '

But the daughter of the Old Buccaneer would have inherited a tendernessfor the sight of blood. She should make a natural Lady Patroness ofEngland's National Sports. We might turn her to that purpose; wanderover England with a tail of shouting riff-raft; have exhibitions, joinin them, display our accomplishments; issue challenges to fence, shoot, walk, run, box, in time: the creature has muscle. It's one way ofcrowning a freak; we follow the direction, since the deed done can'tbe undone; and a precious poetical life, too! You may get as royallyintoxicated on swipes as on choice wine; win a name for yourself asthe husband of such a wife; a name in sporting journals and shillingbiographies: quite a revival of the Peerage they have begun to rail at!

'I would not wish to leave you, ' said Carinthia. 

'You have chosen, ' said Fleetwood. 

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH THE BRIDE FROM FOREIGN PARTS IS GIVEN A TASTE OF OLD ENGLAND

Cheers at an open gate of a field saluted the familiar scarlet of theEarl of Fleetwood's coach in Kentish land. They were chorister cheers, the spontaneous ringing out of English country hearts in homage to thenobleman who brightened the heaviness of life on English land with aspectacle of the noble art distinguishing their fathers. He drove alongover muffling turf; ploughboys and blue butcher-boys, and smocked oldmen, with an approach to a hundred-weight on their heels, at the trot toright and left; all hoping for an occasional sight of the jewel calledKitty, that he carried inside. Kitty was there. 

Kitty's eyes are shut. Think of that: cradled innocence and angels'dreams and the whole of the hymn just before ding-dong-bang on noses andjaws! That means confidence? Looks like it. But Kitty's not asleep youtry him. He's only quiet because he has got to undergo great exertion. Last fight he was knocked out of time, because he went into it honestdrunk, they tell. And the earl took him up, to give him a chance ofrecovering his good name, and that's Christian. But the earl, he knowsa man as well as a horse. He's one to follow. Go to a fayte down atEsslemont, you won't forget your day. See there, he's brought a lady onthe top o' the coach. That seems for to signify he don't expect it'sgoing to be much of a bloody business. But there's no accounting. Anyhow, Broadfield 'll have a name in the papers for Sunday reading. In comes t' other lord's coach. They've timed it together closes theyhave. 

They were pronounced to be both the right sort of noblemen for thecountry. Lord Brailstone's blue coach rattled through an eastern gate tothe corner of the thirty-acre meadow, where Lord Fleetwood had drawn up, a toss from the ring. The meeting of the blue and scarlet coaches drewforth Old England's thunders; and when the costly treasures contained inthem popped out heads, the moment was delirious. Kit Ines came after hishead on a bound. Ben Todds was ostentatiously deliberate: his party saidhe was no dancing-master. He stepped out, grave as a barge emerging froma lock, though alive to the hurrahs of supporters and punctilious inreturning the formal portion of his rival's too roguish nod. Their lookwas sharp into the eyes, just an instant. 

Brailstone and Fleetwood jumped to the grass and met, talking andlaughing, precise upon points of business, otherwise cordial:plenipotentiaries of great powers, whom they have set in motion andbind to the ceremonial opening steps, according to the rules of civilizedwarfare. They had a short colloquy with newspaper reporters;--an absolutely fair, square, upright fight of Britons was to bechronicled. Captain Abrane, a tower in the crowd, registered betswhenever he could. Curricles, gigs, carts, pony-traps, boys on ponies, a swarm on legs, flowed to the central point and huddled there. 

Was either champion born in Kent? An audacious boy proclaimed KitInes a man of Kent. Why, of course he was! and that was why the Earlof Fleetwood backed our cocky Kitty, and means to land him on the top ofhis profession. Ben Todds was shuffled aside; as one of their Londoners, destitute of county savour. 

All very well, but have a spy at Benny Todds. Who looks the square man?And hear what that big gentleman of the other lord's party says. Agentleman of his height and weight has a right to his opinion. He 'sdead against Kit Ines: it's fists, not feet, he says, 'll do it to-day;stamina, he says. Benny has got the stamina. 

Todds' possession of the stamina, and the grand voice of Captain Abrane, and the Father Christmas, roast-beef-of-Old England face of the umpiredeclared to be on the side of Lord Brailstone's colour blue, darkenedthe star of Kit Ines till a characteristic piece of behaviour was espied. He dashed his cap into the ring and followed it, with the lightest ofvaults across the ropes. There he was, the first in the ring: and thatstands for promise of first blow, first blood, first flat knock-down, and last to cry for quarter. His pair of seconds were soon after him. Fleetwood mounted his box. 

'Is it to fight?' said Carinthia. 

'To see which is the master. '

'They fight to see?'

'Generally until one or the other can't see. You are not obliged to seeit; you can be driven away if you wish. '

'I will be here, if you are here. '

'You choose it. '

Fleetwood leaned over to Chumley Potts on the turf. 'Abrane's ruininghimself. '

Potts frankly hoped that his friend might be doing so. 'Todds is jollywell backed. He's in prime condition. He's the favourite of the knowingones. '

'You wouldn't have the odds, if he weren't. '

'No; but the odds are like ten per cent. : they conjure the gale, and behanged, ' said Potts; he swore at his betting mania, which destroyed thepleasure of the show he loved. 

All in the ring were shaking hands. Shots of a desire to question andcomment sped through Carinthia's veins and hurt her. She had gatheredthat she spoke foolishly to her husband's ear, so she kept her mouthshut, though the unanswered of her inquisitive ignorance in the strangeland pricked painfully at her bosom. She heard the girl behind her say:'Our colours!' when the colour scarlet unwound with Lord Brailstone'sblue was tied to the stake: and her husband nodded; he smiled; he likedto hear the girl. 

Potts climbed up, crying: 'Toilets complete! Now for paws out, and thenat it, my hearties!'

Choice of corners under the leaden low cloud counted for little. Asignal was given; a man outside the ring eyed a watch, raised a hand; thetwo umpires were on foot in their places; the pair of opposing secondshurried out cheery or bolt-business words to their men; and the championsadvanced to the scratch. Todds first, by the courtesy of Ines, whosedecorous control of his legs at a weighty moment was rightly read by hisparty. 

Their hands grasped firmly: thereupon becoming fists of a hostile couplein position. And simply to learn which of us two is the better man! Orin other words, with four simple fists to compass a patent fact and standit on the historic pedestal, with a little red writing underneath: younever can patent a fact without it. But mark the differences of this kindof contention from all other--especially the Parliamentary: this ispositive, it has a beginning and an end; and it is good-humoured frombeginning to end; trial of skill, trial of stamina; Nature and Art; OldEnglish; which made us what we are; and no rancours, no vows ofvengeance; the beaten man of the two bowing to the bit of history he hashelped to make. 

Kittites had need to be confident in the skill of their lither lad. Hisfacer looked granite. Fronting that mass, Kit you might--not to lashabout for comparisons--call a bundle of bamboo. Ay, but well knitted, springy, alive every inch of him; crafty, too, as you will soon bearwitness. He knows he has got his task, and he's the man to do it. 

There was wary sparring, and mirrors watched them. 

'Bigger fellow: but have no fear, ' the earl said over his shoulder toMadge. 

She said in return: 'Oh, I don't know, I'm praying. '

Kit was now on his toes, all himself, like one who has found the key. He feinted. Quick as lightning, he landed a bolt on Ben's jib, just atthe toll-bar of the bridge, between the eyes, and was off, out of reach, elastic; Ben's counter fell short by a couple of inches. Cheers forfirst blow. 

The earl clucked to Madge. Her gaze at the ring was a sullen intensity. 

Will you believe it?--Ben received a second spanking cracker on thespectacles-seat: neat indeed; and, poor payment for the compliment, hemanaged to dig a drive at the ribs. As much of that game as may suityou, sturdy Ben! But hear the shout, and behold!

First blood to Kit Ines! That tell-tale nose of old Ben's has mountedthe Earl of Fleetwood's colours, and all his party are lookingBrailstone-blue. 

'So far!' said Fleetwood. His grooms took an indication: the hamper wasunfastened; sandwiches were handed. Carinthia held one; she tried tonibble, in obedience to her husband's example. Madge refused a bite offood. 

Hearing Carinthia say to her: 'I hope he will not be beaten, I hope, Ihope, ' she made answer: 'You are very good, Miss'; and the young ladyflushed. 

Gentlemen below were talking up to the earl. A Kentish squire of anestate neighbouring Esslemont introduced a Welsh squire he had driven tosee the fun, by the name of Mr. Owain Wythan, a neighbour of the earl'sdown in Wales. Refreshments were offered. Carinthia submissively sippedthe sparkling wine, which stings the lips when they are indisposed to it. The voice of the girl Madge rang on the tightened chords of her breast. Madge had said she was praying: and to pray was all that could be done bytwo women. Her husband could laugh loudly with Mr. Potts and the othergentlemen and the strangers. He was quite sure the man he supportedwould win; he might have means of knowing. Carinthia clung to his barewords, for the sake of the girl. 

A roaring peal went up from the circle of combat. Kit had it this time. Attacking Ben's peepers, he was bent on defending his own, and he caughta bodyblow that sent him hopping back to his pair of seconds, five clearhops to the rear, like a smashed surge-wave off the rock. He wasrespectful for the remainder of the round. But hammering at the systemhe had formed, in the very next round he dropped from a tremendousrepetition of the blow, and lay flat as a turbot. The bets against himhad simultaneously a see-saw rise. 

'Bellows, he appears to have none, ' was the comment of Chumley Potts. 

'Now for training, Chummy!' said Lord Fleetwood. 

'Chummy!' signifying a crow over Potts, rang out of the hollows ofCaptain Abrane on Lord Brailstone's coach. 

Carinthia put a hand behind her to Madge. It was grasped, in gratitudefor sympathy or in feminine politeness. The girl murmured: 'I've seenworse. ' She was not speaking to ears. 

Lord Fleetwood sat watch in hand. 'Up, ' he said; and, as if hearing him, Kit rose from the ministering second's knee. He walked stiffly, squaredafter the fashion of a man taught caution. Ben made play. They roundedthe ring, giving and taking. Ben rushed, and had an emollient; spoutedagain and was corked; again, and received a neat red-waxen stopper. Hewould not be denied at Kit's door, found him at home and hugged him. Kitgot himself to grass, after a spell of heavy fibbing, Ben's game. 

It did him no great harm; it might be taken for an enlivener; he was deadon his favourite spot the ensuing round, played postman on it. Socleverly, easily, dancingly did he perform the double knock and theretreat, that Chumley Potts was moved to forget his wagers and exclaim:'Racket-ball, by Jove!'

'If he doesn't let the fellow fib the wind out of him, ' Mallard addressedhis own crab eyeballs. 

Lord Fleetwood heard and said coolly: 'Tightstrung. I kept him fastingsince he earned his breakfast. You don't wind an empty rascal fit foraction. A sword through the lungs won't kill when there's no air inthem. '

That was printed in the 'Few Words before the Encounter', in the Book OfMAXIMS FOR MEN. Carinthia, hearing everything her husband uttered, burned to remind him of the similarity between his opinions and herfather's. 

She was learning, that for some reason, allusions to her father were notacceptable. She squeezed the hand of Madge, and felt a pressure, like ascream, telling her the girl's heart was with the fight beneath them. She thought it natural for her. She wished she could continue looking asintently. She looked because her husband looked. The dark hills andclouds curtaining the run of the stretch of fields relieved her sight. 

The clouds went their way; the hills were solid, but like a blue smoke;the scene here made them very distant and strange. Those two men werestill hitting, not hating one another; only to gratify a number ofunintelligible people and win a success. But the earth and sky seemed tosay, What is the glory? They were insensible to it, as they are not--they are never insensible to noble grounds of strife. They bless thespot, they light lamps on it; they put it into books of history, make itholy, if the cause was a noble one or a good one. 

Or supposing both those men loved the girl, who loved one of them! Thenwould Carinthia be less reluctantly interested in their blows. 

Her infant logic stumbled on for a reason while she repressed the torturethe scene was becoming, as though a reason could be found by hersubmissive observation of it. And she was right in believing that areason for the scene must or should exist. Only, like other bewilderedinstinctive believers, she could not summon the great universe or alife's experience to unfold it. Her one consolation was in squeezing thehand of the girl from time to time. 

Not stealthily done, it was not objected to by the husband whose eye wason all. But the persistence in doing it sank her from the benignity ofher station to the girl's level: it was conduct much too raw, and gratedon the deed of the man who had given her his name. 

Madge pleased him better. She had the right to be excited, and she wasvery little demonstrative. She had--well, in justice, the couple of themhad, only she had it more--the tone of the women who can be screwed towitness a spill of blood, peculiarly catching to hear;--a tone of everystring in them snapped except the silver string. Catching to hear? Itis worth a stretching of them on the rack to hear that low buzz-hum oftheir inner breast . . . By heaven! we have them at their best whenthey sing that note. 

His watch was near an hour of the contest, and Brailstone's man hadscored first knock-down blow, a particularly clean floorer. Thinking ofthat, he was cheered by hearing Chummy Potts, whose opinions he despised, cry out to Abrane:--

'Yeast to him!' For the face of Todds was visibly swelling to the ripestof plums from Kit's deliveries. 

Down he went. He had the sturdy legs which are no legs to a clean blow. Odds were offered against him. 

'Oh! pretty play with your right, Kit!' exclaimed Mallard, as Kit fetchedhis man an ugly stroke on the round of the waist behind, and the crowdsent up the name of the great organs affected: a sickener of a stroke, ifdealt soundly. It meant more than 4 showed. Kit was now for takingliberties. Light as ever on his pins, he now and then varied hisattentions to the yeasty part, delivering a wakener in unexpectedquarters: masterly as the skilled cook's carving of a joint with hungryguests for admirers. 

'Eh, Madge?' the earl said. 

She kept her sight fixed, replying: 'Yes, I think . . . ' Carinthiajoined with her: 'I must believe it that he will: but will the other man, poor man, submit? I entreat him to put away his pride. It is his--oh, poor man!'

Ben was having it hot and fast on a torso physiognomy. 

The voices of these alien women thrilled the fray and were a Bardic harpto Lord Fleetwood. 

He dropped a pleasant word on the heads in the curricle. 

Mr. Owain Wythan looked up. 'Worthy of Theocritus. It's the Boxing Twinand the Bembrycian giant. The style of each. To the letter!'

'Kit is assiduously fastening Ben's blinkers, ' Potts remarked. 

He explained to the incomprehensible lady he fancied he had somewhereseen, that the battle might be known as near the finish by the behaviouron board Lord Brailstone's coach. 

'It's like Foreign Affaits and the Stock Exchange, ' he said to the moreintelligent males. 'If I want to know exactly how the country stands, Iturn to the Money Article in the papers. That's a barometricalcertainty. No use inquiring abroad. Look at old Rufus Abrane. I seethe state of the fight on the old fellow's mug. He hasn't a bet left inhim!'

'Captain Mountain--Rufus Mus!' cried Lord Fleetwood, and laughed at thepenetrative portrait Woodseer's epigram sketched; he had a desire for thepresence of the singular vagabond. 

The Rufus Mus in the Captain Mountain exposed his view of the encounter, by growing stiller, apparently growing smaller, without a squeak, likethe entrapped; and profoundly contemplative, after the style of theabsolutely detached, who foresee the fatal crash, and are calculating, far ahead of events, the means for meeting their personal losses. 

The close of the battle was on the visage of Rufus Abrane fifteen minutesbefore that Elgin marble under red paint in the ring sat on the knee of asuccouring seconder, mopped, rubbed, dram-primed, puppy-peeping, inconsolably comforted, preparatory to the resumption of the great-coathe had so hopefully cast from his shoulders. Not downcast by any means. Like an old Roman, the man of the sheer hulk with purple eyemounds foundhis legs to do the manful thing, show that there was no bad blood, standequal to all forms. Ben Todds, if ever man in Old England, looked thepicture you might label 'Bellyful, ' it was remarked. Kit Ines had anappearance of springy readiness to lead off again. So they faced on theopening step of their march into English History. 

Vanquisher and vanquished shook hands, engaged in a parting rally ofgood-humoured banter; the beaten man said his handsome word; the best mancapped it with a compliment to him. They drink of different cups to-day. Both will drink of one cup in the day to come. But the day went tooclearly to crown the light and the tight and the right man of the two, for moralizing to wag its tail at the end. Oldsters and youngstersagreed to that. Science had done it: happy the backers of Science! Notone of them alluded to the philosophical 'hundred years hence. ' For whenEngland, thanks to a spirited pair of our young noblemen, has exhibitedone of her characteristic performances consummately, Philosophy is biddenfly; she is a foreign bird. 

CHAPTER XVII

RECORDS A SHADOW CONTEST CLOSE ON THE FOREGOING

Kit Ines cocked an eye at Madge, in the midst of the congratulations andthe paeans pumping his arms. As he had been little mauled, he couldpresent a face to her, expecting a wreath of smiles for the victor. 

What are we to think of the contrarious young woman who, when he laybeaten, drove him off the field and was all tenderness and devotion?She bobbed her head, hardly more than a trifle pleased, one might say. Just like females. They're riddles, not worth spelling. Then, drunkI'll get to-night, my pretty dear! the man muttered, soured by herinopportune staidness, as an opponent's bruisings could never haverendered him. 

She smiled a lively beam in answer to the earl; 'Oh yes I 'm glad. It'syour doing, my lord. ' Him it was that she thanked, and for the momentprized most. The female riddle is hard to read, because it is compoundedof sensations, and they rouse and appeal to the similar cockatrices inus, which either hiss back or coil upon themselves. She admired Kit Inesfor his valour: she hated that ruinous and besotting drink. It flungskeletons of a married couple on the wall of the future. Neverthelessher love had been all maternal to him when he lay chastised and disgracedon account of his vice. Pity had done it. Pity not being stirred, heradmiration of the hero declared victorious, whose fortunes in uncertaintyhad stopped the beating of her heart, was eclipsed by gratitude towardhis preserver, and a sentiment eclipsed becomes temporarily coldish, against our wish and our efforts, in a way to astonish; making her thinkthat she cannot hold two sentiments at a time; when it is but the factthat she is unable to keep the two equally warm. 

Carinthia said to her: 'He is brave. '

'Oh yes, he's brave, ' Madge assented. 

Lord Brailstone, flourishing his whip, cried out: 'At Canleys to-night?'

The earl nodded: 'I shall be there. '

'You, too, Chummy?' came from Abrane. 

'To see you dance, ' Potts rejoined, and mumbled

'But will he dance! Old Braney's down on his luck; he's a specimen of afellow emptier and not lighter. And won't be till supper-time. But, Isay, Fleet, how the deuce?--funny sort of proceeding!--You haven'tintroduced me. '

'The lady bears my name, Mr. Chumley Potts. '

With a bow to the lady's profile and a mention of a glimpse at Baden, Potts ejaculated: 'It happened this morning?'

'You allude to the marriage. It happened this morning. '

'How do I get to Canleys?'

'I drive you. Another team from the Esslemont stables is waiting at theRoyal. '

'You stay at Canleys?'

'No. '

'No? Oh! Funny, upon my word. Though I don't know why not--except thatpeople . . . '

'Count your winnings, Chummy. '

Fleetwood remarked to his bride: 'Our friend has the habit ofsoliloquizing in company. I forgot to tell you of an appointment of mineat a place called Canleys, about twenty miles or more from here. I gavemy word, so I keep it. The landlady at the inn, Mrs. Rundles, motherlykind of woman; she will be attentive. They don't cook badly, for anEnglish inn, I have heard. Madge here will act as your lady's-maid forthe time. You will find her serviceable; she's a bruiser's lass andsomething above it. Ines informed me, Madge, you were going to friends ofyours at the Wells. You will stay at the Royal and wait on this lady, who bears my name. You understand?--A girl I can trust for courage, ifthe article is in request, ' he resumed to his bride; and talked generallyof the inn and the management of it, and its favoured position outsidethe village and contiguous to the river, upon which it subsisted. 

Carinthia had heard. She was more than ever the stunned young woman shehad been since her mounting of the coach, between the village church andLekkatts. 

She said not a word. Why should she? her object was won. Give herthat, and a woman's tongue will consent to rest. The dreaded weaponrest, also when she is kept spinning by the whip. She gives out apleasant hum, too. Her complexion must be pronounced dull in repose. A bride on her travels with an aspect of wet chalk, rather helps toscare mankind from marriage: which may be good or bad; but she reflects asicklier hue on the captured Chessman calling her his own. Let her shinein privacy. 

Fleetwood drew up at the Royal Sovereign, whereof the reigning monarch, in blue uniform on the signboard, curtseyed to his equally windysubjects; and a small congregation of the aged, and some cripples andinfants, greeted the patron of Old England's manfullest display, cheeringat news of the fight, brought them by many little runners. 

'Your box has been conveyed to your room, ' he said to his bride. 

She bowed. This time she descended the coach by the aid of the ladder. 

Ines, victorious in battle, had scant notice from his love. 'Yes, I 'mglad, ' and she passed him to follow her newly constituted mistress. Hispride was dashed, all the foam of the first draw on the top of him blownoff, as he figuratively explained the cause of his gloom to the earl. 'I drink and I gets a licking--that girl nurses and cossets me. I don'tdrink and I whops my man--she shows me her back. Ain't it encouragement, my lord?'

'You ought to know them by this time, you dolt, ' returned his patron, and complimented him on his bearing in the fight. 'You shall have yourtwo hundred, and something will be added. Hold handy here till I mount. I start in ten minutes. '

Whether to speak a polite adieu to the bride, whose absurd positionshe had brought on her own head, was debated for half a minute. Heconsidered that the wet chalk-quarry of a beauty had at all events themerit of not being a creature to make scenes. He went up to the sitting-room. If she was not there, he would leave his excuses. 

She was there, and seated; neither crying, nor smiling, nor pointedlyserious in any way, not conventionally at her ease either. And soclearly was he impressed by her transparency in simplicity of expression, that he took without a spurn at it the picture of a woman half drainedof her blood, veiling the wound. And a young woman, a stranger tosuffering: perhaps--as the creatures do looking for the usual flummerytenderness, what they call happiness; wondering at the absence of it andthe shifty ghost of a husband she has got by floundering into the bogknown as Marriage. She would have it, and here she was!

He entered the situation and was possessed by the shivering delicacyof it. Surface emotions were not seen on her. She might be a creaturewith a soul. Here and there the thing has been found in women. It ispriceless when found, and she could not be acting. One might swear thecreature had no power to act. 

She spoke without offence, the simplest of words, affected nosolicitudes, put on no gilt smiles, wore no reproaches: spoke to him asif so it happened--he had necessarily a journey to perform. One couldsee all the while big drops falling from the wound within. One couldhear it in her voice. Imagine a crack of the string at the bow's deepstress. Or imagine the bow paralyzed at the moment of the deepestsounding. And yet the voice did not waver. She had now the richness oftone carrying on a music through silence. 

Well, then, at least, he had not been the utterly duped fool he thoughthimself since the consent was pledged to wed her. 

More, she had beauty--of its kind. Or splendour or grandeur, was theterm for it. But it bore no name. None of her qualities--if they werequalities--had a name. She stood with a dignity that the word did notexpress. She endured meekly, when there was no meekness. Pain breathedout of her, and not a sign of pain was visible. She had, under hispresent observation of her, beauty, with the lines of her face breakingin revolt from beauty--or requiring a superterrestrial illumination toshow the harmony. He, as he now saw, had erred grossly in supposing herinsensitive, and therefore slow of a woman's understanding. She drew thebreath of pain through the lips: red lips and well cut. Her brown eyeswere tearless, not alluring or beseeching or repelling; they did butlook, much like the skies opening high aloof on a wreck of storm. Herreddish hair-chestnut, if you will--let fall a skein over one of therugged brows, and softened the ruggedness by making it wilder, as if agreat bird were winging across a shoulder of the mountain ridges. Conceived of the mountains, built in their image, the face partookalternately of mountain terror or splendour; wholly, he remembered, of the splendour when her blood ran warm. No longer the chalk-quarryface, --its paleness now was that of night Alps beneath a moon chasing theshadows. 

She might be casting her spells again. 

'You remember I told you, ' he said, 'I have given my word--I don't breakit--to be at a Ball. Your uncle was urgent to have the ceremony over. These clashes occur. The people here--I have spoken of that: people ofgood repute for attention to guests. I am uncertain of the time . . . We have all to learn to wait. So then, good-bye till we meet. '

He was experiencing a novel nip of torment, of just the degree whichtakes a partial appeasement from the inflicting of it, and calls up aloathed compassion. She might have been in his arms for a step, thoughshe would not have been the better loved. 

He was allowed his escape, bearing with him enough of husband to execrateanother enslaving pledge of his word, that begat a frenzy to wreak somecaresses on the creature's intolerably haunting image. Of course, hecould not return to her. How would she receive him? There was no saltin the thought of it; she was too submissive. 

However, there would be fun with Chummy Potts on the drive to Canleys;fun with Rufus Abrane at Mrs. Cowper Quillett's; and with the CountessLivia, smothered, struggling, fighting for life with the title ofDowager. A desire for unbridled fun had hold of any amount of it, toexcess in any direction. And though this cloud as a dry tongue aftermuch wine craves water, glimpses of his tramp's walk with a fellow trampon a different road, enjoying strangely healthy vagabond sensations andvast ideas; brought the vagrant philosopher refreshfully to his mind:chiefly for the reason that while in Woodseer's company he had hardlysuffered a stroke of pain from the thought of Henrietta. She was now amarried woman, he was a married man by the register. Stronger proof ofthe maddest of worlds could not be furnished. 

Sane in so mad a world, a man is your flabby citizen among outlaws, goodfor plucking. Fun, at any cost, is the one object worth a shot in such aworld. And the fun is not to stop. If it does, we are likely to be gothold of, and lugged away to the altar--the terminus. That foul disasterhas happened, through our having temporarily yielded to a fit of thedumps and treated a mad world's lunatic issue with some seriousness. Butfun shall be had with the aid of His Highness below. The madder theworld, the madder the fun. And the mixing in it of another element, which it has to beguile us--romance--is not at all bad cookery. Poeticromance is delusion--a tale of a Corsair; a poet's brain, a bottle ofgin, and a theatrical wardrobe. Comic romance is about us everywhere, alive for the tapping. 

A daughter of the Old Buccaneer should participate in it by right ofbirth: she would expect it in order to feel herself perfectly at home. Then, be sure, she finds an English tongue and prattles away as merrilyas she does when her old scapegrace of a father is the theme. Son-in-lawto him! But the path of wisdom runs in the line of facts, and to havewild fun and romance on this pantomime path, instead of kicking to breakaway from it, we follow things conceived by the genius of the situation, for the delectation of the fair Countess of Fleetwood and the earl, herdelighted husband, quite in the spirit of the Old Buccaneer, father ofthe bride. 

Carinthia sat beside the fire, seeing nothing in the room or on the road. Up in her bedchamber, the girl Madge was at her window. She saw LordFleetwood standing alone, laughing, it seemed, at some thought; he threwup his head. Was it a newly married man leaving his bride and laughing?The bride was a dear lady, fit for better than to be driven to look on ata prize-fight--a terrible scene to a lady. She was left solitary: andthis her wedding day? The earl had said it, he had said she bore hisname, spoke of coming from the altar, and the lady had blushed to hearherself called Miss. The pressure of her hand was warm with Madge: hersituation roused the fervid latent sisterhood in the breast of women. 

Before he mounted the coach, Lord Fleetwood talked to Kit Ives. Hepointed at an upper window, seemed to be issuing directions. Kit nodded;he understood it, whatever it was. You might have said, a pair ofburglars. The girl ran downstairs to bid her lover good-bye and show himshe really rejoiced in his victory. Kit came to her saying: 'Given myword of honour I won't make a beast of myself to-night. Got to watchover you and your lady. '

Lord Fleetwood started his fresh team, casting no glance at the windowsof the room where his bride was. He and the gentlemen on the coach werelaughing. 

His leaving of his young bride to herself this day was classed among themurky flashes which distinguished the deeds of noblemen. But hislaughter on leaving her stamped it a cruelty; of the kind that plainmortals, who can be monsters, commit. Madge conceived a pretext forgoing into the presence of her mistress, whose attitude was the same aswhen she first sat in the chair. The lady smiled and said: 'He is nothurt much?' She thought for them about her. 

The girl's, heart of sympathy thumped, and her hero became a very minuteobject. He had spoken previously of the making or not making a beast ofhimself; without inflicting a picture of the beast. His words took shapenow, and in consequence a little self-pity began to move. It stirred toswell the great wave of pity for the lady, that was in her bosom. 'Oh, he!' she said, and extinguished the thought of him; and at once herunder-lip was shivering, her eyes filled and poured. 

Carinthia rose anxiously. The girl dropped at her feet. 'You have beenso good to me to-day, my lady! so good to me to-day! I can't help it--I don't often just for this moment; I've been excited. Oh, he's well, hewill do; he's nothing. You say "poor child!" But I'm not; it's only. Excitement. I do long to serve you the best I can. '

She stood up in obedience and had the arms of her young mistress pressingher. Tears also were streaming from Carinthia's eyes. Heartily shethanked the girl for the excuse to cry. 

They were two women. On the road to Canleys, the coach conveying menspouted with the lusty anecdote, relieved of the interdict of atyrannical sex. 

CHAPTER XVIII

DOWN WHITECHAPEL WAY

Contention begets contention in a land of the pirate races. Gigs wereat high rival speed along the road from the battle-field to London. They were the electrical wires of the time for an expectant populationbursting to have report of so thundering an event as the encounter of twochampion light weights, nursed and backed by a pair of gallant youngnoblemen, pick of the whole row of coronets above. London panted gapingand the gigs flew with the meat to fill it. 

Chumley Potts offered Ambrose Mallard fair odds that the neat little trapof the chief sporting journal, which had a reputation to maintain, wouldbe over one or other of the bridges crossing the Thames first. Mallardhad been struck by the neat little trap of an impudent new and lower-priced journal, which had a reputation to gain. He took the profferedodds, on the cry as of a cracker splitting. Enormous difficulties inregard to the testimony and the verifications were discussed; they wereovercome. Potts was ready for any amount of trouble; Mallard the same. There was clearly a race. There would consequently be a record. Visitsto the offices of those papers, perhaps half a day at the south end ofLondon or on Westminster bridge, examining witnesses, corner shopmen, watermen, and the like, would or should satisfactorily establish thedisputed point. 

Fleetwood had his fun; insomuch that he laughed himself into a sentimentof humaneness toward the couple of donkeys and forgot his contempt ofthem. Their gamblings and their bets increased his number of dependents;and imbeciles were preferable to dolts or the dry gilt figures of thecircle he had to move in. Matter for some astonishment had beenfurnished to the latter this day; and would cause an icy Signor stareand rather an angry Signora flutter. A characteristic of that uppercircle, as he knew it, is, that the good are dull, the vicious very bad. They had nothing to please him but manners. Elsewhere this land is aland of no manners. Take it and make the most of it, then, for itsquality of brute honesty: which is found to flourish best in the Britishprize-ring. 

His irony landed him there. It struck the country a ringing blow. Butit struck an almost effacing one at the life of the young nobleman ofboundless wealth, whose highest renown was the being a patron ofprizefighters. Husband of the daughter of the Old Buccaneer as well!perchance as a result. That philosopher tramp named her 'beautifulGorgon. ' She has no beauty; and as for Gorgon, the creature has a lookof timid softness in waiting behind her rocky eyes. A barbaric damselbeginning to nibble at civilization, is nearer the mark; and ought she tobe discouraged?

Fleetwood's wrath with his position warned him against the dupery of anysuch alcove thoughts. For his wrath revenged him, and he feared thebeing stripped of it, lest a certain fund of his own softness, that heknew of; though few did, should pull him to the creature's feet. Shebelonged to him indeed; so he might put her to the trial of whether shehad a heart and personal charm, without the ceremony of wooing--which, in his case, tempted to the feeling desperately earnest and becomingenslaved. He speculated upon her eyelids and lips, and her voice, whenmelting, as women do in their different ways; here and there with anexecrable--perhaps pardonable--art; one or two divinely. The vision drewhim to a headlong plunge and swim of the amorous mind, occupying aminute, filling an era. He corrected the feebleness, and at the sametime threw a practical coachman's glance on peculiarities of the road, requiring some knowledge of it if traversed backward at a whipping paceon a moonless night. The drive from Canleys to the Royal Sovereign couldbe done by good pacers in an hour and a half, little more--with Ives andthe stables ready, and some astonishment in a certain unseen chamber. Fleetwood chuckled at a vision of romantic devilry--perfectly legitimatetoo. Something, more to inflict than enjoy, was due to him. 

He did, not phrase it, that a talk with the fellow Woodseer of hismountains and his forests, and nature, philosophy, poetry, would havebeen particularly healthy for him, almost as good as the good counsel beneeded and solicited none to give him. It swept among his ruminationswhile he pricked Potts and Mallard to supply his craving for satanicalfare. 

Gower Woodseer; the mention of whom is a dejection to the venerablesource of our story, was then in the act of emerging from the Eastwardinto the Southward of the line of Canterbury's pilgrims when they setforth to worship, on his homeward course, after a walk of two days out ofDover. He descended London's borough, having exactly twopence halfpennyfor refreshment; following a term of prudent starvation, at the end ofthe walk. It is not a district seductive to the wayfarer's appetite;as, for example, one may find the Jew's fry of fish in oil, inspiritingthe Shoreditch region, to be. Nourishment is afforded, according to thelaws of England's genius in the arts of refection, at uninviting shops, to the necessitated stomach. A penn'orth of crumb of bread, assisted onits laborious passage by a penn'orth of the rinsings of beer, left thenatural philosopher a ha'penny for dessert at the stall of an applewoman, where he withstood an inclination toward the juicy fruit and chose nuts. They extend a meal, as a grimace broadens the countenance, illusorily;but they help to cheat an emptiness in time, where it is nearly asoffensive to our sensations as within us; and that prolonged occupationof the jaws goes a length to persuade us we are filling. All the betterwhen the substance is indigestible. Tramps of the philosophical order, who are the practically sagacious, prefer tough grain for the teeth. Woodseer's munching of his nuts awakened to fond imagination the pictureof his father's dinner, seen one day and little envied: a small slice ofcold boiled mutton-flesh in a crescent of white fat, with a lump of drybread beside the plate. 

Thus he returned to the only home he had, not disheartened, and bearingscenes that outvied London's print-shops for polychrome splendour, anexultation to recall. His condition, moreover, threw his father's lifeand work into colour: the lean Whitechapel house of the minister amongthe poor; the joy in the saving of souls, if he could persuade himselfthat such good labour advanced: and at the fall of light, the pastimetask of bootmaking--a desireable occupation for a thinker. Thought fliesbest when the hands are easily busy. Cobblers have excursive minds. Their occasional rap at the pegs diversifies the stitchings and is oftenhappily timed to settle an internal argument. Seek in a village forinformation concerning the village or the state of mankind, you will beless disappointed at the cobbler's than elsewhere, it has been said. 

As Gower had anticipated, with lively feelings of pleasure, Mr. Woodseerwas at the wonted corner of his back room, on the stool between twotallow candleflames, leather scented strongly, when the wanderer stoodbefore him, in the image of a ball that has done with circling about astable point. 

'Back?' the minister sang out at once, and his wrinkles gleamed:

Their hands grasped. 

'Hungry, sir, rather. '

'To be sure, you are. One can read it on your boots. Mrs. Jones willspread you a table. How many miles to-day? Show the soles. They tell atale of wear. '

They had worn to resemble the thin-edged layers of still upper cloudround the peep of coming sky. 

'About forty odd to-day, sir. They've done their hundreds of miles andhave now come to dock. I 'll ask Mrs. Jones to bring me a plate here. '

Gower went to the housekeeper in the kitchen. His father's front doorwas unfastened by day; she had not set eyes on him yet, and Mr. Woodseermurmured:

'Now she's got the boy. There 's clasping and kissing. He's all wildWales to her. '

The plate of meat was brought by Mary Jones with Gower beside her, and asniffle of her happiness audible. She would not, although invited tostay and burning to hear Gower, wait in the room where father and son hadto talk together after a separation, long to love's counting. She was aWelshwoman of the pure blood, therefore delicately mannered by nature. 

'Yes, dear lad, tobacco helps you on to the marrow of your story, and Itoo will blow the cloud, ' said Mr. Woodseer, when the plate was pushedaside and the pipe appeared. 

So Gower's recital of his wanderings began, more puffs than speech at thecommencement. He was alternately picturesque and sententious until hereached Baden; there he became involved, from thinking of a revelation ofbeauty in woman. 

Mr. Woodseer rapped the leather on his block. 

'A place where they have started public gambling, I am told. '

'We must look into all the corners of the world to know it, sir, and theworld has to be riddled or it riddles us. '

'Ah. Did you ever tell a lie, Gower Woodseer?'

'I played. '

'You played. The Lord be thanked you have kept your straight tongue!The Lord can always enter a heart of truth. Sin cannot dwell with it. But you played for gain, and that was a licenced thieving; and that was abacksliding; and there will have to be a climbing up. And what thatmeans, your hold on truth will learn. Touch sin and you accommodateyourself to its vileness. Ay, you love nature. Nature is not anchoragefor vessels like men. If you loved the Book you would float in harbour. You played. I do trust you lost. '

'You have your wish, sir. '

'To have won their money, Gower! Rather starve. '

'I did. '

'Your reason for playing, poor lad?'

'The reason eludes reason. '

'Not in you. '

'Sight of the tables; an itch to try them--one's self as well; a notionthat the losers were playing wrong. In fine, a bit of a whirl of amedley of atoms; I can't explain it further. '

'Ah. The tippler's fumes in his head! Spotty business, Gower Woodseer. "Lead us not into temptation" is worldly wisdom in addition to heavenly. '

After listening to an extended homily, with a general assent andtobacco's phlegm, Gower replied to his father's 'You starved manfully?'nodding: 'From Baden to Nancy. An Alsatian cottager at times helped mealong, milk and bread. '

'Wholesome for body and for soul. '

'Entering Nancy I subscribed to the dictum of our first fathers, whichdogs would deliver, if they could speak: that there is no driver likestomach: and I went head on to the College, saw the Principal: plea ofurgency. No engagement possible, to teach either French or English. Buthe was inquisitive touching the urgency. That was my chance. The Frenchare humane when they are not suspicious of you. They are generous, ifyou put a light to their minds. As I was dealing with a scholarly one, I made use of such ornamental literary skill as I possessed, to proveurgency. He supplied me with bread, fruit, and wine. In the end heprocured me pupils. I lodged over a baker's shop. I had food walks, andlearnt something of forestry there--a taking study. When I had savedenough to tramp it home, I said my adieux to that good friend and trampedaway, entering London with about the same amount in small coin as when Ientered Nancy. A manner of exactly hitting the mark, that some would notfind so satisfactory as it is to me. '

The minister sighed. 'There comes in the "philosophy, " I suppose. Whenwill you understand, that this "philosophy" is only the passive of areligious faith? It seems to suit you gentlemen of the road while youare young. Work among the Whitechapel poor. It would be a way fordiscovering the shallows of your "philosophy" earlier. '

Gower asked him: 'Going badly here, sir?'

'Murders, robberies, misusage of women, and misconduct of women!--Drink, in short: about the same amount. Drink is their death's river, rollingthem on helpless as corpses, on to--may they find mercy! I and a fewstand--it's in the tide we stand here, to stop them, pluck them out, makelife a bit sweet to them before the poor bodies go beneath. But come!all's not dark, we have our gleams. I speak distressed by one of ourgirls: a good girl, I believe; and the wilfullest that ever had commandof her legs. A well-favoured girl! You'll laugh, she has given herheart to a prize-fighter. Well, you can say, she might have chosenworse. He drinks, she hates it; she loves the man and hates his vice. He swears amendment, is hiccupping at night; fights a match on themorrow, and gets beaten out of formation. No matter: whenever, wherever, that man goes to his fight, that girl follows to nurse him after it. He's her hero. Women will have one, and it's their lottery. You read ofsuch things; here we have it alive and walking. I am led to think they're an honest couple. They come of established families. Her mother wasout of Caermarthen; died under my ministration, saintly, forgiving thedrunkard. You may remember the greengrocer, Tobias Winch? He passedaway in shrieks for one drop. I had to pitch my voice to the top notesto get hearing for the hymn. He was a reverent man, with the craving byfits. That should have been a lesson to Madge. '

'A little girl at the greengrocer's hard by? She sold me apples; ratherpretty, ' said Gower. 

'A fine grown girl now--Madge Winch; a comely wench she is. It breaksher sister Sarah's heart. They both manage the little shop; they make itprosper in a small way; enough, and what need they more? ThenChristopher Ines has on one of his matches. Madge drives her cart out, if it 's near town. She's off down into Kent to-day by coach, Sarahtells me. A great nobleman patronizes Christopher; a Lord Fleetwood, a lord of wealth. And he must be thoughtful for these people: he sentSarah word that Christopher should not touch drink. You may remember abutcher Ines in the street next to us. Christopher was a wild lad, always at "best man" with every boy he met: went to sea--ran away. Hereturned a pugilist. The girl will be nursing him now. I have spoken toher of him; and I trust to her; but I mourn her attachment to the man whodrinks. '

'The lord's name?' said Gower. 

'Lord Fleetwood, Sarah named him. And so it pleases him to spend hismoney!'

'He has other tastes. I know something of him, sir. He promises to be apatron of Literature as well. His mother was a South Wales woman. '

'Could he be persuaded to publish a grand edition of the Triads?' Mr. Woodseer said at once. 

'No man more likely. '

'If you see him, suggest it. '

'Very little chance of my meeting him again. But those Triads! They'rein our blood. They spring to tie knots in the head. They push me tocondense my thoughts to a tight ball. They were good for primitivetimes: but they--or the trick of the mind engendered by them--trip mysteps along the lines of composition. I produce pellets instead offlowing sheets. It'll come right. At present I 'm so bent to pick andperfect, polish my phrase, that I lose my survey. As a consequence, myvocabulary falters. '

'Ah, ' Mr. Woodseer breathed and smote. 'This Literature is to be yourprofession for the means of living?'

'Nothing else. And I'm so low down in the market way of it, that I couldnot count on twenty pounds per annum. Fifty would give me standing, anindependent fifty. '

'To whom are you crying, Gower?'

'Not to gamble, you may be sure. '

'You have a home. '

'Good work of the head wants an easy conscience. I've too much of you inme for a comfortable pensioner. '

'Or is it not, that you have been living the gentleman out there, withjust a holiday title to it?'

Gower was hit by his father's thrust. 'I shall feel myself a pieman'schuckpenny as long as I'm unproductive, now I 've come back and have toown to a home, ' he said. 

Tea brought in by Mrs. Mary Jones rather brightened him until heconsidered that the enlivenment was due to a purchase by money, of which he was incapable, and he rejected it, like an honourable man. Simultaneously, the state of depression threw critic shades on a prizedsentence or two among his recent confections. It was rejected for thebest of reasons and the most discomforting: because it racked ourEnglish; signifying, that he had not yet learnt the right use of hisweapons. 

He was in this wrestle, under a placid demeanour, for several days, hearing the shouts of Whitechapel Kit's victory, and hearing of SarahWinch's anxiety on account of her sister Madge; unaffected by sounds ofjoy or grief, in his effort to produce a supple English, with Baden'sMadonna for sole illumination of his darkness. To her, to theillimitable gold-mist of perspective and the innumerable images thethought of her painted for him, he owed the lift which withdrew him fromcontemplation of himself in a very disturbing stagnant pool of thewastes; wherein often will strenuous youth, grown faint, behold a facebeneath a scroll inscribed Impostor. All whose aim was high have spiedinto that pool, and have seen the face. His glorious lady would not letit haunt him. 

The spell she cast had likewise power to raise him clean out of aneighbourhood hinting Erebus to the young man with thirst for air, solitudes, and colour. Scarce imaginable as she was, she reigned here, in the idea of her, more fixedly than where she had been visible; as itwere, by right of her being celestially removed from the dismal place. He was at the same time not insensible to his father's contentedministrations among these homes of squalor; they pricked the curiosity, which was in the youthful philosopher a form of admiration. For hisfather, like all Welshmen, loved the mountains. Yet here he lived, exhorting, ministering, aiding, supported up to high good cheer by some, it seemed, superhuman backbone of uprightness;--his religious faith?Well, if so, the thing might be studied. But things of the frozensenses, lean and hueless things, were as repellent to Gower's imaginationas his father's dishes to an epicure. What he envied was, the worthy oldman's heart of feeling for others: his feeling at present for the girlSarah Winch and her sister Madge, who had not been heard of since shestarted for the fight. Mr. Woodseer had written to her relatives at theWells, receiving no consolatory answer. 

He was relieved at last; and still a little perplexed. Madge hadreturned, he informed Gower. She was well, she was well in health; hehad her assurances that she was not excited about herself. 

'She has brought a lady with her, a great lady to lodge with her. Shehas brought the Countess of Fleetwood to lodge with her. '

Gower heard those words from his father; and his father repeated them. To the prostrate worshipper of the Countess of Fleetwood, they were ablow on the head; madness had set in here, was his first recoveringthought, or else a miracle had come to pass. Or was it a sham Countessof Fleetwood imposing upon the girl? His father was to go and see thegreat lady, at the greengrocer's shop; at her request, according toMadge. Conjectures shot their perishing tracks across a darkness thatdeepened and made shipwreck of philosophy. Was it the very Countess ofFleetwood penitent for her dalliance with the gambling passion, infeminine need of pastor's aid, having had report from Madge of this goodshepherd? His father expressed a certain surprise; his countenance wasmild. He considered it a merely strange occurrence. 

Perhaps, in a crisis, a minister of religion is better armed than aphilosopher. Gower would not own that, but he acknowledged theevidences, and owned to envy; especially when he accompanied his fatherto the greengrocer's shop, and Mr. Woodseer undisturbedly said:

'Here is the place. ' The small stuffed shop appeared to growportentously cavernous and waveringly illumined. 

CHAPTER XIX

THE GIRL MADGE

Customers were at the counter of the shop, and these rational figures, together with the piles of cabbages, the sacks of potatoes, the palesmall oranges here and there, the dominant smell of red herrings, deniedthe lurking of an angelical presence behind them. 

Sarah Winch and a boy served at the counter. Sarah led the Mr. Woodseersinto a corner knocked off the shop and called a room. Below the top barsof a wizened grate was a chilly fire. London's light came piecemealthrough a smut-streaked window. If the wonderful was to occur, this wasthe place to heighten it. 

'My son may be an intruder, ' Mr. Woodseer said. 'He is acquainted with aLord Fleetwood . . . '

'Madge will know, sir, ' replied Sarah, and she sent up a shrill cry forMadge from the foot of the stairs. 

The girl ran down swiftly. She entered listening to Sarah, looking atGower; to whom, after a bob and pained smile where reverence was owing, she said, 'Can you tell me, sir, please, where we can find Lord Fleetwoodnow?'

Gower was unable to tell. Madge turned to Mr. Woodseer, saying soonafter: 'Oh, she won't mind; she'll be glad, if he knows Lord Fleetwood. I'll fetch her. '

The moments were of the palpitating order for Gower, although his commonsense lectured the wildest of hearts for expecting such a possibility asthe presence of his lofty lady here. 

And, of course, common sense proved to be right: the lady was quiteanother. But she struck on a sleeping day of his travels. Her face wasnot one to be forgotten, and to judge by her tremble of a smile, sheremembered him instantly. 

They were soon conversing, each helping to paint the scene of the placewhere they had met. 

'Lord Fleetwood has married me, ' she said. 

Gower bent his head; all stood silent. 

'May I?' said Madge to her. 'It is Lord Fleetwood's wedded wife, sir. He drove her from her uncle's, on her wedding day, the day of a prize-fight, where I was; he told me to wait on his lady at an inn there, as I've done and will. He drove away that evening, and he hasn't'--thegirl's black eyebrows worked: 'I've not seen him since. He's a greatnobleman, yes. He left his lady at the inn, expenses paid. He left herwith no money. She stayed on till her heart was breaking. She has cometo London to find him. She had to walk part of the way. She has only achange of linen we brought in a parcel. She's a stranger to England: sheknows nobody in London. She had no place to come to but this poor holeof ours she 's so good as let welcome her. We can't do better, and it 'sno use to be ashamed. She 's not a lady to scorn poor people. '

The girl's voice hummed through Gower. 

He said: 'Lord Fleetwood may not be in London, ' and chafed at himself forsuch a quaver. 

'It's his house we want, sir, he has not been at his house in Kent. Wewant his London house. '

'My dear lady, ' said Mr. Woodseer; 'it might be as well to communicatethe state of things to your family without delay. My son will call atany address you name; or if it is a country address, I can write theitems, with my assurances of your safety under my charge, in my house, which I beg you to make your home. My housekeeper is known to Sarah andMadge for an excellent Christian woman. '

Carinthia replied: 'You are kind to me, sir. I am grateful. I have anuncle; I would not disturb my uncle; he is inventing guns and he wishespeace. It is my husband I have come to find. He did not leave me inanger. '

She coloured. With a dimple of tenderness at one cheek, looking fromSarah to Madge, she said: 'I would not leave my friends; they are sistersto me. ' Sarah, at these words, caught up her apron. Madge did no morethan breathe deep and fast. 

An unoccupied cold parlour in Mr. Woodseer's house that would be heatedfor a guest, urged him to repeat his invitation, but he took the checkfrom Gower, who suggested the doubt of Mary Jones being so good anattendant upon Lady Fleetwood as Madge. 'And Madge has to help in theshop at times. '

Madge nodded, looked into the eyes of her mistress, which sanctioned hersaying: 'She will like it best here, she is my lady and I understand herbest. My lady gives no trouble: she is hardy, she's not like otherladies. I and Sarah sleep together in the room next. I can hearanything she wants. She takes us as if she was used to it. '

Sarah had to go to serve a customer. Madge made pretence of pricking herears and followed into the shop. 

'Your first visit to London is in ugly weather, Lady Fleetwood, ' saidGower. 

'It is my first, ' she answered. 

How the marriage came about, how the separation, could not be asked andwas not related. 

'Our district is not all London, my dear lady, ' said Mr. Woodseer. 'Good hearts are here, as elsewhere, and as many, if one looks behind thedirt. I have found it since I laboured amongst them, now twenty years. Unwashed human nature, though it is natural to us to wash, is the mosthuman, we find. '

Gower questioned the naturalness of human nature's desire to wash; andthey wrangled good-humouredly, Carinthia's eyes dwelling on them each inturn; until Mr. Woodseer, pursuing the theme started by him to interesther, spoke of consolations derived from his labours here, in exchange forthe loss of his mountains. Her face lightened. 

'You love the mountains?'

'I am a son of the mountains. '

'Ah, I love them! Father called me a daughter of the mountains. I wasborn in the mountains. I was leaving my mountains on the day, I think ityesterday, when I met this gentleman who is your son. '

'A glorious day it was!' Gower exclaimed. 

'It was a day of great glory for me, ' said Carinthia. 'Your foot did notpain you for long?'

'The length of two pipes. You were with your brother. '

'With my brother. My brother has married a most beautiful lady. He isnow travelling his happy time--my Chillon !'

There came a radiance on her under-eyelids. There was no weeping. 

Struck by the contrast between the two simultaneous honeymoons, and avision of the high-spirited mountain girl, seen in this place a youngbride seeking her husband, Gower Woodseer could have performed thatunphilosophical part. He had to shake himself. She seemed really asoaring bird brought down by the fowler. 

Lord Fleetwood's manner of abandoning her was the mystery. 

Gower stood waiting for her initiative, when the minister interposed:'There are books, books of our titled people-the Peers, books of thePeerage. They would supply the address. My son will discover where toexamine them. He will find the address. Most of the great noblemen havea London house. '

'My husband has a house in London, ' Carinthia said. 

'I know him, to some degree, ' said Gower. 

She remarked: 'I have heard that you do. '

Her lips were shut, as to any hint at his treatment of her. 

Gower went into the shop to speak with Madge. The girl was talking inthe business tone to customers; she finished her commission hurriedly andjoined him on the pavement by the doorstep. Her voice was like thechange for the swing of a door from street to temple. 

'You've seen how brave she is, sir. She has things to bear. Nevercries, never frets. Her marriage day--leastways . . . I can't, nogirl can tell. A great nobleman, yes. She waited, believing in him;she does. She hasn't spoken to me of what she's had to bear. I don'tknow; I guess; I'm sure I'm right--and him a man! Girls learn to knowmen, call them gentlemen or sweeps. She thinks she has only to meet himto persuade him she 's fit to be loved by him. She thinks of love. Would he--our tongues are tied except among ourselves to a sister. Leaves her by herself, with only me, after--it knocks me dumb! Many aman commits a murder wouldn't do that. She could force him to--no, itisn't a house she wants, she wants him. He's her husband, Mr. Woodseer. You will do what you can to help; I judge by your father. I and Sarah'll slave for her to be as comfortable--as we--can make her; we can'tgive her what she 's used to. I shall count the hours. '

'You sold me apples when your head was just above the counter, ' saidGower. 

'Did I?--you won't lose time, sir?' she rejoined. 'Her box is down atthe beastly inn in Kent. Kind people, I dare say; their bill was paidany extent, they said. And he might do as he liked in it--enter it likea thief, if it pleased him, and off like one, and they no wiser. Shewalked to his big house Esslemont for news of him. And I'm not asnivelling wench either; but she speaks of him a way to make a girldrink her tears, if they ain't to be let fall. '

'But you had a victory down there, ' Gower hinted congratulations. 

'Ah, ' said she. 

'Christopher Ines is all right now?'

'I've as good as lost my good name for Kit Ines, Mr. Woodseer. '

'Not with my dad, Madge. '

'The minister reads us at the heart. Shall we hear the street of hishouse in London before night?'

'I may be late. '

'I'll be up, any hour, for a rap at the shutters. I want to take her tothe house early next morning. She won't mind the distance. She lies inbed, her eyes shut or open, never sleeping, hears any mouse. Itshouldn't go on, if we can do a thing to help. '

'I'm off, ' said Gower, unwontedly vexed at his empty pocket, that couldnot offer the means for conveyance to a couple of young women. 

The dark-browed girl sent her straight eyes at him. They pushed him tohasten. On second thoughts, he stopped and hailed her; he was moved toconfirm an impression of this girl's features. 

His mind was directed to the business burning behind them, honestlyenough, as soon as he had them in sight again. 

'I ought to have the address of some of her people, in case, ' he said. 

'She won't go to her uncle, I 'm sure of that, ' said Madge. 'He 's alord and can't be worried. It 's her husband to find first. '

'If he's to be found!--he's a lord, too. Has she no other relatives orfriends?'

'She loves her brother. He's an officer. He's away on honeymoon. There 's an admiral down Hampshire way, a place I've been near and seen. I'd not have you go to any of them, sir, without trying all we can do tofind Lord Fleetwood. It's Admiral Fakenham she speaks of; she's fond ofhim. She's not minded to bother any of her friends about herself. '

'I shall see you to-night, ' said Gower, and set his face Westward, remembering that his father had named Caermarthen as her mother'sbirthplace. 

Just in that tone of hers do Welshwomen talk of their country; of itshistory, when at home, of its mountains, when exiled: and in a languagelike hers, bare of superlatives to signify an ardour conveyed by the fireof the breath. Her quick devotion to a lady exciting enthusiasm throughadmiring pity for the grace of a much-tried quiet sweetness, wasexplained; apart from other reasons, feminine or hidden, which mightexist. Only a Welsh girl would be so quick and all in it, with a voiceintimating a heated cauldron under her mouth. None but a Welsh-bloodedgirl, risking her good name to follow and nurse the man she considered ahero, would carry her head to look virgin eyes as she did. One couldswear to them, Gower thought. Contact with her spirited him out of hismooniness. 

He had the Cymric and Celtic respect of character; which puts aside theperson's environments to face the soul. He was also an impressionablefellow among his fellows, a philosopher only at his leisure, in hiscourted solitudes. Getting away some strides from this girl of thedrilling voice, --the shudder-voice, he phrased it, --the lady for whom shepleaded came clearer into his view and gradually absorbed him; though itwas an emulation with the girl Madge, of which he was a trifle conscious, that drove him to do his work of service in the directest manner. Hethen fancied the girl had caught something of the tone of her lady: thesavage intensity or sincerity; and he brooded on Carinthia's position, the mixture of the astounding and the woful in her misadventure. Onecould almost laugh at our human fate, to think of a drop off the radiantmountain heights upon a Whitechapel greengrocer's shop, gathering thetitle of countess midway. 

But nothing of the ludicrous touched her; no, and if we bring reason toscan our laugh at pure humanity, it is we who are in the place of theridiculous, for doing what reason disavows. Had he not named her, Carinthia, Saint and Martyr, from a first perusal of her face? And LordFleetwood had read and repeated it. Lord Fleetwood had become theinstrument to martyrize her? That might be; there was a hoard of badstuff in his composition besides the precious: and this was a noblemanowning enormous wealth, who could vitiate himself by disposing of amultitude of men and women to serve his will, a shifty will. Wealthcreates the magician, and may breed the fiend within him. In the handsof a young man, wealth is an invitation to devilry. Gower's idea of thestory of Carinthia inclined to charge Lord Fleetwood with every possiblefalse dealing. He then quashed the charge, and decided to wait forinformation. 

At the second of the aristocratic Clubs of London's West, into which hestepped like an easy member, the hall-porter did not examine his clothingfrom German hat to boots, and gave him Lord Fleetwood's town address. He could tell Madge at night by the door of the shuttered shop, that LordFleetwood had gone down to Wales. 

'It means her having to wait, ' she said. 'The minister has been to thecoach-office, to order up her box from that inn. He did it in his name;they can't refuse; no money's owing. She must have a change. Sally hasfifteen pounds locked up in case of need. '

Sally's capacity and economy fetched the penniless philosopher a slap. 

'You've taken to this lady, ' he said. 

'She held my hand, while Kit Ines was at his work; and I was new to her, and a prize-fighter's lass, they call me:--upon the top of thatnobleman's coach, where he made me sit, behind her, to see the fight;and she his wedded lady that morning. A queer groom. He may keep KitInes from drink, he's one of you men, and rides over anything in his way. I can't speak about it; I could swear it before a judge, from what Iknow. Those Rundles at that inn don't hear anything it suits him to do. All the people down in those parts are slaves to him. And I thought hewas a real St. George before, --yes, ready I was to kiss the ground hisfeet crossed. If you could, it's Chinningfold near where AdmiralFakenham lives, down Hampshire way. Her friends ought to hear what'shappened to her. They'll find her in a queer place. She might go to theminister's. I believe she's happier with us girls. '

Gower pledged his word to start for Chinningfold early as the light nextday. He liked the girl the better, in an amicable fashion, now that hisnerves had got free of the transient spell of her kettle tone--the hardlyvaried one note of a heart boiling with sisterly devotion to a misusedstranger of her sex;--and, after the way of his race, imagination sprangup in him, at the heels of the quieted senses, releasing him from thepersonal and physical to grasp the general situation and place theprotagonist foremost. 

He thought of Carinthia, with full vision of her. Some wrong had beendone, or some violation of the right, to guess from the girl Madge'smolten words in avoidance of the very words. It implied--though it mightbe but one of Love's shrewder discords--such suspected traitorous dealingof a man with their sister woman as makes the world of women all womantoward her. They can be that, and their being so illuminates theirhidden sentiments in relation to the mastering male, whom they uphold. 

But our uninformed philosopher was merely picking up scraps of sheddingsoutside the dark wood of the mystery they were to him, and playingimagination upon them. This primary element of his nature soon enthronedhis chosen lady above their tangled obscurities. Beneath her tranquilbeams, with the rapture of the knowledge that her name on earth wasLivia, he threaded East London's thoroughfares, --on a morning when dayand night were made one by fog, to journey down to Chinningfold, bycoach, in the service of the younger Countess of Fleetwood, whose rightto the title he did not doubt, though it directed surprise movements athis understanding from time to time. 

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Cock-sure has crowed low by sunsetDrink is their death's river, rolling them on helplessFather and she were aware of one another without conversingFun, at any cost, is the one object worth a shotHe was the prisoner of his wordHeartily she thanked the girl for the excuse to cryHearts that make one soul do not separately count their giftsLife is the burlesque of young dreamsMake a girl drink her tears, if they ain't to be let fallOn a morning when day and night were made one by fogPoetic romance is delusionPush me to condense my thoughts to a tight ballShe endured meekly, when there was no meeknessShe seemed really a soaring bird brought down by the fowlerShe stood with a dignity that the word did not expressThere is no driver like stomachTouch sin and you accommodate yourself to its vilenessYou played for gain, and that was a licenced thieving

[The End]

***************************************************************************