BOOK X. 

CHAPTER I. 

BRUTE-FORCE. 

We left Jasper Losely resting for the night at the small town nearFawley. The next morning he walked on to the old Manor-house. It wasthe same morning in which Lady Montfort had held her painful interviewwith Darrell; and just when Losely neared the gate that led into thesmall park, he saw her re-enter the hired vehicle in waiting for her. Asthe carriage rapidly drove past the miscreant, Lady Montfort looked forthfrom the window to snatch a last look at the scenes still so clear toher, through eyes blinded by despairing tears. Jasper thus caught sightof her countenance, and recognised her, though she did not even noticehim. Surprised at the sight, he halted by the palings. What could havebrought Lady Montfort there? Could the intimacy his fraud had broken offso many years ago be renewed? If so, why the extreme sadness on the faceof which he had caught but a hurried, rapid glance? Be that as it might, it was no longer of the interest to him it had once been; and afterpondering on the circumstance a minute or two, he advanced to the gate. But while his hand was on the latch, he again paused; how should heobtain admission to Darrell?--how announce himself? If in his own name, would not exclusion be certain?--if as a stranger on business, wouldDarrell be sure to receive him? As he was thus cogitating, his ear, which, with all his other organs of sense, was constitutionally fine as asavage's, caught sound of a faint rustle among the boughs of a thickcopse which covered a part of the little park, terminating at its pales. The rustle came nearer and nearer; the branches were rudely displaced;and in a few moments more Guy Darrell himself came out from the copse, close by the gate, and opening it quickly, stood face to face with hisabhorrent son-in-law. Jasper was startled, but the opportunity was notto be lost. "Mr. Darrell, " he said, "I come here again to see you;vouchsafe me, this time, a calmer hearing. " So changed was Losely, soabsorbed in his own emotions Darrell, that the words did not at oncewaken up remembrance. "Another time, " said Darrell, hastily moving oninto the road; "I am not at leisure now. " "Pardon me, NOW, " said Losely, unconsciously bringing himself back to the tones and bearing of hisearlier and more civilised years. "You do not remember me, sir; nowonder. But my name is Jasper Losely. "

Darrell halted; then, as if spellbound, looked fixedly at the broad-shouldered burly frame before him, cased in its coarse pea-jacket, and inthat rude form, and that defeatured, bloated face, detected, though withstrong effort, the wrecks of the masculine beauty which had ensnared hisdeceitful daughter. Jasper could not have selected a more unpropitiousmoment for his cause. Darrell was still too much under the influence ofrecent excitement and immense sorrow for that supremacy of prudence overpassion which could alone have made him a willing listener to overturesfrom Jasper Losely. And about the man whose connection with himself wasa thought of such bitter shame, there was now so unmistakably the air ofsettled degradation, that all Darrell's instincts of gentleman wererevolted--just at the very time, too, when his pride had been most chafedand assailed by the obtrusion of all that rendered most galling to himthe very name of Jasper Losely. What! Was it that man's asserted childwhom Lionel Haughton desired as a wife?--was the alliance with that manto be thus renewed and strengthened?--that man have another claim to himand his in right of parentage to the bride of his nearest kinsman? What!was it that man's child whom he was asked to recognise as of his ownflesh and blood?--the last representative of his line? That man!--that!A flash shot from his bright eye, deepening its grey into dark; and, turning on his heel, Darrell said, through his compressed lips--

"You have heard, sir, I believe, through Colonel Morley, that only oncondition of your permanent settlement in one of our distant colonies, orAmerica if you prefer it, would I consent to assist you. I am of thesame mind still. I can not parley with you myself. Colonel Morley isabroad, I believe. I refer you to my solicitor; you have seen him yearsago; you know his address. No more, sir. "

"This will not do, Mr. Darrell, " said Losely, doggedly; and, plantinghimself right before Darrell's way, "I have come here on purpose to haveall differences out with you, face to face--and I will--"

"You will!" said Darrell, pale with haughty anger, and with the impulseof his passion, his hand clenched. In the bravery of his nature, and thewarmth of a temper constitutionally quick, he thought nothing of thestrength and bulk of the insolent obtruder--nothing of the peril of oddsso unequal in a personal encounter. But the dignity which pervaded allhis habits, and often supplied to him the place of discretion, came, happily for himself, to his aid now. He strike a man whom he sodespised!--he raise that man to his own level by the honour of a blowfrom his hand! Impossible! "You will!" he said. "Well, be it so. Areyou come again to tell me that a child of my daughter lives, and that youwon my daughter's fortune by a deliberate lie?"

"I am not come to speak of that girl, but of myself. I say that I have aclaim on you, Mr. Darrell; I say that turn and twist the truth as youwill, you are still my father-in-law, and that it is intolerable that Ishould be wanting bread, or driven into actual robbery, while my wife'sfather is a man of countless wealth, and has no heir except--but I willnot now urge that child's cause; I am content to abandon it if soobnoxious to you. Do you wish me to cut a throat, and to be hanged, andall the world to hear the last dying speech and confession of GuyDarrell's son-in-law? Answer me, sir?"

"I answer you briefly and plainly. It is simply because I would not havethat last disgrace on Guy Darrell's name that I offer you a subsistencein lands where you will be less exposed to those temptations whichinduced you to invest the sums that, by your own tale, had been obtainedfrom me on false pretences, in the sink of a Paris gambling house. Asubsistence that, if it does not pamper vice, at least places you beyondthe necessity of crime, is at your option. Choose it or reject it as youwill. "

"Look you, Mr. Darrell, " said Jasper, whose temper was fast giving waybeneath the cold and galling scorn with which he was thus cast aside, "I am in a state so desperate, that, rather than starve, I may take whatyou so contemptuously fling to--your daughter's husband; but--"

"Knave!" cried Darrell, interrupting him, "do you again and again urge itas a claim upon me, that you decoyed from her home, under a false name, my only child; that she died in a foreign land-broken-hearted, if I haverightly heard is that a claim upon your duped victim's father?"

"It seems so, since your pride is compelled to own that the world woulddeem it one, if the jail chaplain took down the last words of your son-in-law! But, /basta, basta!/ hear me out, and spare hard names; for theblood is mounting into my brain, and I may become dangerous. Had anyother man eyed, and scoffed, and railed at me as you have done, he wouldbe lying dead and dumb as this stone at my foot; but you-are my father-in-law! Now, I care not to bargain with you what be the precise amountof my stipend if I obey your wish, and settle miserably in one of thoseraw, comfortless corners into which they who burthen this Old World arethrust out of sight. I would rather live my time out in this country--live it out in peace and for half what you may agree to give intransporting me. If you are to do anything for me, you had better do itso as to make me contented on easy terms to your own pockets, rather thanto leave me dissatisfied, and willing to annoy you, which I could dosomehow or other, even on the far side of the Herring Pond. I might keepto the letter of a bargain, live in Melbourne or Sydney, and take yourmoney, and yet molest and trouble you by deputy. That girl, forinstance--your grandchild; well, well, disown her if you please; but if Ifind out where she is, which I own I have not done yet, I might contriveto render her the plague of your life, even though I were in Australia. "

"Ay, " said Darrell, murmuring--"ay, ay; but"--(suddenly gathering himselfup)--"No! Man, if she were my grandchild, your own child, could you talkof her thus? make her the object of so base a traffic, and such miserablethreats? Wicked though you be, this were against nature! even innature's wickedness--even in the son of a felon, and in the sharper of ahell. Pooh! I despise your malice. I will listen to you no longer. Outof my path. "

"No!"

"No?"

"No, Guy Darrell, I have not yet done; you shall hear my terms, andaccept them--a moderate sum down; say a few hundreds, and two hundred a-year to spend in London as I will--but out of your beat, out of yoursight and hearing. Grant this, and I will never cross you again--neverattempt to find, and, if I find by chance, never claim as my child byyour daughter that wandering girl. I will never shame you by naming ourconnection. I will not offend the law, nor die by the hangman; yet Ishall not live long, for I suffer much, and I drink hard. "

The last words were spoken gloomily, not altogether without a strangedreary pathos. And amidst all his just scorn and anger, the large humanheart of Guy Darrell was for the moment touched. He was silent--his mindhesitated; would it not be well--would it not be just as safe to his ownpeace, and to that of the poor child, whom, no matter what her parentage, Darrell could not but desire to free from the claim set up by so bold aruffian, to gratify Losely's wish, and let him remain in England, upon anallowance that would suffice for his subsistence? Unluckily for Jasper, it was while this doubt passed through Darrell's relenting mind, that themiscreant, who was shrewd enough to see that he had gained ground, buttoo coarse of apprehension to ascribe his advantage to its right cause, thought to strengthen his case by additional arguments. "You see, sir, "resumed Jasper, in almost familiar accents, "that there is no dog sotoothless but what he can bite, and no dog so savage but what, if yougive him plenty to eat, he will serve you. "

Darrell looked up, and his brow darkened. 

Jasper continued: "I have hinted how I might plague you; perhaps, on theother hand, I might do you a good turn with that handsome lady who drovefrom your park-gate as I came up. Ah! you were once to have been marriedto her. I read in the newspapers that she has become a widow; you maymarry her yet. There was a story against you once; her mother made useof it, and broke off an old engagement. I can set that story right. "

"You can, " said Darrell, with that exceeding calmness which comes fromexceeding wrath; "and perhaps, sir, that story, whatever it might be, youinvented. No dog so toothless as not to bite--eh, sir?"

"Well, " returned Jasper, mistaking Darrell's composure, "at that timecertainly it seemed my interest that you should not marry again; but/basta! basta!/ enough of bygones. If I bit once, I will serve now. Come, sir, you are a man of the world, let us close the bargain. "

All Darrell's soul was now up in arms. What, then! this infamous wretchwas the author of the tale by which the woman he had loved, as womannever was loved before, had excused her breach of faith, and been lost tohim forever? And he learned this, while yet fresh from her presence--fresh from the agonising conviction that his heart loved still, but couldnot pardon. With a spring so sudden that it took Losely utterly bysurprise, he leaped on the bravo, swung aside that huge bulk which Jasperhad boasted four draymen could not stir against its will, cleared hisway; and turning back before Losely had recovered his amaze, cried out:"Execrable villain! I revoke every offer to aid a life that has existedbut to darken and desolate those it was permitted to approach. Starve orrob! perish miserably! And if I pour not on your head my parting curse, it is only because I know that man has no right to curse; and casting youback on your own evil self is the sole revenge which my belief in Heavenpermits me. "

Thus saying, Darrell strode on-swiftly, but not as one who flies. Jaspermade three long bounds, and was almost at his side, when he was startledby the explosion of a gun. A pheasant fell dead on the road, andDarrell's gamekeeper, gun in hand, came through a gap in the hedgeopposite the park-pales, and, seeing his master close before him, approached to apologise for the suddenness of the shot. 

Whatever Losely's intention in hastening after Darrell, he had no optionnow but to relinquish it, and drop back. The village itself was not manyhundred yards distant; and, after all, what good in violence, except thegratified rage of the moment? Violence would not give to Jasper Loselythe income that had just been within his grasp, and had so unexpectedlyeluded it. He remained, therefore, in the lane, standing still, andseeing Darrell turn quietly into his park through another gate close tothe Manor-house. The gamekeeper, meanwhile, picked up his bird, reloadedhis gun, and eyed Jasper suspiciously askant. The baffled gladiator atlength turned and walked slowly back to the town he had left. It waslate in the afternoon when he once more gained his corner in the coffee-room of his commercial inn; and, to his annoyance, the room was crowded--it was market-day. Farmers, their business over, came in and out inquick succession; those who did not dine at the ordinaries taking theirhasty snack, or stirrup-cup, while their horses were being saddled;others to look at the newspaper, or exchange a word on the state ofmarkets and the nation. Jasper, wearied and sullen, had to wait for therefreshments he ordered, and meanwhile fell into a sort of half-doze, aswas not now unusual in him in the intervals between food and mischief. From this creeping torpor he was suddenly roused by the sound ofDarrell's name. Three farmers standing close beside him, their backs tothe fire, were tenants to Darrell--two of them on the lands that Darrellhad purchased in the years of his territorial ambition; the third residedin the hamlet of Fawley, and rented the larger portion of thecomparatively barren acres to which the old patrimonial estate wascircumscribed. These farmers were talking of their Squire's return tothe county--of his sequestered mode of life--of his peculiar habits--ofthe great unfinished house which was left to rot. The Fawley tenant thensaid that it might not, be left to rot after all, and that the villageworkmen had been lately employed, and still were, in getting some of therooms into rough order; and then he spoke of the long gallery in whichthe Squire had been arranging his fine pictures, and how he had run up apassage between that gallery and his own room, and how he would spendhours at day, and night too, in that awful long room as lone as achurchyard; and that Mr. Mills had said that his master now lived almostentirely either in that gallery or in the room in the roof of the oldhouse--quite cut off, as you might say, except from the eyes of thosedead pictures, or the rats, which had grown so excited at having theirquarters in the new building invaded, that if you peeped in at thewindows in moonlit nights you might see them in dozens, sitting on theirhaunches, as if holding council, or peering at the curious old thingswhich lay beside the crates out of which they had been taken. Then therustic gossips went on to talk of the rent-day which was at hand--of theaudit feast, which, according to immemorial custom, was given at the oldManor-house on that same rent-day--supposed that Mr. Fairthorn wouldpreside--that the Squire himself would not appear--made some incidentalobservations on their respective rents and wheat-crops-remarked that theyshould have a good moonlight for their ride back from the audit feast--cautioned each other, laughing, not to drink too much of Mr. Fairthorn'spunch--and finally went their way, leaving on the mind of Jasper Losely--who, leaning his scheming head on his powerful hand, had appeared indull sleep all the while--these two facts: 1st, That on the third dayfrom that which was then declining, sums amounting to thousands wouldfind their way into Fawley Manor-house; and, 2ndly, That a communicationexisted between the unfinished, uninhabited building, and Darrell's ownsolitary chamber. As soon as he had fortified himself by food and drink, Jasper rose, paid for his refreshments and walked forth. Noiseless andrapid, skirting the hedgerows by the lane that led to Fawley, andscarcely distinguishable under their shadow, the human wild-beast stridedon in scent of its quarry. It was night when Jasper once more reachedthe moss-grown pales round the demesnes of the old Manor-house. In a fewminutes he was standing under the black shadow of the buttresses to theunfinished pile. His object was not, then, to assault, but toreconnoitre. He prowled round the irregular walls, guided in his survey, now and then, faintly by the stars--more constantly and clearly by thelights from the contiguous Manor-house--especially the light from thathigh chamber in the gable, close by which ran the thin framework of woodwhich linked the two buildings of stone, just as any frail scheme linkstogether the Past which man has not enjoyed, with the Future he will notcomplete. Jasper came to a large bay unglazed window, its sill but a fewfeet from the ground, from which the boards, nailed across the mullions, had been removed by the workmen whom Darrell had employed on theinterior, and were replaced but by a loose tarpaulin. Pulling aside thisslight obstacle, Jasper had no difficulty in entering through the widemullions into the dreary edifice. Finding himself in profound darkness, he had recourse to a lucifer-box which he had about him, and the waste ofa dozen matches sufficed him to examine the ground. He was in a spaceintended by the architect for the principal staircase; a tall ladder, used by the recent workmen, was still left standing against the wall, thetop of it resting on a landing-place opposite a doorway, that, from therichness of its half-finished architrave, obviously led to what had beendesigned for the state apartments; between the pediments was a slighttemporary door of rough deal planks. Satisfied with his reconnoitre, Losely quitted the skeleton pile, and retraced his steps to the inn hehad left. His musings by the way suggested to him the expediency, nay, the necessity, of an accomplice. Implements might be needed--disguiseswould be required--swift horses for flight to be hired--and, should therobbery succeed, the bulk of the spoil would be no doubt in bank-notes, which it would need some other hand than his own to dispose of, either atthe bank next morning at the earliest hour, or by transmission abroad. For help in all this Jasper knew no one to compare to Cutts; nor did hesuspect his old ally of any share in the conspiracy against him, of whichhe had been warned by Mrs. Crane. Resolving, therefore, to admit thatlong-tried friend into his confidence, and a share of the spoils, hequickened his pace, arrived at the railway-station in time for a latetrain to London, and, disdainful of the dangers by which he wasthreatened in return to any of the haunts of his late associates, gainedthe dark court wherein he had effected a lodgment on the night of hisreturn to London, and roused Cutts from his slumbers with tales of anenterprise so promising, that the small man began to recover his ancientadmiration for the genius to which he had bowed at Paris, but which hadfallen into his contempt in London. 

Mr. Cutts held a very peculiar position in that section of the greatworld to which he belonged. He possessed the advantage of an educationsuperior to that of the generality of his companions, having beenoriginally a clerk to an Old Bailey attorney, and having since that earlyday accomplished his natural shrewdness by a variety of speculativeenterprises both at home and abroad. In these adventures he had not onlycontrived to make money, but, what is very rare with the foes of law, tosave it. Being a bachelor, he was at small expenses, but besides hisbachelor's lodging in the dark court, he had an establishment in theheart of the City, near the Thames, which was intrusted to the care ofa maiden sister, as covetous and as crafty as himself. At thisestablishment, ostensibly a pawnbroker's, were received the goods whichCutts knew at his residence in the court were to be sold a bargain, having been obtained for nothing. It was chiefly by this business thatthe man enriched himself. But his net was one that took in fishes of allkinds. He was a general adviser to the invaders of law. If he shared inthe schemes he advised, they were so sure to be successful, that heenjoyed the highest reputation for luck. It was but seldom that he didactively share in those schemes--lucky in what he shunned as in what heperformed. He had made no untruthful boast to Mrs. Crane of the skillwith which he had kept himself out of the fangs of justice. With acertain portion of the police he was indeed rather a favourite; for wasanything mysteriously "lost, " for which the owner would give a rewardequal to its value in legal markets, Cutts was the man who would get itback. Of violence he had a wholesome dislike; not that he did not admireforce in others--not that he was physically a coward--but that cautionwas his predominant characteristic. He employed force when required--seta just value on it--would plan a burglary, and dispose of the spoils; butit was only where the prize was great and the danger small, that he lenthis hand to the work that his brain approved. When Losely proposed tohim the robbery of a lone country-house, in which Jasper, making light ofall perils, brought prominently forward the images of some thousands ofpounds in gold and notes, guarded by an elderly gentleman, and to beapproached with ease through an uninhabited building--Cutts thought itwell worth personal investigation. Nor did he consider himself bound, by his general engagement to Mrs. Crane, to lose the chance of a sum soimmeasurably greater than he could expect to obtain from her by revealingthe plot and taking measures to frustate it. Cutts was a most faithfuland intelligent agent when he was properly paid, and had proved himselfso to Mrs. Crane on various occasions. But then, to be paid properlymeant a gain greater in serving than he could get in not serving. Hitherto it had been extremely lucrative to obey Mrs. Crane in savingJasper from crime and danger. In this instance the lucre seemed all theother way. Accordingly, the next morning, having filled a saddle-bagwith sundry necessaries, such as files, picklocks, masks--to which headded a choice selection of political tracts and newspapers--he andJasper set out on two hired but strong and fleet hackneys to theneighbourhood of Fawley. They put up at a town on the other side of theManor-house from that by which Jasper had approached it, and at about thesame distance. After baiting their steeds, they proceeded to Fawley bythe silent guide of a finger-post, gained the vicinity of the park, andCutts, dismounting, flitted across the turf, and plunged himself into thehollows of the unfinished mansion while Jasper took charge of the horsesin a corner of the wooded lane. Cutts, pleased by the survey of theforlorn interior, ventured, in the stillness that reigned around, tomount the ladder, to apply a picklock to the door above, and, openingthis with ease, crept into the long gallery, its walls covered withpictures. Through the crevices in another door at the extreme endgleamed a faint light. Cutts applied his eye to the chinks and keyhole, and saw that the light came from a room on the other side the narrowpassage which connected the new house with the old. The door of thatroom was open, candles were on the table, and beside the table Cuttscould distinguish the outline of a man' s form seated--doubtless theowner; but the form did not seem "elderly. " If inferor to Jasper's inphysical power, it still was that of vigorous and unbroken manhood. Cutts did not like the appearance of that form, and he retreated to outerair with some misgivings. However, on rejoining Losely, he said: "As yetthings look promising-place still as death--only one door locked, andthat the common country lock, which a schoolboy might pick with hisknife. "

"Or a crooked nail, " said Jasper. 

"Ay, no better picklock in good hands. But there are other thingsbesides locks to think of. "

Cutts then hurried on to suggest that it was just the hour when some ofthe workmen employed on the premises might be found in the Fawley public-house; that he should ride on, dismount there, and take his chance ofpicking up details of useful information as to localities and household. He should represent himself as a commercial traveller on his road to thetown they had quitted; he should take out his cheap newspapers andtracts; he should talk politics--all workmen love politics, especiallythe politics of cheap newspapers and tracts. He would rejoin Losely inan hour or so. 

The bravo waited--his horse grazed--the moon came forth, stealing throughthe trees, bringing into fantastic light the melancholy old dwelling-house--the yet more melancholy new pile. Jasper was not, as we haveseen, without certain superstitious fancies, and they had grown on himmore of late as his brain had become chronically heated and his nervesrelaxed by pain. He began to feel the awe of the silence and themoonlight; and some vague remembrances of earlier guiltless days--of afather's genial love--of joyous sensations in the priceless possession ofyouth and vigour--of the admiring smiles and cordial hands which hisbeauty, his daring, and high spirits had attracted towards him--of theall that he had been, mixed with the consciousness of what he was, and anuneasy conjecture of the probable depth of the final fall--came dimlyover his thoughts, and seemed like the whispers of remorse. But it israrely that man continues to lay blame on himself; and Jasper hastened todo, as many a better person does without a blush for his folly--viz. , shift upon the innocent shoulders of fellow-men, or on the hazy outlinesof that clouded form which ancient schools and modern plagiarists callsometimes "Circumstance, " sometimes "Chance, " sometimes "Fate, " all theguilt due to his own wilful abuse of irrevocable hours. 

With this consolatory creed came, of necessity--the devil's grand luxury, Revenge. Say to yourself, "For what I suffer I condemn another man, or Iaccuse the Arch-Invisible, be it a Destiny, be it a Maker!" and thelogical sequel is to add evil to evil, folly to folly--to retort on theman who so wrongs, or on the Arch-Invisible who so afflicts you. Of allour passions, is not Revenge the one into which enters with the most zesta devil? For what is a devil?--A being whose sole work on earth is somerevenge on God!

Jasper Losely was not by temperament vindictive; he was irascible, as thevain are--combative, aggressive, turbulent, by the impulse of animalspirits; but the premeditation of vengeance was foreign to a levity andegotism which abjured the self-sacrifice that is equally necessary tohatred as to love. But Guy Darrell had forced into his moral system apassion not native to it. Jasper had expected so much from his marriagewith the great man's daughter--counted so thoroughly on her power toobtain pardon and confer wealth--and his disappointment had been so keen--been accompanied with such mortification--that he regarded the man whomhe had most injured as the man who had most injured him. But not tillnow did his angry feelings assume the shape of a definite vengeance. Solong as there was a chance that he could extort from Darrell the moneythat was the essential necessary to his life, he checked his thoughtswhenever they suggested a profitless gratification of rage. But now thatDarrell had so scornfully and so inexorably spurned all concession--nowthat nothing was to be wrung from him except by force--force andvengeance came together in his projects. And yet even in the daringoutrage he was meditating, murder itself did not stand out as a thoughtaccepted--no; what pleased his wild and turbid imagination was the ideaof humiliating by terror the man who had humbled him. To penetrate intothe home of this haughty scorner--to confront him in his own chamber atthe dead of night, man to man, force to force; to say to him, "None nowcan deliver you from me--I come no more as a suppliant--I command you toaccept my terms"; to gloat over the fears which, the strong man feltassured, would bow the rich man to beg for mercy at his feet;--this wasthe picture which Jasper Losely conjured up; and even the spoil to be wonby violence smiled on him less than the grand position which the violenceitself would bestow. Are not nine murders out of ten fashioned thus fromconception into deed? "Oh that my enemy were but before me face to face--none to part us!" says the vindictive dreamer. Well, and what then?There, his imagination halts--there he drops the sable curtain; he goesnot on to say, "Why, then another murder will be added to the longcatalogue from Cain. " He palters with his deadly wish, and mutters, perhaps, at most, "Why, then--come what may!"

Losely continued to gaze on the pale walls gleaming through the wintryboughs, as the moon rose high and higher. And now out broke the lightfrom Darrell's lofty casement, and Losely smiled fiercely, and muttered--hark! the very words--"And then! come what may!"

Hoofs are now heard on the hard road, and Jasper is joined by hisaccomplice. 

"Well!" said Jasper. 

"Mount!" returned Cutts; "I have much to say as we ride. "

"This will not do, " resumed Cutts, as they sped fast down the lane; "why, you never told me all the drawbacks. There are no less than four men inthe house--two servants besides the master and his secretary; and one ofthose servants, the butler or valet, has firearms, and knows how to usethem. "

"Pshaw!" said Jasper scoffingly; "is that all? Am I not a match forfour?"

"No, it is not all; you told me the master of the house was a retiredelderly man, and you mentioned his name. But you never told me that yourMr. Darrell was the famous lawyer and Parliament man--a man about whomthe newspapers have been writing the last six months. "

"What does that signify?"

"Signify! Just this, that there will be ten times more row about theaffair you propose than there would be if it concerned only a stupidold country squire, and therefore ten times as much danger. Besides, on principle I don't like to have anything to do with lawyers--a cantankerous, spiteful set of fellows. And this Guy Darrell! Why, General Jas. , I have seen the man. He cross-examined me once when I wasa witness on a case of fraud, and turned me inside out with as much easeas if I had been an old pincushion stuffed with bran. I think I see hiseye now, and I would as lief have a loaded pistol at my head as that eyeagain fixed on mine. "

"Pooh! You have brought a mask; and, besides, YOU need not see him; Ican face him alone. "

"No, no; there might be murder! I never mix myself with things of thatkind, on principle; your plan will not do. There might be a much saferchance of more swag in a very different sort of scheme. I hear that thepictures in that ghostly long room I crept through are worth a mint ofmoney. Now, pictures of great value are well known, and there arecollectors abroad who would pay almost any price for some pictures, andnever ask where they came from; hide them for some years perhaps, and notbring them forth till any tales that would hurt us had died away. Thiswould be safe, I say. If the pictures are small, no one in the old houseneed be disturbed. I can learn from some of the trade what picturesDarrell really has that would fetch a high price, and then look out forcustomers abroad. This will take a little time, but be worth waitingfor. "

"I will not wait, " said Jasper, fiercely; "and you are a coward. I haveresolved that to-morrow night I will be in that man's room, and that manshall be on his knees before me. "

Cutts turned sharply round on his saddle, and by the aid of the moonlightsurveyed Losely's countenance. "Oh, I see, " he said, "there is more thanrobbery in your mind. You have some feeling of hate--of vengeance; theman has injured you?"

"He has treated me as if I were a dog, " said Jasper; "and a dog canbite. "

Cutts mused a few moments. "I have heard you talk at times about somerich relation or connection on whom you had claims; Darrell is the man, Isuppose?"

"He is; and hark ye, Cutts, if you try to balk me here, I will wring yourneck off. And since I have told you so much, I will tell you this muchmore--that I don't think there is the danger you count on; for I don'tmean to take Darrell's blood, and I believe he would not take mine. "

"But there may be a struggle-and then?"

"Ay, if so, and then--man to man, " replied Jasper, mutteringly. 

Nothing more was said, but both spurred on their horses to a quickerpace. The sparks flashed from the hoofs. Now through the moonlight, nowunder shade of the boughs, scoured on the riders--Losely's broad chestand marked countenance, once beautiful, now fearful, formidably definedeven under the shadows--his comrade's unsubstantial figure and goblinfeatures flitting vague even under the moonlight. 

The town they had left came in sight, and by this time Cutts had resolvedon the course his prudence suggested to him. The discovery that, in theproposed enterprise, Losely had a personal feeling of revenge to satisfyhad sufficed to decide the accomplice peremptorily to have nothing to dowith the affair. It was his rule to abstain from all transactions inwhich fierce passions were engaged. And the quarrels between relationsor connections were especially those which his experience of human naturetold him brought risk upon all intermeddlers. But he saw that Jasper wasdesperate; that the rage of the bravo might be easily turned on himself;and therefore, since it was no use to argue, it would be discreet todissimulate. Accordingly, when they reached their inn, and were seatedover their brandy-and-water, Cutts resumed the conversation, appearedgradually to yield to Jasper's reasonings, concerted with him the wholeplan for the next night's operations, and took care meanwhile to pass thebrandy. The day had scarcely broken before Cutts was off, with his bagof implements and tracts. He would have fain carried off also both thehorses; but the ostler, surly at being knocked up at so early an hour, might not have surrendered the one ridden by Jasper, without Jasper's ownorder to do so. Cutts, however, bade the ostler be sure and tell thegentleman, before going away, that he, Cutts, strongly advised him "tohave nothing to do with the bullocks. "

Cutts, on ariving in London, went straight to Mrs. Crane's old lodgingopposite to Jasper's. But she had now removed to Podden Place, and leftno address. On reaching his own home, Cutts, however, found a note fromher, stating that she should be at her old lodging that evening, if hewould call at half-past nine o'clock; for, indeed, she had been expectingJasper's promised visit--had learned that he had left his lodgings, andwas naturally anxious to learn from Cutts what had become of him. WhenCutts called at the appointed hour and told his story, Arabella Craneimmediately recognised all the danger which her informant had soprudently shunned. Nor was she comforted by Cutts's assurance thatJasper, on finding himself deserted, would have no option but to abandon, or at least postpone, an enterprise that, undertaken singly, would be toorash even for his reckless temerity. As it had become the object of herlife to save Losely from justice, so she now shrunk from denouncing tojustice his meditated crime; and the idea of recurring to Colonel Morleyhappily flashed upon her. 

Having thus explained to the reader these antecedents in the narrative, we return to Jasper. He did not rise till late at noon; and as he wasgenerally somewhat stupefied on rising by the drink he had taken thenight before, and by the congested brain which the heaviness of suchsleep produced, he could not at first believe that Cutts had altogetherabandoned the enterprise--rather thought that, with his habitualwariness, that Ulysses of the Profession had gone forth to collectfurther information in the neighbourhood of the proposed scene of action. He was not fully undeceived in this belief till somewhat late in the day, when, strolling into the stable-yard, the ostler, concluding from thegentleman's goodly thews and size that he was a north-country grazier, delivered Cutts's allegorical caution against the bullocks. 

Thus abandoned, Jasper's desperate project only acquired a still moreconcentrated purpose and a ruder simplicity of action. His originalidea, on first conceiving the plan of robbery, had been to enter intoDarrell's presence disguised and masked. Even, however, before Cuttsdeserted him; the mere hope of plunder had become subordinate to thedesire of a personal triumph; and now that Cutts had left him to himself, and carried away the means of disguise, Jasper felt rather pleased thanotherwise at the thought that his design should have none of thecharacteristics of a vulgar burglary. No mask now; his front should beas open as his demand. Cutts's report of the facility of penetratinginto Darrell's very room also lessened the uses of an accomplice. And inthe remodification of his first hasty plan of common place midnightstealthy robbery, he would no longer even require an assistant to disposeof the plunder he might gain. 

Darrell should now yield to his exactions, as a garrison surprisedaccepts the terms of its conqueror. There would be no flight, no hiding, no fear of notes stopped at banks. He would march out, hand on haunch, with those immunities of booty that belong to the honours of war. Pleasing his self-conceit with so gallant a view of his meditatedexploit, Jasper sauntered at dark into the town, bought a few long narrownails and a small hammer, and returning to his room, by the aid of thefire, the tongs, and the hammer, he fashioned these nails, with an easeand quickness which showed an expert practitioner, into instruments thatwould readily move the wards of any common country-made lock. He did notcare for weapons. He trusted at need to his own powerful hands. It wasno longer, too, the affair of a robber unknown, unguessed, who might haveto fight his way out of an alarmed household. It was but the visit whichhe, Jasper Losely, Esquire, thought fit to pay, however unceremoniouslyand unseasonably, to the house of a father-in-law! At the worst, shouldhe fail in finding Darrell, or securing an unwitnessed interview--shouldhe, instead, alarm the household, it would be a proof of the integrity ofhis intentions that he had no weapons save those which Nature bestows onthe wild man as the mightiest of her wild beasts. At night he mountedhis horse, but went out of his way, keeping the high-road for an hour ortwo, in order to allow ample time for the farmers to have quitted therent-feast, and the old Manor-house to be hushed in sleep. At last, whenhe judged the coast clear and the hour ripe, he wound back into the lanetowards Fawley; and when the spire of its hamlet-church came in sightthrough the frosty starlit air, he dismounted--led the horse into one ofthe thick beech-woods that make the prevailing characteristic of the wildcountry round that sequestered dwelling-place--fastened the animal to atree, and stalked towards the park-pales on foot. Lightly, as a wolfenters a sheepfold, he swung himself over the moss-grown fence; he gainedthe buttresses of the great raw pile; high and clear above, fromDarrell's chamber, streamed the light; all the rest of the old housewas closed and dark, buried no doubt in slumber. 

He is now in the hollows of the skeleton pile; he mounts the ladder; thelock of the door before him yields to his rude implements but artfulhand. He is in the long gallery; the moonlight comes broad and clearthrough the large casements. What wealth of art is on the walls! but howprofitless to the robber's greed. There, through the very halls whichthe master had built in the day of his ambition, saying to himself, "These are for far posterity, " the step of Violence, it may be of Murder, takes its stealthy way to the room of the childless man! Through theuncompleted pile, towards the uncompleted life, strides the terriblestep. 

The last door yields noiselessly. The small wooden corridor, narrow asthe drawbridge which in ancient fortresses was swung between thecommandant's room in the topmost story and some opposing wall, is beforehim. And Darrell's own door is half open; lights on the table--logsburning bright on the hearth. Cautiously Losely looked through theaperture. Darrell was not there; the place was solitary; but theopposite door was open also. Losely's fine ear caught the sound of aslight movement of a footstep in the room just below, to which thatopposite door admitted. In an instant the robber glided within thechamber--closed and locked the door by which he had entered, retainingthe key about his person. The next stride brought him to the hearth. Beside it hung the bell-rope common in old-fashioned houses. Loselylooked round; on the table, by the writing implements, lay a pen-knife. In another moment the rope was cut, high out of Darrell's reach, andflung aside. The hearth, being adapted but for logwood fires, furnishednot those implements in which, at a moment of need, the owner may find anavailable weapon--only a slight pair of brass wood-pincers, and a shovelequally frail. Such as they were, however, Jasper quietly removed andhid them behind a heavy old bureau. Steps were now heard mounting thestair that led into the chamber; Losely shrunk back into the recessbeside the mantelpiece. Darrell entered, with a book in his hand, forwhich he had indeed quitted his chamber--a volume containing the last Actof Parliament relating to Public Trusts, which had been sent to him byhis solicitor; for he is creating a deed of trust, to insure to thenation the Darrell antiquities, in the name of his father, theantiquarian. 

Darrell advanced to the writing-table, which stood in the centre of theroom; laid down the book, and sighed--the short, quick, impatient sighwhich had become one of his peculiar habits. The robber stole from therecess, and, gliding round to the door by which Darrell had entered, while the back of the master was still towards him, set fast the lock, and appropriated the key as he had done at the door which had admittedhimself. Though the noise in that operation was but slight, it rousedDarrell from his abstracted thoughts. He turned quickly, and at the samemoment Losely advanced towards him. 

At once Darrell comprehended his danger. His rapid glance took in allthe precautions by which the intruder proclaimed his lawless purpose--theclosed door, the bell rope cut off. There, between those four secretwalls, must pass the interview between himself and the desperado. Hewas unarmed, but he was not daunted. It was but man to man. Losely hadfor him his vast physical strength, his penury, despair, and vindictivepurpose. Darrell had in his favour the intellect which gives presence ofmind; the energy of nerve, which is no more to be seen in the sinew andbone than the fluid which fells can be seen in the jars and the wires;and that superb kind of pride, which, if terror be felt, makes its actionimpossible, because a disgrace, and bravery a matter of course, simplybecause it is honour. 

As the bravo approached, by a calm and slight movement Darrell drew tothe other side of the table, placing that obstacle between himself andLosely, and, extending his arm, said: "Hold, sir; I forbid you to advanceanother step. You are here, no matter how, to re-urge your claims on me. Be seated; I will listen to you. "

Darrell's composure took Losely so by surprise that mechanically heobeyed the command thus tranquilly laid upon him, and sunk into a chair--facing Darrell with a sinister under-look from his sullen brow. "Ah!"he said, "you will listen to me now; but my terms have risen. "

Darrell, who had also seated himself, made no answer; but his face wasresolute and his eye watchful. The ruffian resumed, in a gruffer tone:"My terms have risen, Mr. Darrell. "

"Have they, sir? and why?"

"Why! Because no one can come to your aid here; because here you cannotescape; because here you are in my power!"

"Rather, sir, I listen to you because here you are under my roof-tree;and it is you who are in my power!"

"Yours! Look round; the doors are locked on you. Perhaps you think yourshouts, your cries might bring aid to you. Attempt it--raise your voice--and I strangle you with these hands. "

"If I do not raise my voice, it is, first, because I should be ashamed ofmyself if I required aid against one man; and, secondly, because I wouldnot expose to my dependents a would-be assassin in him whom my lost childcalled husband. Hush, sir, hush, or your own voice will alarm those whosleep below. And now, what is it you ask? Be plain, sir, and be brief. "

"Well, if you like to take matters coolly, I have no objection. Theseare my terms. You have received large sums this day; those sums are inyour house, probably in that bureau; and your life is at my will. "

"You ask the monies paid for rent to-day. True, they are in the house;but they are not in my apartments. They were received by another; theyare kept by another. In vain, through the windings and passages of thisold house, would you seek to find the room in which he stores them. In doing so you will pass by the door of a servant who sleeps so lightlythat the chances are that he will hear you; he is armed with ablunderbuss, and with pistols. You say to me, 'Your money or your life. 'I say to you, in reply, 'Neither: attempt to seize the money, and yourown life is lost. "

"Miser! I don't believe that sums so large are not in your own keeping. And even if they are not, you shall show me where they are; you shalllead me through those windings and passages of which you so tenderly warnme, my hand on your throat. And if servants wake, or danger threaten me, it is you who shall save me, or die! Ha! you do not fear me--eh, Mr. Darrell!" And Losely rose. 

"I do not fear you, " replied Darrell, still seated. "I cannot conceivethat you are here with no other design than a profitless murder. You arehere, you say, to make terms; it will be time enough to see whose life isendangered when all your propositions have been stated. As yet you haveonly suggested a robbery, to which you ask me to assist you. Impossible!Grant even that you were able to murder me, you would be just as far offfrom your booty. And yet you say your terms have risen! To me they seemfallen to nothing! Have you anything else to say?"

The calmness of Darrell, so supremely displayed in this irony, began totell upon the ruffian--the magnetism of the great man's eye and voice, and steadfast courage, gradually gaining power over the wild, inferioranimal. Trying to recover his constitutional audacity, Jasper said, witha tone of the old rollicking voice: "Well, Mr. Darrell, it is all one tome how I wring from you, in your own house, what you refused me when Iwas a suppliant on the road. Fair means are pleasanter than foul. I ama gentleman--the grandson of Sir Julian Losely, of Losely Hall; I am yourson-in-law; and I am starving. This must not be; write me a cheque. "

Darrell dipped his pen in the ink, and drew the paper towards him. 

"Oho! you don't fear me, eh? This is not done from fear, mind--all outof pure love and compassion, my kind father-in-law. You will write me acheque for five thousand pounds--come, I am moderate--your life is wortha precious deal more than that. Hand me the cheque--I will trust to yourhonour to give me no trouble in cashing it, and bid you good-night-myfather-in-law. "

As Losely ceased with a mocking laugh, Darrell sprang up quickly, threwopen the small casement which was within his reach, and flung from it thepaper on which he had been writing, and which he wrapt round the heavyarmorial seal that lay on the table. 

Losely bounded towards him. "What means that? What have you done?"

"Saved your life and mine, Jasper Losely, " said Darrell, solemnly, andcatching the arm that was raised against him. "We are now upon equalterms. "

"I understand, " growled the tiger, as the slaver gathered to his lips--"you think by that paper to summon some one to your aid. "

"Not so--that paper is useless while I live. Look forth--the moonlightis on the roofs below--can you see where that paper has fallen? On theledge of a parapet that your foot could not reach. It faces the windowof a room in which one of my household sleeps; it will meet his eye inthe morning when the shutters are unbarred; and on that paper are writthese words: 'If I am this night murdered, the murderer is JasperLosely, ' and the paper is signed by my name. Back, sir--would you doomyourself to the gibbet?"

Darrell released the dread arm he had arrested, and Losely stared at him, amazed, bewildered. 

Darrell resumed: "And now I tell you plainly that I can accede to noterms put to me thus. I can sign my hand to no order that you maydictate, because that would be to sign myself a coward--and my name isDarrell!"

"Down on your knees, proud man--sign you shall, and on your knees!I care not now for gold--I care not now a rush for my life. I came hereto humble the man who from first to last has so scornfully humbled me. --And I will, I will! On your knees--on your knees!"

The robber flung himself forward; but Darrell, whose eye had neverquitted the foe, was prepared for and eluded the rush. Losely, missinghis object, lost his balance, struck against the edge of the table whichpartially interposed between himself and his prey, and was only savedfrom falling by the close neighbourhood of the wall, on which he camewith a shock that for the moment well-nigh stunned him. MeanwhileDarrell had gained the hearth, and snatched from it a large log half-burning. Jasper, recovering himself, dashed the long matted hair fromhis eyes, and, seeing undismayed the formidable weapon with which he wasmenaced, cowered for a second and deadlier spring. 

"Stay, stay, stay, parricide and madman!" cried Darrell, his eye flashingbrighter than the brand. "It is not my life I plead for--it is yours. Remember, if I fall by your hand, no hope and no refuge are left to you!In the name of my dead child, and under the eye of avenging Heaven, Istrike down the fury that blinds you, and I scare back your soul from theabyss!"

So ineffably grand were the man's look and gesture--so full of sonorousterror the swell of his matchless all-conquering voice, that Losely, inhis midmost rage, stood awed and spellbound. His breast heaved, his eyefell, his frame collapsed, even his very tongue seemed to cleave to theparched roof of his mouth. Whether the effect so suddenly produced mighthave continued, or whether the startled miscreant might not have lashedhimself into renewed wrath and inexpiable crime, passes out ofconjecture. At that instant simultaneously were heard hurried footstepsin the corridor without, violent blows on the door, and voicesexclaiming, "Open, open!--Darrell, Darrell!"--while the bell at theportals of the old house rang fast and shrill. 

"Ho--is it so?" growled Losely, recovering himself at those unwelcomesounds. "But do not think that I will be caught thus, like a rat in atrap. No--I will--"

"Hist!" interrupted Darrell, dropping the brand, and advancing quickly onthe ruffian--" Hist!--let no one know that my daughter's husband camehere with a felon's purpose. Sit down--down I say; it is for my house'shonour that you should be safe. " And suddenly placing both hands onLosely's broad shoulder, he forced him into a seat. During these fewhurried words, the strokes at the door and the shouts without had beencontinued, and the door shook on its yielding hinges. 

"The key--the key!" whispered Darrell. 

But the bravo was stupefied by the suddenness with which his rage hadbeen cowed, his design baffled, his position changed from the mandictating laws and threatening life, to the man protected by his intendedvictim. And he was so slow in even comprehending the meaning ofDarrell's order, that Darrell had scarcely snatched the keys less fromhis hand than from the pouch to which he at last mechanically pointed, when the door was burst open, and Lionel Haughton, Alban Morley, and theColonel's servant were in the room. Not one of them, at the firstglance, perceived the inmates of the chamber, who were at the right oftheir entrance, by the angle of the wall and in shadow. But out cameDarrell's calm voice:

"Alban! Lionel!--welcome always; but what brings you hither at such anhour, with such clamour? Armed too!"

The three men stood petrified. There sate, peaceably enough, a largedark form, its hands on its knees, its head bent down, so that thefeatures were not, distinguishable; and over the chair in which thisbending figure was thus confusedly gathered up leant Guy Darrell, withquiet ease--no trace of fear nor of past danger in his face, which, though very pale, was serene, with a slight smile on the firm lips. 

"Well, " muttered Alban Morley, slowly lowering his pistol--"well, I amsurprised!--yes, for the first time in twenty years, I and surprised!"

"Surprised perhaps to find me at this hour still up, and with a personupon business--the door locked. However, mutual explanations later. Ofcourse you stay here to night. My business with this--this visitor, isnow over. Lionel, open that door--here is the key. --Sir"--(he touchedLosely by the shoulder, and whispered in his ear, "Rise and speak not, ")--(aloud) "Sir, I need not detain you longer. Allow me to show you theway out of this rambling old house. "

Jasper rose like one half asleep, and, still bending his form and hidinghis face, followed Darrell down the private stair, through the study, thelibrary, into the hall, the Colonel's servant lighting the way; andLionel and Morley, still too amazed for words, bringing up the rear. Theservant drew the heavy bolts from the front door; and now the householdhad caught alarm. Mills first appeared with the blunderbuss, then thefootman, then Fairthorn. 

"Stand back, there!" cried Darrell, and he opened the door himself toLosely. "Sir, " said he then, as they stood in the moonlight, "mark thatI told you truly--you were in my power; and if the events of this nightcan lead you to acknowledge a watchful Providence, and recall with ashudder the crime from which you have been saved, why, then, I too, outof gratitude to Heaven, may think of means by which to free others fromthe peril of your despair. "

Losely made no answer, but slunk off with a fast, furtive stride, hastening out of the moonlit sward into the gloom of the leafless trees. 

CHAPTER II. 

 IF THE LION EVER WEAR THE FOX'S HIDE, STILL HE WEARS IT AS THE LION. 

When Darrell was alone with Lionel and Alban Morley, the calm with whichhe had before startled them vanished. He poured out his thanks with deepemotion. "Forgive me; not in the presence of a servant could I say, 'Youhave saved me from an unnatural strife, and my daaghter's husband from amurderer's end. ' But by what wondrous mercy did you learn my danger?Were you sent to my aid?"

Alban briefly explained. "You may judge, " he said in conclusion, "howgreat was our anxiety, when, following the instructions of our guide, while our driver rang his alarum at the front portals, we made ourentrance into yon ribs of stone, found the doors already opened, andfeared we might be too late. But, meanwhile, the poor woman waitswithout in the carriage that brought us from the station. I must goand relieve her mind. "

"And bring her hither, " cried Darrell, "to receive my gratitude. Stay, Alban; while you leave me with her, you will speak aside to Mills; tellhim that you heard there was an attempt to be made on the house, and cameto frustrate it, but that your fears were exaggerated; the man was morea half-insane mendicant than a robber. Be sure, at least, that hisidentity with Losely be not surmised, and bid Mills treat the affairlightly. Public men are exposed, you know, to assaults from crackbrainedenthusiasts; or stay--I once was a lawyer, and" (continued Darrell, whoseirony had become so integral an attribute of his mind as to be proofagainst all trial) "there are men so out of their wits as to fancy alawyer has ruined them! Lionel, tell poor Dick Fairthorn to come to me. "When the musician entered, Darrell whispered to him: "Go back to yourroom--open your casement--step out on to the parapet--you will seesomething white; it is a scrap of paper wrapped round my old armorialseal. Bring it to me just as it is, Dick. That poor young Lionel, wemust keep him here a day or two; mind, no prickles for him, Dick. "

CHAPTER III. 

 ARABELLA CRANE VERSUS GUY DARRELL; OR, WOMAN VERSUS LAWYER. IN THE COURTS, LAWYER WOULD WIN; BUT IN A PRIVATE PARLOUR, FOOT TO FOOT, AND TONGUE TO TONGUE, LAWYER HAS NOT A CHANCE. 

Arabella Crane entered the room: Darrell hesitated--the remembrancesattached to her were so painful and repugnant. But did he not now owe toher perhaps his very life? He passed his hand rapidly over his brow, asif to sweep away all earlier recollections, and, advancing quickly, extended that hand to her. The stern woman shook her head, and rejectedthe proffered greeting. 

"You owe me no thanks, " she said, in her harsh, ungracious accents; "Isought to save not you, but him. "

"How!" said Darrell, startled; "you feel no resentment against the manwho injured and betrayed you?"

"What my feelings may be towards him are not for you to conjecture; mancould not conjecture them; I am woman. What they once were I might blushfor; what they are now, I could own without shame. But you, Mr. Darrell, --you, in the hour of my uttermost anguish, when all my futurewas laid desolate, and the world lay crushed at my feet--you--man, chivalrous man!--you had for me no human compassion--you thrust me inscorn from your doors--you saw in my woe nothing but my error--you sentme forth, stripped of reputation, branded by your contempt, to famine orto suicide. And you wonder that I feel less resentment against him whowronged me than against you, who, knowing me wronged, only disdained mygrief. The answer is plain--the scorn of the man she only reverencedleaves to a woman no memory to mitigate its bitterness and gall. Thewrongs inflicted by the man she loved may leave, what they have left tome, an undying sense of a past existence--radiant, joyous, hopeful; of atime when the earth seemed covered with blossoms, just ready to burstinto bloom; when the skies through their haze took the rose-hues as thesun seemed about to rise. The memory that I once was happy, at leastthen, I owe to him who injured and betrayed me. To you, when happinesswas lost to me forever, what do I owe? Tell me. "

Struck by her words, more by her impressive manner, though notrecognising the plea by which the defendant thus raised herself into theaccuser, Darrell answered gently "Pardon me; this is no moment to reviverecollections of anger on my part; but reflect, I entreat you, and youwill feel that I was not too harsh. In the same position any other manwould not have been less severe. "

"Any other man!" she exclaimed; "ay, possibly! but would the scorn ofany other man so have crushed self-esteem? The injuries of the wickeddo not sour us against the good; but the scoff of the good leaves usmalignant against virtue itself. Any other man! Tut! Genius is boundto be indulgent. It should know human errors so well--has, with itslarge luminous forces, such errors itself when it deigns to be human, that, where others may scorn, genius should only pity. " She paused amoment, and then slowly resumed. "And pity was my due. Had you, or hadany one lofty as yourself in reputed honour, but said to me, 'Thou hastsinned, thou must suffer; but sin itself needs compassion, and compassionforbids thee to despair, ' why, then, I might have been gentler to thethings of earth, and less steeled against the influences of Heaven thanI have been. That is all no matter now. Mr. Darrell, I would not partfrom you with angry and bitter sentiments. Colonel Morley tells me thatyou have not only let the man, whom we need not name, go free, but thatyou have guarded the secret of his designs. For this I thank you. I thank you, because what is left of that blasted and deformed existenceI have taken into mine. And I would save that man from his own devicesas I would save my soul from its own temptations. Are you large-heartedenough to comprehend me? Look in my face--you have seen his; all earthlylove is erased and blotted out of both. "

Guy Darrell bowed his head in respect that partook of awe. 

"You, too, " said the grim woman, after a pause, and approaching himnearer--"you, too, have loved, I am told, and you, too, were forsaken. "

He recoiled and--shuddered. 

"What is left to your heart of its ancient folly? I should like to know!I am curious to learn if there be a man who can feel as woman! Have youonly resentment? have you only disdain? have you only vengeance? have youpity? or have you the jealous absorbing desire, surviving the affectionfrom which it sprang, that still the life wrenched from you shall owe, despite itself, a melancholy allegiance to your own?"

Darrell impatiently waved his hand to forbid further questions; and itneeded all his sense of the service this woman had just rendered him torepress his haughty displeasure at so close an approach to his torturingsecrets. 

Arabella's dark bright eyes rested on his knitted brow, for a moment, wistfully, musingly. Then she said: "I see! man's inflexible pride--no pardon there! But own, at least, that you have suffered. "

"Suffered!" groaned Darrell involuntarily, and pressing his hand to hisheart. 

"You have!--and you own it! Fellow-sufferer, I have no more angeragainst you. Neither should pity, but let each respect the other. A fewwords more, --this child!"

"Ay--ay--this child! you will be truthful. You will not seek to deceiveme--you know that she--she--claimed by that assassin, reared by hisconvict father--she is no daughter of my line!"

"What! would it then be no joy to know that your line did not close withyourself--that your child might--"

"Cease, madam, cease--it matters not to a man nor to a race when itperish, so that it perish at last with honour. Who would have eitherhimself or his lineage live on into a day when the escutcheon is blottedand the name disgraced? No; if that be Matilda's child, tell me, and Iwill bear, as man may do, the last calamity which the will of Heaven mayinflict. If, as I have all reason to think, the tale be an imposture, speak and give me the sole comfort to which I would cling amidst the ruinof all other hopes. "

"Verily, " said Arabella, with a kind of musing wonder in the tone of hersoftened voice; "verily, has a man's heart the same throb and fibre as awoman's? Had I a child like that blue-eyed wanderer with the frail formneeding protection, and the brave spirit that ennobles softness, whatwould be my pride! my bliss! Talk of shame--disgrace! Fie--fie--themore the evil of others darkened one so innocent, the more cause to loveand shelter her. But--I--am childless! Shall I tell you that theoffence which lies heaviest on my conscience has been my cruelty to thatgirl? She was given an infant to my care. I saw in her the daughter ofthat false, false, mean, deceiving friend, who had taken my confidence, and bought, with her supposed heritage, the man sworn by all oaths to me. I saw in her, too, your descendant, your rightful heiress. I rejoiced ina revenge on your daughter and yourself. Think not I would have foistedher on your notice! No. I would have kept her without culture, withoutconsciousness of a higher lot; and when I gave her up to her grandsire, the convict, it was a triumph to think that Matilda's child would be anoutcast. Terrible thought! but I was mad then. But that poor convictwhom you, in your worldly arrogance, so loftily despise--he took to hisbreast what was flung away as a worthless weed. And if the flowerkeep the promise of the bud, never flower so fair bloomed from yourvaunted stem! And yet you would bless me if I said, 'Pass on, childlessman; she is nothing to you!'"

"Madam, let us not argue. As you yourself justly imply, man's heart andwoman's must each know throbs that never are, and never should be, familiar to the other. I repeat my question, and again I implore youranswer. "

"I cannot answer for certain; and I am fearful of answering at all, leston a point so important I should mislead you. Matilda's child? Jasperaffirmed it to me. His father believed him--I believed him. I never hadthe shadow of a doubt till--"

"Till what? For Heaven's sake speak. "

"Till about five years ago, or somewhat more, I saw a letter fromGabrielle Desmarets, and--"

"Ah! which made you suspect, as I do, that the child is GabrielleDesmaret's daughter. "

Arabella reared her crest as a serpent before it strikes. "Gabrielle'sdaughter! You think so. Her child that I sheltered! Her child for whomI have just pleaded to you! Hers!" She suddenly became silent. Evidently that idea had never before struck her; evidently it now shockedher; evidently something was passing through her mind which did not allowthat idea to be dismissed. As Darrell was about to address her, sheexclaimed abruptly: "No! say no more now. You may hear from me againshould I learn what may decide at least this doubt one way or the other. Farewell, sir. "

"Not yet. Permit me to remind you that you have saved the life of a manwhose wealth is immense. "

"Mr. Darrell, my wealth in relation to my wants is perhaps immense asyours, for I do not spend what I possess. "

"But this unhappy outlaw, whom you would save from himself, canhenceforth be to you but a burthen and a charge. After what has passedto-night, I do tremble to think that penury may whisper other houses torob, other lives to menace. Let me, then, place at your disposal, to beemployed in such mode as you deem the best, a sum that may suffice tosecure an object which we have in common. "

"No, Mr. Darrell, " said Arabella, fiercely; "whatever he be, never withmy consent shall Jasper Losely be beholden to you for alms. If money cansave him from shame and a dreadful death, that money shall be mine. Ihave said it. And, hark you, Mr. Darrell, what is repentance withoutatonement? I say not that I repent; but I do know that I seek to atone. "

The iron-grey robe fluttered an instant, and then vanished from the room. 

When Alban Morley returned to the library, he saw Darrell at the farthercorner of the room, on his knees. Well might Guy Darrell thank Heavenfor the mercies vouchsafed to him that night. Life preserved? Is thatall? Might life yet be bettered and gladdened? Was there aught in thegrim woman's words that might bequeath thoughts which reflection wouldripen into influences over action?--aught that might suggest the cases inwhich, not ignobly, Pity might subjugate Scorn? In the royal abode ofthat Soul, does Pride only fortify Honour?--is it but the mild king, notthe imperial despot? Would it blind, as its rival, the Reason? Would itchain, as a rebel, the Heart? Would it man the dominions, that might beserene, by the treasures it wastes-by the wars it provokes? Self-knowledge! self-knowledge! From Heaven, indeed, descends the precept, "KNOW THYSELF. " That truth was told to us by the old heathen oracle. But what old heathen oracle has told us how to know?

CHAPTER IV. 

 THE MAN-EATER HUMILIATED. HE ENCOUNTERS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE IN A TRAVELLER, WHO, LIKE SHAKESPEARE'S JAQUES, IS "A MELANCHOLY FELLOW"; WHO ALSO, LIKE JAQUES, HATH "GREAT REASON TO BE BAD"; AND WHO, STILL LIKE JAQUES, IS "FULL OF MATTER. "

Jasper Losely rode slowly on through the clear frosty night; not back tothe country town which he had left on his hateful errand, nor into thebroad road to London. With a strange desire to avoid the haunts of men, he selected--at each choice of way in the many paths branching right andleft, between waste and woodland--the lane that seemed the narrowest andthe dimmest. It was not remorse that gnawed him, neither was it meremercenary disappointment, nor even the pang of baffled vengeance--it wasthe profound humiliation of diseased self-love--the conviction that, withall his brute power, he had been powerless in the very time and scene inwhich he had pictured to himself so complete a triumph. Even the quietwith which he had escaped was a mortifying recollection. Capture itselfwould have been preferable, if capture had been preceded by brawl andstrife--the exhibition of his hardihood and prowess. Gloomily bendingover his horse's neck, he cursed himself as fool and coward. What wouldhe have had!--a new crime on his soul? Perhaps he would have answered, "Anything rather than this humiliating failure. " He did not rack hisbrains with conjecturing if Cutts had betrayed him, or by what other modeassistance had been sent in such time of need to Darrell. Nor did hefeel that hunger for vengeance, whether on Darrell or on his accomplice(should that accomplice have played the traitor), which might have beenexpected from his characteristic ferocity. On the contrary, the thoughtof violence and its excitements had in it a sickness as of shame. Darrell at that hour might have ridden by him scathless. Cutts mighthave jeered and said, "I blabbed your secret, and sent the aid thatfoiled it"; and Losely would have continued to hang his head, nor liftedthe herculean hand that lay nerveless on the horse's mane. Is it notcommonly so in all reaction from excitements in which self-love has beenkeenly galled? Does not vanity enter into the lust of crime as into thedesire of fame?

At sunrise Losely found himself on the high-road into which a labyrinthof lanes had led him, and opposite to a milestone, by which he learnedthat he had been long turning his back on the metropolis, and that he wasabout ten miles distant from the provincial city of Ouzelford. By thistime his horse was knocked up, and his own chronic pains began to makethemselves acutely felt; so that, when, a little farther on, he came to awayside inn, he was glad to halt; and after a strong drain, which had theeffect of an opiate, he betook himself to bed, and slept till the noonwas far advanced. 

When Losely came down-stairs, the common room of the inn was occupied bya meeting of the trustees of the highroads; and, on demanding breakfast, he was shown into a small sanded parlour adjoining the kitchen. Twoother occupants--a man and a woman--were there already, seated at a tableby the fireside, over a pint of half-and-half. Losely, warming himselfat the hearth, scarcely noticed these humble revellers by a glance. Andthey, after a displeased stare at the stalwart frame which obscured thecheering glow they had hitherto monopolised, resumed a mutteredconversation; of which, as well as of the vile modicum that refreshedtheir lips, the man took the lion's share. Shabbily forlorn were thatman's habiliments--turned and re-turned, patched, darned, weather-stained, grease-stained--but still retaining that kind of mouldy, grandiose, bastard gentility, which implies that the wearer has knownbetter days; and, in the downward progress of fortunes when they oncefall, may probably know still worse. 

The woman was some years older than her companion, and still moreforlornly shabby. Her garments seemed literally composed of particles ofdust glued together, while her face might have insured her condemnationas a witch before any honest jury in the reign of King James the First. His breakfast, and the brandy-bottle that flanked the loaf, were nowplaced before Losely; and, as distastefully he forced himself to eat, his eye once more glanced towards, and this time rested on, the shabbyman, in the sort of interest with which one knave out of elbows regardsanother. As Jasper thus looked, gradually there stole on him areminiscence of those coarse large features--that rusty disreputable wig. The recognition, however, was not mutual; and presently, after a whisperinterchanged between the man and the woman, the latter rose, andapproaching Losely, dropped a curtsey, and said, in a weird, under voice:"Stranger! luck's in store for you. Tell your fortune!" As she spoke, from some dust-hole in her garments she produced a pack of cards, onwhose half-obliterated faces seemed incrusted the dirt of ages. Thrusting these antiquities under Jasper's nose, she added, "Wish andcut. "

"Yshaw, " said Jasper, who, though sufficiently superstitious in somematters and in regard to some persons, was not so completely under theinfluence of that imaginative infirmity as to take the creature beforehim for a sibyl. "Get away; you turn my stomach. Your cards smell; sodo you!"

"Forgive her, worthy sir, " said the man, leaning forward. "The hag maybe unsavoury, but she is wise. The Three Sisters who accosted theScottish Thane, sir (Macbeth--you have seen it on the stage?) were notsavoury. Withered, and wild in their attire, sir, but they knew a thingor two! She sees luck in your face. Cross her hand and give it vent!"

"Fiddledee, " said the irreverent Losely. "Take her off, or I shall scaldher, " and he seized the kettle. 

The hag retreated grumbling; and Losely, soon despatching his meal, placed his feet 'on the hobs, and began to meditate what course to adoptfor a temporary subsistence. He had broken into the last pound left ofthe money which he had extracted from Mrs. Crane's purse some daysbefore. He recoiled with terror from the thought of returning to townand placing himself at her mercy. Yet what option had he? While thusmusing, he turned impatiently round, and saw that the shabby man and thedusty hag were engaged in an amicable game of ecarte, with those verycards which had so offended his olfactory organs. At that sight the oldinstinct of the gambler struggled back; and, raising himself up, helooked over the cards of the players. The miserable wretches were, ofcourse, playing for nothing; and Losely saw at a glance that the man was, nevertheless, trying to cheat the woman! Positively he took that maninto more respect; and that man, noticing the interest with which Loselysurveyed the game, looked up, and said:

"While the time, sir? What say you? A game or two? I can stake mypistoles--that is, sir, so far as a fourpenny bit goes. If ignorant ofthis French game, sir, cribbage or all fours?"

"No, " said Losely, mournfully; "there is nothing to be got out of you;otherwise"--he stopped and sighed. "But I have seen you under othercircumstances. What has become of your Theatrical Exhibition? Gambledit away? Yet, from what I see of your play, I think you ought not tohave lost, Mr. Rugge. "

The ex-manager started. 

"What! You knew me before the Storm?--before the lightning struck me, as I may say, sir--and falling into difficulties, I became-a wreck? Youknew me?--not of the Company?--a spectator?"

"As you say--a spectator. You had once in your employ an actor--cleverold fellow. Waife, I think, he was called. "

"Ah! hold! At that name, sir, my wounds bleed afresh. From thatexecrable name, sir, there hangs a tale!"

"Indeed! Then it will be a relief to you to tell it, " said Losely, resettling his feet on the hob, and snatching at any diversion from hisown reflections. 

"Sir, when a gentleman, who is a gentleman, asks as a favour a specimenof my powers of recital, not professionally, and has before him thesparkling goblet, which he does not invite me to share, he insults myfallen fortunes. Sir, I am poor--I own it; I have fallen into the sereand yellow leaf, sir; but I have still in this withered bosom the heartof a Briton!"

"Warm it, Mr. Rugge. Help yourself to the brandy--and the lady too. "

"Sir, you are a gentleman; sir, your health. Hag, drink better days tous both. That woman, sir, is a hag, but she is an honour to her sex-faithful!"

"It is astonishing how faithful ladies are when not what is calledbeautiful. I speak from painful experience, " said Losely, growingdebonnair as the liquor relaxed his gloom, and regaining that levity oftongue which sometimes strayed into wit, and which-springing originallyfrom animal spirits and redundant health--still came to him mechanicallywhenever roused by companionship from alternate intervals of lethargy andpain. "But, now, Mr. Rugge, I am all ears; perhaps you will be kindenough to be all tale. "

With tragic aspect, unrelaxed by that /jeu de mots/, and still whollyunrecognising in the massive form and discoloured swollen countenance ofthe rough-clad stranger, the elegant proportions, the healthful, blooming, showy face, and elaborate fopperies of the Jasper Losely whohad sold to him a Phenomenon which proved so evanishing, Rugge enteredinto a prolix history of his wrongs at the hands of Waife, of Losely, ofSophy. Only of Mrs. Crane did he speak with respect; and Jasper then forthe first time learned--and rather with anger for the interference thangratitude for the generosity--that she had repaid the L100, and therebycancelled Rugge's claim upon the child. The ex-manager then proceeded tothe narrative of his subsequent misfortunes--all of which he laid to thecharge of Waife and the Phenomenon. "Sir, " said he, "I was ambitious. From my childhood's hour I dreamed of the great York Theatre--dreamed ofit literally thrice. Fatal Vision! But like other dreams, that dreamwould have faded--been forgotten in the workday world--and I should nothave fallen into the sere and yellow, but have had, as formerly, troopsof friends, and not been reduced to the horrors of poverty and a faithfulHag. But, sir, when I first took to my bosom that fiend William Waife, he exhibited a genius, sir, that Dowton (you have seen Dowton?--grand)was a stick as compared with. Then my ambition, sir, blazed and flaredup-obstreperous, and my childhood's dream haunted me; and I went aboutmusing [Hag, you recollect!]--and muttering 'The Royal Theatre at York. 'But, incredible though it seem, the ungrateful scorpion left me with atreacherous design to exhibit the parts I had fostered on the Londonboards; and even-handed Justice, sir, returned the poisoned chalice tohis lips, causing him to lose an eye and to hobble--besides splitting uphis voice--which served him right. And again I took the scorpion for thesake of the Phenomenon. I had a babe myself once, sir, though you maynot think it. Gormerick (that is this faithful Hag) gave the babeDaffy's Elixir, in teething; but it died--convulsions. I comfortedmyself when that Phenomenon came out on my stage--in pink satin andpearls. 'Ha, ' I said, 'the great York Theatre shall yet be mine!' Thehaunting idea became a Mania, sir. The learned say that there is a Maniacalled Money Mania--[Monomania??]--when one can think but of the onething needful--as the guilty Thane saw the dagger, sir--you understand. And when the Phenomenon had vanished and gone, as I was told, to America, where I now wish I was myself, acting Rolla at New York or elsewhere, toa free and enlightened people--then, sir, the Mania grew on me stillstronger and stronger. There was a pride in it, sir, a British pride. 

"I said to this faithful Hag: 'What--shall I not have the York becausethat false child has deserted me? Am I not able to realise a Briton'sambition without being beholden to a Phenomenon in spangles?' Sir, Itook the York! Alone I did it!"

"And, " said Losely, feeling a sort of dreary satisfaction in listening tothe grotesque sorrows of one whose condition seemed to him yet moreabject than his own--"And the York Theatre alone perhaps did you. "

"Right, sir, " said Rugge--half-dolorously, half-exultingly. "It was aGrand Concern, and might have done for the Bank of England! It swallowedup my capital with as much ease, sir, as I could swallow an oyster ifthere were one upon that plate! I saw how it would be, the very firstweek--when I came out myself, strong--Kean's own part in the Iron Chest--Mortimer, sir; there warn't three pounds ten in the house--packedaudience, sir, and they had the face to hiss me. 'Hag, ' said I to Mrs. Gormerick, 'this Theatre is a howling wilderness. ' But there is afascination in a Grand Concern, of which one is the head--one goes on andon. All the savings of a life devoted to the British Drama and theproduction of native genius went in what I may call--a jiffey! But itwas no common object, sir, to your sight displayed--but what withpleasure, sir (I appeal to the Hag), Heaven itself surveyed!--a great manstruggling, sir, with the storms of fate, and greatly falling, sir, with--a sensation! York remembers it to this day! I took the benefit of theAct--it was the only benefit I did take--and nobody was the better forit. But I don't repine--I realised my dream: that is more than all cansay. Since then I have had many downs, and no ups. I have been amessenger, sir--a prompter, sir, in my own Exhibition, to which my ownclown, having married into the tragic line, succeeded, sir, asproprietor; buying of me when I took the York, the theatre, scenery, andproperties, sir, with the right still to call himself 'Rugge's GrandTheatrical Exhibition, ' for an old song, sir--Melancholy. Tyrannisedover, sir--snubbed and bullied by a creature dressed in a little briefauthority; and my own tights--scarlet--as worn by me in my own applaudedpart of 'The Remorseless Baron. ' At last, with this one faithfulcreature, I resolved to burst the chains--to be free as air--in short, achartered libertine, sir. We have not much, but thank the immortal gods, we are independent, sir--the Hag and I--chartered libertines! And we arealive still--at which, in strict confidence, I may own to you that I amastonished. "

"Yes! you do live, " said Jasper, much interested--for how to live at allwas at that moment a matter of considerable doubt to himself; "you dolive--it is amazing! How?"

"The Faithful tells fortunes; and sometimes we pick up windfalls--widowsand elderly single ladies--but it is dangerous. Labour is sweet, sir:but not hard labour in the dungeons of a Bridewell. She has known thatlabour, sir; and in those intervals I missed her much, Don't cry, Hag; "Irepeat, I live!"

"I understand now; you live upon her! They are the best of creatures, these hags, as you call them, certainly. Well, well, no saying what aman may come to! I suppose you have never seen Waife, nor that fellowyou say was so well-dressed and good-looking, and who sold you thePhenomenon, nor the Phenomenon herself--Eh?" added Losely, stretchinghimself, and yawning, as he saw the brandybottle was finished. 

"I have seen Waife--the one-eyed monster! Aha!--I have seen him!--andyesterday too; and a great comfort it was to me too!"

"You saw Waife yesterday--where?"

"At Ouzelford, which I and the Faithful left this morning. "

"And what was he doing?" said Losely, with well-simulated indifference. "Begging, breaking stones, or what?"

"No, " said Rugge, dejectedly; "I can't say it was what, in farcicalcomposition, I should call such nuts to me as that, sir. Still, he wasin a low way--seemed a pedlar or a hawker, selling out of a pannier onthe Rialto--I mean the Cornmarket, sir--not even a hag by his side, onlya great dog--French. A British dog would have scorned such fellowship. And he did not look merry as he used to do when in my troop. Did he, Hag?"

"His conscience smites him, " said the Hag, solemnly. 

"Did you speak to him?"

"Why, no. I should have liked it, but we could not at that moment, seeing that we were not in our usual state of independence. Thisfaithful creature was being led before the magistrates, and I too--chargeof cheating a cook-maid, to whom the Hag had only said, 'that if thecards spoke true, she would ride in her carriage. ' The charge brokedown; but we were placed for the night in the Cells of the Inquisition, remanded, and this morning banished from the city, and are now on our wayto--any other city;--eh, Hag?"

"And the old man was not with the Phenomenon? What has become of her, then?"

"Perhaps she may be with him at his house, if he has one; only, she wasnot with him on the Rialto or Cornmarket. She was with him two yearsago, I know; and he and she were better off then than he is now, Isuspect. And that is why it did me good, sir, to see him a pedlar--a common pedlar--fallen into the sere, like the man he abandoned!"

"Humph--where were they two years ago?"

"At a village not far from Humberston. He had a pretty house, sir, andsold baskets; and the girl was there too, favoured by a great lady--aMarchioness, sir! Gods!"

"Marchioness?--near Humberston? The Marchioness of Montfort, I suppose?"

"Likely enough; I don't remember. All I know is, that two years ago myold Clown was my tyrannical manager; and being in that capacity, and thisworld being made for Caesar, which is a shame, sir, he said to me, with asneer, 'Old Gentleman Waife, whom you used to bully, and his JulietAraminta, are in clover!' And the mocking varlet went on to unfold atale to the effect, that when he had last visited Humberston, in therace-week, a young tradesman, who was courting the Columbine, whose youngidea I myself taught to shoot on the light fantastic toe, treated thatColumbine, and one of her sister train (being, indeed, her aunt, who hassince come out at the Surrey in Desdemona) to a picnic in a fine park. (That's discipline!--ha, ha!) And there, sir, Columbine and her aunt sawWaife on the other side of a stream by which they sate carousing. "

"The Clown perhaps said it to spite you. "

"Columbine herself confirmed his tale, and said that on returning to theVillage Inn for the Triumphal Car (or bus) which brought them, she askedif a Mr. Waife dwelt thereabouts, and was told, 'Yes, with his grand-daughter. ' And she went on asking, till all came out as the Clownreported. And Columbine had not even the gratitude, the justice, toexpose that villain--not even to say he had been my perfidious servant!She had the face to tell me 'she thought it might harm him, and he was akind old soul. ' Sir, a Columbine whose toes I had rapped scores of timesbefore they could be turned out, was below contempt! but when my ownClown thus triumphed over me, in parading before my vision the bloatedprosperity of mine enemy, it went to my heart like a knife; and we hadwords on it, sir, and--I left him to his fate. But a pedlar! GentlemanWaife has come to that! The heavens are just, sir, and of our pleasantvices, sir, make instruments that--that--"

"Scourge us, " prompted the Hag, severely. 

Losely rang the bell; the maid-servant appeared. "My horse and bill. Well, Mr. Rugge, I must quit your agreeable society. I am notoverflowing with wealth at this moment, or I would request youracceptance of--"

"The smallest trifle, " interrupted the Hag, with her habitual solemnityof aspect. 

Losely, who, in his small way, had all the liberality of a Catiline, "/alieni appetens, sui profusus/, " drew forth the few silver coins yetremaining to him; and though he must have calculated that, after payinghis bill, there could scarcely be three shillings left, he chucked two ofthem towards the Hag, who, clutching them with a profound curtsey, thenhanded them to the fallen monarch by her side, with a loyal tear and aquick sob that might have touched the most cynical republican. 

In a few minutes more, Losely was again on horseback; and as he rodetowards Ouzelford, Rugge and his dusty Faithful shambled on in theopposite direction--shambled on, footsore and limping, along the wide, waste, wintry thoroughfare--vanishing from the eye, as their fateshenceforth from this story. There they go by the white hard milestone;farther on, by the trunk of the hedgerow-tree, which lies lopped andleafless--cumbering the wayside, till the time come to cast it off to thethronged, dull stackyard. Farther yet, where the ditch widens into yonstagnant pool, with the great dung-heap by its side. There the roadturns aslant; the dung-heap hides them. Gone! and not a speck on theImmemorial, Universal Thoroughfare. 

CHAPTER V. 

 NO WIND SO CUTTING AS THAT WHICH SETS IN THE QUARTER FROM WHICH THE SUN RISES. 

The town to which I lend the disguising name of Ouzelford, which, inyears bygone, was represented by Guy Darrell, and which, in years tocome, may preserve in its municipal hall his effigies in canvas or stone, is one of the handsomest in England. As you approach its suburbs fromthe London Road, it rises clear and wide upon your eye, crowning theelevated table-land upon which it is built;--a noble range of prospect oneither side, rich with hedgerows not yet sacrificed to the stern demandsof modern agriculture--venerable woodlands, and the green pastures roundmany a rural thane's frank, hospitable hall;--no one Great Housebanishing from leagues of landscape the abodes of knight and squire, normenacing, with "the legitimate influence of property, " the votes ofrebellious burghers. Everywhere, like finger-posts to heaven, you mayperceive the church-towers of rural hamlets embosomed in pleasantvalleys, or climbing up gentle slopes. At the horizon, the bluefantastic outline of girdling hills mingles with the clouds. A famousold cathedral, neighboured by the romantic ivy-grown walls of a ruinedcastle, soars up from the centre of the town, and dominates the wholesurvey--calm, as with conscious power. Nearing the town, the villas ofmerchants and traders, released perhaps from business, skirt the road, with trim gardens and shaven lawns. Now the small river, or ratherrivulet, of Ouzel, from which the town takes its name, steals out fromdeep banks covered with brushwood or aged trees, and widening into briefimportance, glides under the arches of an ancient bridge; runs on, clearand shallow, to refresh low fertile dairy-meadows, dotted with kine; andfinally quits the view, as brake and copse close round its narrowing, winding way; and that which, under the city bridge, was an imposingnoiseless stream, becomes, amidst rustic solitudes, an insignificantbabbling brook. 

From one of the largest villas in these charming suburbs came forth agentleman, middle-aged, and of a very mild and prepossessing countenance. A young lady without a bonnet, but a kerchief thrown over her sleek darkhair, accompanied him to the garden-gate, twining both handsaffectionately round his arm, and entreating him not to stand in thoroughdraughts and catch cold, nor to step into puddles and wet his feet, andto be sure to be back before dark, as there were such shocking accountsin the newspapers of persons robbed and garotted even in the mostpopulous highways; and, above all, not to listen to the beggars in thestreet, and allow himself to be taken in; and before finally releasinghim at the gate, she buttoned his greatcoat up to his chin, thrust twopellets of cotton into his ears, and gave him a parting kiss. Then shewatched him tenderly for a minute or so as he strode on with the step ofa man who needed not all those fostering admonitions and coddling cares. 

As soon as he was out of sight of the lady and the windows of the villa, the gentleman cautiously unbuttoned his greatcoat, and removed the cottonfrom his ears. "She takes much after her mother, does Anna Maria, "muttered the gentleman; "and I am very glad she is so well married. "

He had not advanced many paces when, from a branchroad to the right thatled to the railway station, another gentleman, much younger, and whosedress unequivocally bespoke him a minister of our Church, came suddenlyupon him. Each with surprise recognised the other. 

"What!--Mr. George Morley!"

"Mr. Hartopp!--How are you, my dear sir?--What brings you so far fromhome?"

"I am on a visit to my daughter, Anna Maria. She has not been longmarried--to young Jessop. Old Jessop is one of the principal merchantsat Ouzelford--very respectable worthy family. The young couple arehappily settled in a remarkably snug villa--that is it with the portico, not a hundred yards behind us, to the right. Very handsome town, Ouzelford; you are bound to it, of course?--we can walk together. I amgoing to look at the papers in the City Rooms--very fine rooms they are. But you are straight from London, perhaps, and have seen the day'sjournals? Any report of the meeting in aid of the Ragged Schools?"

"Not that I know of. I have not come from London this morning, nor seenthe papers. "

"Oh!--there's a strange-looking fellow following us; but perhaps he isyour servant?"

"Not so, but my travelling companion--indeed my guide. In fact, I cometo Ouzelford in the faint hope of discovering there a poor old friend ofmine, of whom I have long been in search. "

"Perhaps the Jessops can help you; they know everybody at Ouzelford. Butnow I meet you thus by surprise, Mr. George, I should very much like toask your advice on a matter which has been much on my mind the lasttwenty-four hours, and which concerns a person I contrived to discover atOuzelford, though I certainly was not in search of him--a person aboutwhom you and I had a conversation a few years ago, when you were stayingwith your worthy father. "

"Eh?" said George, quickly; "whom do you speak of?" "That singularvagabond who took me in, you remember--called himself Chapman--real nameWilliam Losely, a returned convict. You would have it that he wasinnocent, though the man himself had pleaded guilty on his trial. "

"His whole character belied his lips then. Oh, Mr. Hartopp, that mancommit the crime imputed to him!--a planned, deliberate robbery--anungrateful, infamous breach of trust! That man--that! he who rejects themoney he does not earn, even when pressed on him by anxious imploringfriends---he who has now gone voluntarily forth, aged and lonely, towring his bread from the humblest calling rather than incur the risk ofinjuring the child with whose existence he had charged himself!--the darkmidnight thief! Believe him not, though his voice may say it. Toscreen, perhaps, some other man, he is telling you a noble lie. But whatof him? Have you really seen him, and at Ouzelford?"

"Yes. "

"When?"

"Yesterday. I was in the City Reading-Room, looking out of the window. I saw a great white dog in the street below; I knew the dog at once, sir, though he is disguised by restoration to his natural coat, and his hairis as long as a Peruvian lama's. "Tis Sir Isaac, ' said I to myself; andbehind Sir Isaac I saw Chapman, so to call him, carrying a basket withpedlar's wares, and, to my surprise, Old Jessop, who is a formal man, with a great deal of reserve and dignity, pompous indeed (but don't letthat go further), talking to Chapman quite affably, and actually buyingsomething out of the basket. Presently Chapman went away, and was soonlost to sight. Jessop comes into the Reading-Room. 'I saw you, ' said I, 'talking to an old fellow with a French dog. ' 'Such a good old fellow, 'said Jessop; 'has a way about him that gets into your very heart while heis talking. I should like to make you acquainted with him. ' 'Thank youfor nothing, ' said I; 'I should be-taken in. ' 'Never fear, ' says Jessop, 'he would not take in a fly--the simplest creature. ' I own I chuckled atthat, Mr. George. 'And does he live here, ' said I, 'or is he merely awandering pedlar?' Then Jessop told me that he had seen him for thefirst time two or three weeks ago, and accosted him rudely, looking onhim as a mere tramp; but Chapman answered so well, and showed so manypretty things in his basket, that Jessop soon found himself buying a pairof habit-cuffs for Anna Maria, and in the course of talk it came out, Isuppose by a sign, that Chapman was a Freemason, and Jessop is anenthusiast in that sort of nonsense, master of a lodge or something, andthat was a new attraction. In short, Jessop took a great fancy to him--patronised him, promised him protection, and actually recommended him toa lodging in the cottage of all old widow who lives in the outskirts ofthe town, and had once been a nurse in the Jessop family. And what doyou think Jessop had just bought of this simple creature'! A pair ofworsted inittens as a present for me, and what is more, I have got themon this moment-look! neat, I think, and monstrous warm. Now, I havehitherto kept my own counsel. I have not said to Jessop, 'Beware--thatis the man who took me in. ' But this concealment is a little on myconscience. On the one hand, it seems very cruel, even if the man didonce commit a crime, in spite of your charitable convictions to thecontrary, that I should be blabbing out his disgrace, and destroyingperhaps his livelihood. On the other hand, if he should still be reallya rogue, a robber, perhaps dangerous, ought I--ought I--in short--you area clergyman and a fine scholar, sir-what ought I to do?"

"My dear Mr. Hartopp, do not vex yourself with this very honourabledilemma of conscience. Let me only find my poor old friend, mybenefactor I may call him, and I hope to persuade him, if not to returnto the home that waits him, at least to be my guest, or put himself undermy care. Do you know the name of the widow with whom he lodges?"

"Yes--Halse; and I know the town well enough to conduct you, if not tothe house itself, still to its immediate neighbourhood. Pray allow me toaccompany you; I should like it very much--for, though you may not thinkit, from the light way I have been talking of Chapman, I never was sointerested in any man, never so charmed by any man; and it has oftenhaunted me at night, thinking that I behaved too harshly to him, and thathe was about on the wide world, an outcast, deprived of his little girl, whom he had trusted to me. And I should have run after him yesterday, orcalled on him this morning, and said, 'Let me serve you, ' if it had notbeen for the severity with which he and his son were spoken of, and Imyself rebuked for mentioning their very names, by a man whose opinion I, and indeed all the country, must hold in the highest respect--a man ofthe finest honour, the weightiest character--I mean Guy Darrell, thegreat Darrell. "

George Morley sighed. "I believe Darrell knows nothing of the elderLosely, and is prejudiced against him by the misdeeds of the younger, towhose care you (and I cannot blame you, for I also was instrumental tothe same transfer which might have proved calamitously fatal) surrenderedthe poor motherless girl. "

"She is not with her grandfather now'! She lives still, I hope! She wasvery delicate. "

"She lives--she is safe. Ha--take care!"

These last words were spoken as a horseman, riding fast along the roadtowards the bridge that was now close at hand, came, without warning orheed, so close upon our two pedestrians, that George Morley had but justtime to pluck Hartopp aside from the horse's hoofs. 

"An impudent, careless, ruffianly fellow, indeed!" said the mildHartopp, indignantly, as he brushed from his sleeve the splash of dirtwhich the horseman bequeathed to it. "He must be drunk!"

The rider, gaining the bridge, was there detained at the toll-bar by somecarts and waggons, and the two gentlemen passed him on the bridge, looking with some attention at his gloomy, unobservant countenance, andthe powerful fraune, in which, despite coarse garments and the changewrought by years of intemperate excess, was still visible the trace ofthat felicitous symmetry once so admirably combining herculean strengthwith elastic elegance. Entering the town, the rider turned into the yardof the near est inn. George Morley and Hartopp, followed at a littledistance by Morley's travelling companion, Merle, passed on towards theother extremity of the town, and, after one or two inquiries for "WidowHalse, Prospect Row, " they came to a few detached cottages, very prettilysituated on a gentle hill, commanding in front the roofs of the city andthe gleaming windows of the great cathedral, with somewhat large gardensin the rear. Mrs. Halse's dwelling was at the extreme end of this Row. The house, however, was shut up; and a woman, who was standing at thedoor of the neighbouring cottage, plaiting straw, informed the visitorsthat Mrs. Halse was gone out "charing" for the day, and that her lodger, who had his own key, seldom returned before dark, but that at that hourhe was pretty sure to be found in the Cornmarket or the streets in itsvicinity, and offered to send her little boy to discover and "fetch" him. 

George consulted apart with Merle, and decided on despatching thecobbler, with the boy for his guide, in quest of the pedlar, Merle beingof course instructed not to let out by whom he was accompanied, lestWaife, in his obstinacy, should rather abscond than encounter the friendsfrom whom he had fled. Merle, and a curly-headed urchin, who seemeddelighted at the idea of hunting up Sir Isaac and Sir Isaac's master, setforth, and! were soon out of sight. Hartopp and George opened the littlegarden-gate, and strolled into the garden at the back of the cottage, toseat themselves patiently on a bench beneath an old appletree. Here theywaited and conversed some minutes, till George observed that one of thecasements on that side of the cottage was left open, and, involuntarilyrising, he looked in; surveying with interest the room, which he feltsure, at the first glance, must be that occupied by his self-exiledfriend; a neat pleasant little room-a bullfinch in a wicker cage on aledge within the casement-a flower-pot beside it. Doubtless the window, which faced the southern sun, had been left open by the kind old man inorder to cheer the bird and to gladden the plant. Waife's well-knownpipe, and a tobacco-pouch worked for him by Sophys fairy fingers, lay ona table near the fireplace, between casement and door; and George sawwith emotion the Bible which he himself had given to the wanderer lyingalso on the table, with the magnifying-glass which Waife had of late beenobliged to employ in reading. Waife's habitual neatness was visible inthe aspect of the room. To George it was evident that the very chairshad been arranged by his hand; that his hand had courteously given thatfresh coat of varnish to the wretched portrait of a man in blue coat andbuff waistcoat, representing, no doubt, the lamented spouse of thehospitable widow. George beckoned to Hartopp to come also and lookwithin; and as the worthy trader peeped over his shoulder, the clergymansaid, whisperingly, "Is there not something about a man's home whichattests his character?--No 'pleading guilty' here. "

Hartopp was about to answer, when they heard the key turn sharply in theouter door, and had scarcely time to draw somewhat back from the casementwhen Waife came hurriedly into the room, followed, not by Merle, but bythe tall rough-looking horseman whom they had encountered on the road. "Thank Heaven, " cried Waife, sinking on a chair, "out of sight, out ofhearing now! Now you may speak; now I can listen! O wretched son of mylost angel, whom I so vainly sought to save by the sacrifice of all myclaims to the respect of men, for what purpose do you seek me? I havenothing left that you can take away! Is it the child again? See--see--look round-search the house if you will--she is not here. "

"Bear with me, if you can, sir, " said Jasper, in tones that were almostmeek; "you, at least, can say nothing that I will not bear. But I am inmy right when I ask you to tell me, without equivocation or reserve, ifSophy, though not actually within these walls, be near you, in this townor its neighbourhood?--in short, still under your protection?"

"Not in this town--not near it--not under my protection; I swear. "

"Do not swear, father; I have no belief in other men's oaths. I believeyour simple word. Now comes my second question--remember I am stillstrictly in my right--where is she?--and under whose care?"

"I will not say. One reason why I have abandoned the very air shebreathes was, that you might not trace her in tracing me. But she is outof your power again to kidnap and to sell. You might molest, harass, shame her, by proclaiming yourself her father; but regain her into yourkeeping, cast her to infamy and vice--never, never! She is now with nopowerless, miserable convict, for whom Law has no respect. She is now nohelpless infant without a choice, without a will. She is safe from all, save the wanton, unprofitable effort to disgrace her. O Jasper, Jasper, be human--she is so delicate of frame--she is so sensitive to reproach, so tremulously alive to honour--I am not fit to be near her now. I havebeen a tricksome, shifty vagrant, and, innocent though I be, the felon'sbrand is on me! But you, you too, who never loved her, who cannot missher, whose heart is not breaking at her loss as mine is now--you, you--torise up from the reeking pesthouse in which you have dwelt by choice, andsay, 'Descend from God's day with me'--Jasper, Jasper, you will not--youcannot; it would be the malignity of a devil!"

"Father, hold!" cried Jasper, writhing and livid; "I owe to you morethan I do to that thing of pink and white. I know better than you thetrumpery of all those waxen dolls of whom dupes make idols. At each turnof the street you may find them in basketfuls--blue-eyed or black-eyed, just the same worthless frippery or senseless toys; but every mandandling his own doll, whether he call it sweetheart or daughter, makesthe same puling boast that he has an angel of purity in his puppet ofwax. Nay, hear me! to that girl I owe nothing. You know what I owe toyou. You bid me not seek her, and say, 'I am your father. ' Do you thinkit does not misbecome me more, and can it wound you less, when I come toyou, and remind you that I am your son!"

"Jasper!" faltered the old man, turning his face aside, for the touch offeeling towards himself, contrasting the cynicism with which Jasper spokeof other ties not less sacred, took the father by surprise. 

"And, " continued Jasper, "remembering how you once loved me--with whatself-sacrifice you proved that love--it is with a bitter grudge againstthat girl that I see her thus take that place in your affection which wasmine, --and you so indignant against me if I even presume to approach her. What! I have the malignity of a devil because I would not quietly liedown in yonder kennels to starve, or sink into the grade of those whomyour daintier thief disclains; spies into unguarded areas, or cowardlyskulkers by blind walls; while in the paltry girl, who you say is so wellprovided for, I see the last and sole resource which may prevent you frombeing still more degraded, still more afflicted by your son. "

"What is it you want? Even if Sophy were in your power, Darrell wouldnot be more disposed to enrich or relieve you. He will never believeyour tale, nor deign even to look into its proofs. "

"He might at last, " said Jasper, evasively. "Surely with all thatwealth, no nearer heir than a remote kinsman in the son of a beggaredspendthrift by a linendraper's daughter--he should need a grandchild morethan you do; yet the proofs you speak of convinced yourself; you believemy tale. "

"Believe--yes, for that belief was everything in the world, to me! Ah, remember how joyously, when my term of sentence expired, I hastened toseek you at Paris, deceived by the rare letters with which you haddeigned to cheer me--fondly dreaming that, in expiating your crime, Ishould have my reward in your redemption--should live to see youhonoured, honest, good--live to think your mother watched us from heavenwith a smile on both--and that we should both join her at last--youpurified by my atonement! Oh, and when I saw you so sunken, so hardened, exulting in vice as in a glory--bravo and partner in a gambler's hell--or, worse still, living on the plunder of miserable women, even thealmsman of that vile Desmarets--my son, my son, my lost Lizzy's sonblotted out of my world for ever!--then, then I should have died if youhad not said, boasting of the lie which had wrung the gold from Darrell, 'But the child lives still. ' Believe you--oh, yes, yes--for in thatbelief something was still left to me to cherish, to love, to live for!"

Here the old man's hurried voice died away in a passionate sob; and thedireful son, all reprobate though he was, slid from his chair, and bowedhimself at his father's knee, covering his face with fell hands thattrembled. "Sir, sir, " he said, in broken reverential accents, "do notlet me see you weep. You cannot believe me, but I say solemnly that, ifthere be in me a single remnant of affection for any human being, it isfor you. When I consented to leave you to bear the sentence which shouldhave fallen on myself, sure I am that I was less basely selfish thanabsurdly vain. I fancied myself so born to good fortune!--so formed tocaptivate some rich girl!--and that you would return to share wealth withme; that the evening of your days would be happy; that you would berepaid by my splendour for your own disgrace! And when I did marry, anddid ultimately get from the father-in-law who spurned me the capital ofhis daughter's fortune, pitifully small though it was compared to myexpectations, my first idea was to send half of that sum to you. But--but--I was living with those who thought nothing so silly as a goodintention--nothing so bad as a good action. That mocking she-devil, Gabrielle, too! Then the witch's spell of that d----d green-table! Luckagainst one-wait! double the capital ere you send the half. Luck withone--how balk the tide? how fritter the capital just at the turn ofdoubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when Idid, I said, 'Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them someday or other!'--/Basta, basta/!--what idle twaddle or hollow brag allthis must seem to you!"

"No, " said Wife, feebly, and his hand drooped till it touched Jasper'sbended shoulder, but at the touch recoiled as with an electric spasm. 

"So, as you say, you found me at Paris. I told you where I had placedthe child, not conceiving that Arabella would part with her, or youdesire to hamper yourself with an encumbrance-nay, I took for grantedthat you would find a home as before with some old friend or countrycousin:--but fancying that your occasional visits to her might comfortyou, since it seemed to please you so much when I said she lived. Thuswe parted, --you, it seems, only anxious to save that child from everfalling into my hands, or those of Gabrielle Desmarets; I hastening toforget all but the riotous life around me till--"

"Till you came back to England to rob from me the smile of the only facethat I knew would never wear contempt, and to tell the good man with whomI thought she had so safe a shelter that I was a convicted robber, bywhose very love her infancy was sullied. O Jasper! Jasper!"

"I never said that--never thought of saying it. Arabella Crane did so, with the reckless woman-will to gain her object. But I did take thechild from you. Why? Partly because I needed money so much that I wouldhave sold a hecatomb of children for half what I was offered to bind thegirl to a service that could not be very dreadful, since yourself hadfirst placed here there;--and partly because you had shrunk, it seems, from appealing to old friends: you were living, like myself, from hand tomouth; what could that child be to you but a drag and a bother?"

"And you will tell me, I suppose, " said Waife, with an incredulous, bitter irony, that seemed to wither himself in venting it, so did hiswhole frame recoil and shrink--"you will tell me that it was from thesame considerate tenderness that you would have again filched her from mesome months later, to place her with that 'she-devil' who was once moreby your side; to be reared and sold to--O horror!--horror!--unimaginablehorror!--that pure helpless infant!--you, armed with the name of father!--you, strong in that mighty form of man!"

"What do you mean? Oh, I remember now! When Gabrielle was in London, and I had seen you on the bridge? Who could have told you that I meantto get the child from you at that time?"

Waife was silent. He could not betray Arabella Crane; and Jasper lookedperplexed and thoughtful. Then gradually the dreadful nature of hisfather's accusing words seemed to become more clear to him; and he cried, with a fierce start and a swarthy flush: "But whoever told you that Iharboured the design that it whitens your lip to hint at, lied, andfoully. Harkye, sir, many years ago Gabrielle had made acquaintance withDarrell, under another name, as Matilda's friend (long story now--notworth telling); he had never, I believe, discovered the imposture. Justat the time you refer to, I heard that Darrell had been to France, inquiring himself into facts connected with my former story, thatMatilda's child was dead. That very inquiry seemed to show that he hadnot been so incredulous of my assertions of Sophy's claims on him as hehad affected to be when I urged them. He then went on into Italy. Talking this over with Gabrielle, she suggested that, if the child couldbe got into her possession, she would go with her in search of Darrell, resuming the name in which she had before known him--resuming the titleand privilege of Matilda's friend. In that character he might listen toher, when he would not to me. She might confirn my statement--melt hisheart--coax him into terms. She was the cleverest creature! I shouldhave sold Sophy, it is true. For what? A provision to place me abovewant and crime. Sold her to whom? To the man who would see in her hisdaughter's child, rear her to inherit his wealth--guard her as his ownhonour. What! was this the design that so shocks you? /Basta, Basta!/Again, I say, Enough. I never thought I should be so soft as to mutterexcuses for what I have done. And if I do so now, the words seem forcedfrom me against my will-forced from me, as if in seeing you I was againbut a wild, lawless, wilful boy, who grieved to see you saddened by hisfaults, though he forgot his grief the moment you were out of sight. "

"Oh, Jasper, " cried Waife, now fairly placing his hand on Jasper's guiltyhead, and fixing his bright soft eye, swimming in tears, on that downcastgloomy face. "You repent!--you repent! Yes; call back your BOYHOOD--call it back! Let it stand before you, now, visible, palpable! Lo! Isee it! Do not you? Fearless, joyous Image! Wild, lawless, wilful, asyou say. Wild from exuberant life; lawless as a bird is free, becauseair is boundless to untried exulting wings; wilful from the ease withwhich the bravery and beauty of Nature's radiant Darling forced way foreach jocund whim through our yielding hearts! Silence! It is there!I see it, as I saw it rise in the empty air when guilt and ignominy firstdarkened round you; and my heart cried aloud, 'Not on him, not on him, not on that glorious shape of hope and promise--on me, whose life, useless hitherto, has lost all promise now--on me let fall the shame. 'And my lips obeyed my heart, and I said--'Let the Laws' will be done--I am the guilty man. ' Cruel, cruel one! Was that sunny Boyhood then solong departed from you? On the verge of youth, and such maturity incraft and fraud--that when you stole into my room that dark winter eve, threw yourself at my feet, spoke but of thoughtless debts, and the fearthat you should be thrust from an industrious honest calling, and I--Isaid, 'No, no; fear not; the head of your firm likes you; he has writtento me; I am trying already to raise the money you need; it shall beraised, no matter what it cost me; you shall be saved; my Lizzie's sonshall never know the soil of a prison; shun temptation henceforth: be buthonest, and I shall be repaid!'--what, even then, you were coldlymeditating the crime that will make my very grave dishonoured!"

"Meditating--not so! How could I be? Not till after what had thuspassed between us, when you spoke with such indulgent kindness, did Ieven know that I might more than save myself--by monies--not raised atrisk and loss to you! Remember, you had left me in the inner room, whileyou went forth to speak with Gunston. There I overheard him talk ofnotes he had never counted, and might never miss; describe the very placewhere they were kept; and then the idea came to me irresistibly, 'betterrob him than despoil my own generous father. ' Sir, I am not pretendingto be better than I was. I was not quite the novice you supposed. Coveting pleasures or shows not within my reach, I had shrunk fromdraining you to supply the means; I had not had the same forbearance forthe superfluous wealth of others. I had learned with what simple toolsold locks may fly open; and none had ever suspected me, so I had no fearof danger, small need of premeditation: a nail on your mantelpiece, thecloven end of the hammer lying beside, to crook it when hot from the firethat blazed before me! I say this to show you that I did not comeprovided; nothing was planned beforehand; all was the project and work ofthe moment. Such was my haste, I burnt myself to the bone with the rediron--feeling no pain, or rather, at that age, bearing all pain withoutwincing. Before Gunston left you, my whole plan was then arranged--mysole instrument fashioned. You groan. But how could I fancy that therewould be detection? How imagine that even if monies, never counted, weremissed, suspicion could fall on you--better gentleman than he whom youserved? And had it not been for that accursed cloak which you so fondlywrapped round me when I set off to catch the night train back to--; if ithad not been, I say, for that cloak, there could have been no evidence tocriminate either you or me-except that unlucky L5 note, which I pressedon you when we met at ----, where I was to hide till you had settled withmy duns. And why did I press it on you?--because you had asked me if Ihad wherewithal about me on which to live meanwhile; and I, to save youfrom emptying your own purse, said, 'Yes'; showed you some gold, andpressed on you the bank-note, which I said I could not want--to go, insmall part, towards my debts; it was a childish, inconsistent wish toplease you: and you seemed so pleased to take it as a proof that I caredfor you. "

"For me!--no, no; for honour--for honour--for honour! I thought youcared for honour; and the proof of that care was, thrusting into thesecredulous hands the share of your midnight plunder!"

"Sir, " resumed Jasper, persisting in the same startling combination offeeling, gentler and more reverential than could have been supposed tolinger in his breast, and of the moral obtuseness that could not, save byvanishing glimpses, distinguish between crime and its consequences--between dishonour and detection--" Sir, I declare that I never conceivedthat I was exposing you to danger; nay, I meant, out of the money I hadtaken, to replace to you what you were about to raise, as soon as I couldinvent some plausible story of having earned it honestly. Stupid notionsand clumsy schemes, as I now look back on them; but, as you say, I hadnot long left boyhood, and, fancying myself deep and knowing, was raw inthe craft I had practised. /Basta, basta, basta!/"

Jasper, who had risen from his knees while speaking, here stamped heavilyon the floor, as if with anger at the heart-stricken aspect of hissilenced father; and continued with a voice that seemed struggling toregain its old imperious, rollicking, burly swell. 

"What is done cannot be undone. Fling it aside, sir--look to the future;you with your pedlar's pack, I with my empty pockets! What can save youfrom the workhouse--me from the hulks or gibbet? I know not, unless thepersons sheltering that girl will buy me off by some provision which maybe shared between us. Tell me, then, where she is; leave me to deal inthe business as I best may. Pooh! why so scared? I will neither terrifynor kidnap her. I will shuffle off the crust of blackguard that hashardened round me. I will be sleek and smooth, as if I were still theexquisite Lothario--copied by would-be rufllers, and spoiled by willingbeauties. Oh, I can still play the gentleman, at least for an hour ortwo, if it be worth my while. Come, sir, come; trust me; out with thesecret of this hidden maiden, whose interests should surely weigh notmore with you than those of a starving son. What, you will not? Be itso. I suspect that I know where to look for her--on what noblethresholds to set my daring foot; what fair lady, mindful of former days--of girlish friendship--of virgin love--wraps in compassionate luxuryGuy Darrell's rejected heiress? Ah, your looks tell me that I am hot onthe scent. That fair lady I knew of old; she is rich--I helped to makeher so. She owes me something. I will call and remind her of it. And--tut, sir, tut--you shall not go to the workhouse, nor I to the hulks. "

Here the old man, hitherto seated, rose-slowly, with feebleness andeffort, till he gained his full height; then age, infirmity, and weaknessseemed to vanish. In the erect head, the broad massive chest, in thewhole presence, there was dignity--there was power. 

"Hark to me, unhappy reprobate, and heed me well! To save that childfrom the breath of disgrace--to place her in what you yourself assured mewhere her rights amidst those in whose dwellings I lost the privilege todwell when I took to myself your awful burthen--I thought to resign hercharge for ever in this world. Think not that I will fly her now, whenyou invade. No--since my prayers will not move you--since my sacrificeto you has been so fruitless--since my absence from herself does notattain its end there, where you find her, shall you again meet me! Andif there we meet, and you come with the intent to destroy her peace andblast her fortune, then I, William Losely, am no more the felon. In theface of day I will proclaim the truth, and say, 'Robber, change place inearth's scorn with me; stand in the dock, where thy father stood in vainto save thee!"'

"Bah, sir--too late now; who would listen to you?"

"All who have once known me--all will listen. Friends of power andstation will take up my cause. There will be fresh inquiry into factsthat I held back--evidence that, in pleading guilty, I suppressed--ungrateful one--to ward away suspicion from you. "

"Say what you will, " said Jasper swaying his massive form to and fro, with a rolling gesture which spoke of cold defiance, "I am no hypocritein fair repute whom such threats would frighten. If you choose to thwartme in what I always held my last resource for meat and drink, I muststand in the dock even, perhaps, on a heavier charge than one so stale. Each for himself; do your worst--what does it matter?"

"What does it matter that a father should accuse his son! No, no--son, son, son--this must not be;--let it not be!--let me complete mymartyrdom! I ask no reversal of man's decree, except before the DivineTribunal. Jasper, Jasper--child of my love, spare the sole thing left tofill up the chasms in the heart that you laid waste. Speak not ofstarving, or of fresh crime. Stay--share this refuge! I WILL WORK FORBOTH!"

Once more, and this time thoroughly, Jasper's hideous levity and coarsebravado gave way before the lingering human sentiment knitting him backto childhood, which the sight and voice of his injured father had calledforth with spasms and throes, as a seer calls the long-buried from agrave. And as the old man extended his arms pleadingly towards him, Jasper, with a gasping sound-half groan, half sob-sprang forward, caughtboth the hands in his own strong grasp, lifted them to his lips, kissedthem, and then, gaining the door with a rapid stride, said, in hoarsebroken tones: "Share your refuge! no--no--I should break your heartdownright did you see me daily--hourly as I am! You work for both!--you--you!" His voice stopped, choked for a brief moment, and then hurriedon: "As for that girl--you--you--you are--but no matter, I will try toobey you--will try to wrestle against hunger, despair, and thoughts thatwhisper sinking men with devils' tongues. I will try--I will try; if Isucceed not, keep your threat--accuse me--give me up to justice--clearyourself; but if you would crush me more than by the heaviest curse, never again speak to me with such dreadful tenderness! Cling not to me, old man; release me, I say;--there--there; off. Ah! I did not hurt you?Brute that I am--you bless me--you--you! And I dare not bless again!Let me go--let me go--let me go!" He wrenched himself away from hisfather's clasp--drowning with loud tone his father's pathetic soothings--out of the house-down the hill--lost to sight in the shades of thefalling eve. 

CHAPTER VI. 

 GENTLEMAN WAIFE DOES NOT FORGET AN OLD FRIEND. THE OLD FRIEND RECONCILES ASTROLOGY TO PRUDENCE, AND IS UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF BENEFICE. MR. HARTOPP HAT IN HAND TO GENTLEMAN WAIFE. 

Waife fell on the floor of his threshold, exclaiming, sobbing, moaning, as voice itself gradually died away. The dog, who had been shut out fromthe house, and remained, ears erect, head drooping, close at the door, rushed in as Jasper burst forth. The two listeners at the open casementnow stole round; there was the dog, its paw on the old man's shoulder, trying to attract his notice, and whining low. 

Tenderly--reverentially, they lift the poor martyr--evermore cleared intheir eyes from stain, from question; the dishonouring brand transmutedinto the hallowing cross! And when the old man at length recoveredconsciousness, his head was pillowed on the breast of the spotless, noblePreacher; and the decorous English Trader, with instinctive deference forrepute and respect for law, was kneeling by his side, clasping his hand;and as Wife glanced down, confusedly wondering, Hartopp exclaimed, halfsobbing: "Forgive me; you said I should repent, if I knew all! I dorepent! I do! Forgive me--I shall never forgive myself. "

"Have I been dreaming? What is all this? You here, too, Mr. George!But--but there was ANOTHER. Gone! ah--gone--gone! lost, lost! Ha!Did you overhear us?"

"We overheard you-at that window! See, spite of yourself, Heaven letsyour innocence be known, and, in that innocence, your sublime self-sacrifice. "

"Hush! you will never betray me, either of you--never. A father turnagainst his son!--horrible!"

Again he seemed on the point of swooning. In a few moments more, hismind began evidently to wander somewhat; and just as Merle (who, with hisurchin-guide, had wandered vainly over the old town in search of thepedlar, until told that he had been seen in a by-street, stopped andaccosted by a tall man in a rough great-coat, and then hurrying off, followed by the stranger) came back to report his ill-success, Hartoppand George had led Waife up-stairs into his sleeping-room, laid him downon his bed, and were standing beside him watching his troubled face, andwhispering to each other in alarm. 

Waife overheard Hartopp proposing to go in search of medical assistance, and exclaimed piteously: "No, that would scare me to death. No doctors--no eavesdroppers. Leave me to myself--quiet and darkness; I shall bewell tomorrow. "

George drew the curtains round the bed, and Waife caught him by the arm. "You will not let out what you heard, I know; you understand how little Ican now care for men's judgments; but how dreadful it would be to undoall I have done--I to be witness against my Lizzy's child! I--I! Itrust you--dear, dear Mr. Morley; make Mr. Hartopp sensible that, if hewould not drive me mad, not a syllable of what he heard must go forth-'twould be base in him. "

"Nay!" said Hartopp, whispering also through the darkness, "don't fearme; I will hold my peace, though 'tis very hard not to tell Williams atleast that you did not take me in. But you shall be obeyed. "

They drew away Merle, who was wondering what the whispered talk wasabout, catching a word or two here and there, and left the old man notquite to solitude, --Waife's hand, in quitting George's grasp, dropped onthe dog's head. 

Hartopp went back to his daughter's home in a state of great excitement, drinking more wine than usual at dinner, talking more magisterially thanhe had ever been known to talk, railing quite misanthropically againstthe world; observing, that Williams had become unsufferably overbearing, and should be pensioned off: in short, casting the whole family into thegreatest perplexity to guess what had come to the mild man. Merle foundhimself a lodging, and cast a horary scheme as to what would happen toWaife and himself for the next three months, and found all the aspects soperversely contradictory, that he owned he was no wiser as to the futurethan he was before the scheme was cast. George Morley remained in thecottage, stealing up, from time to time, to Waife's room, but notfatiguing him with talk. Before midnight, the old man slept, but hisslumber was much perturbed, as if by fearful dreams. However, he roseearly, very weak, but free from fever, and in full possession of hisreason. To George's delight, Waife's first words to him then wereexpressive of a wish to return to Sophy. "He had dreamed, " he said, "that he had heard her voice calling out to him to come to her help. " Hewould not revert to the scene with Jasper. George once ventured to touchon that reminiscence, but the old man's look became so imploring that hedesisted. Nevertheless, it was evident to the Pastor, that Waife'sdesire to return was induced by his belief that he had become necessaryto Sophy's protection. Jasper, whose remorse would probably be veryshort-lived, had clearly discovered Sophy's residence, and as clearlyWaife, and Waife alone, still retained some hold over his rugged breast. Perhaps, too, the old man had no longer the same dread of encounteringJasper; rather, perhaps, a faint hope that, in another meeting, he mightmore availingly soften his son's heart. He was not only willing, then--he was eager to depart, and either regained or assumed much of his oldcheerfulness in settling with his hostess, and parting with Merle, onwhom he forced his latest savings and the tasteful contents of hispannier. Then he took aside George, and whispered in his ear: "A veryhonest, kind-hearted man, sir; can you deliver him from the Planets?--they bring him into sad trouble. Is there no opening for a cobbler atHumberston?"

George nodded, and went back to Merle, who was wiping his eyes with hiscoat-sleeve. "My good friend, " said the scholar, "do me two favours, besides the greater one you have already bestowed in conducting me backto a revered friend. First, let me buy of you the contents of thatbasket; I have children amongst whom I would divide them as heirlooms;next, as we were travelling hither, you told me that, in your youngerdays, ere you took to a craft which does not seem to have prospered, youwere brought up to country pursuits, and knew all about cows and sheep, their care and their maladies. Well, I have a few acres of glebe-land onmy own hands, not enough for a bailiff--too much for my gardener--and apretty cottage, which once belonged to a schoolmaster, but we have builthim a larger one; it is now vacant, and at your service. Come and takeall trouble of land and stock off my hands; we shall not quarrel aboutthe salary. But harkye, my friend--on one proviso--give up the Crystal, and leave the Stars to mind their own business. "

"Please your Reverence, " said Merle, who, at the earlier part of theaddress, had evinced the most grateful emotion, but who, at the provisowhich closed it, jerked himself lip, dignified and displeased--"Pleaseyour Reverence, no! Kit Merle is not so unnatural as to swop away hisSignificator at Birth for a mess of porritch! There was that forrinchap, Gally-Leo--he stuck to the stars, or the sun, which is the samething--and the stars stuck by him, and brought him honour and glory, though the Parsons war dead agin him. He had Malefics in his NinthHouse, which belongs to Parsons. "

"Can't the matter be compromised, dear Mr. George?" said Waife, persuasively. "Suppose Merle promises to keep his crystal andastrological sehemes to himself, or at least only talk of them to you;--they can't hurt you, I should think, sir? And science is a sacred thing, Merle; and the Chaldees, who were the great star-gazers, never degradedthemselves by showing off to the vulgar. Mr. George, who is a scholar, will convince you of that fact. "

"Content, " said George. "So long as Mr. Merle will leave my children andservants, and the parish generally, in happy ignorance of the future, Igive him the fullest leave to discuss his science with myself whenever wechat together on summer moons or in winter evenings; and perhaps I may--"

"Be converted?" said Waife, with a twinkling gleam of the playful Humourwhich had ever sported along his thorny way by the side of Sorrow. 

"I did not mean that, " said the Parson, smiling; "rather the contrary. What say you, Merle? Is it not a bargain?"

"Sir--God bless you!" cried Merle, simply; "I see you won't let me standin my own light. And what Gentleman Waife says as to the vulgar, isuncommon true. "

This matter settled, and Merle's future secured in a way that his stars, or his version of their language, had not foretold to him, George andWaife walked on to the station, Merle following with the Parson's smallcarpet-bag, and Sir Isaac charged with Waife's bundle. They had not gonemany yards before they met Hartopp, who was indeed on his way to ProspectRow. He was vexed at learning Waife was about to leave so abruptly; hehad set his heart on coaxing him to return to Gatesboro' with himself-astounding Williams and Mrs. H. , and proclaiming to Market Place and HighStreet, that, in deeming Mr. Chapman a good and a great man disguised, he, Josiah Hartopp, had not been taken in. He consoled himself a littlefor Waife's refusal of this kind invitation and unexpected departure, bywalking proudly beside him to the station, finding it thronged withpassengers--some of them great burgesses of Ouzelford--in whose presencehe kept bowing his head to Waife with every word he uttered; and, callingthe guard--who was no stranger to his own name and importance--he toldhim pompously to be particularly attentive to that elderly gentleman, andsee that he and his companion had a carriage to themselves all the way, and that Sir Isaac had a particularly comfortable box. "A very greatman, " he said, with his finger to his lip, "only he will not have itknown--just at present. " The guard stares, and promises all deference--opens the door of a central first-class carriage--assures Waife that heand his friend shall not be disturbed by other passengers. The trainheaves into movement--Hartopp runs on by its side along the stand--hishat off-kissing his hand; then, as the convoy shoots under yon darktunnel, and is lost to sight, he turns back, and seeing Merle, says tohim, "You know that gentleman--the old one?"

"Yes, a many year. "

"Ever heard anything against him?"

"Yes, once--at Gatesboro'. "

"At Gatesboro'!--ah! and you did not believe it?"

"Only jist for a moment, transiting. "

"I envy you, " said Hartopp; and he went off with a sigh. 

CHAPTER VII. 

 JASPER LOSELY IN HIS ELEMENT. O YOUNG READER, WHOMSOEVER THOU ART, ON WHOM NATURE HAS BESTOWED HER MAGNIFICENT GIFT OF PHYSICAL POWER WITH THE JOYS IT COMMANDS, WITH THE DARING THAT SPRINGS FROM IT--ON CLOSING THIS CHAPTER, PAUSE A MOMENT, AND THINK "WHAT WILT THOU DO WITH IT?" SHALL IT BE BRUTE-LIKE OR GOD-LIKE? WITH WHAT ADVANTAGE FOR LIFE--ITS DELIGHTS OR ITS PERILS-TOILS BORNE WITH EASE, AND GLORIES CHEAP-BOUGHT--DOST THOU START AT LIFE'S ONSET? GIVE THY SINEWS A MIND THAT CONCEIVES THE HEROIC, AND WHAT NOBLE THINGS THOU MAYST DO, BUT VALUE THY SINEWS FOR RUDE STRENGTH ALONE, AND THAT STRENGTH MAY BE TURNED TO THY SHAME AND THY TORTURE. THE WEALTH OF THY LIFE WILL BUT TEMPT TO ITS WASTE. ABUSE, AT FIRST FELT NOT, WILL POISON THE USES OF SENSE. WILD BULLS GORE AND TRAMPLE THEIR FOES. THOU HAST SOUL! WILT THOU TRAMPLE AND GORE IT?

Jasper Losely, on quitting his father, spent his last coins in paymentfor his horse's food, and in fiery drink for himself. In haste hemounted--in haste he spurred on to London; not even pence for the toll-bars. Where he found the gates open, he dashed through them headlong;where closed, as the night advanced, he forced his horse across thefields over hedge and ditch--more than once the animal falling with him--more than once thrown from the saddle; for, while a most daring, he wasnot a very practised rider; but it was not easy to break bones so strong, and though bruised and dizzy, he continued his fierce way. At morninghis horse was thoroughly exhausted, and at the first village he reachedafter sunrise he left the poor beast at an inn, and succeeded inborrowing of the landlord L1 on the pawn of the horse thus left ashostage. Resolved to husband this sum, he performed the rest of hisjourney on foot. He reached London at night, and went straight to Cutts'lodgings. Cutts was, however, in the club-room of those dark associatesagainst whom Losely had been warned. Oblivious of his solemn promise toArabella, Jasper startled the revellers as he stalked into the room, andtowards the chair of honour at the far end of it, on which he had beenaccustomed to lord it over the fell groups he had treated out of Poole'spurse. One of the biggest and most redoubted of the Black Family was nowin that seat of dignity, and refusing surlily to yield it at Jasper'srude summons, was seized by the scruff of the neck, and literally hurledon the table in front, coming down with clatter and clash amongst mugsand glasses. Jasper seated himself coolly, while the hubbub began toswell--and roared for drink. An old man, who served as drawer to thesecavaliers, went out to obey the order; and when he was gone, those nearthe door swung across it a heavy bar. Wrath against the domineeringintruder was gathering, and waited but the moment to explode. Jasper, turning round his bloodshot eyes; saw Cutts within a few chairs of him, seeking to shrink out of sight. 

"Cutts, come hither, " cried he, imperiously. Cutts did not stir. 

"Throw me that cur this way--you, who sit next him. "

"Don't, don't; his mad fit is on him; he will murder me--murder me, whohave helped and saved you all so often. Stand by me. "

"We will, " said both his neighbours, the one groping for his case-knife, the other for his revolver. 

"Do you fear I should lop your ears, dog, " cried Jasper, for shrinkingfrom my side with your tail between your legs! Pooh! I scorn to wasteforce on a thing so small. After all, I am glad you left me; I did notwant you. You will find your horse at an inn in the village of ------. I will pay for its hire whenever we meet again. Meanwhile, find anothermaster--I discharge you. /Mille tonnerres!/ why does that weasel-facedsnail not bring me the brandy! By your leave, "--and he appropriated tohimself the brimming glass of his next neighbour. Thus refreshed, heglanced round through the reek of tobacco smoke; saw the man he haddislodged, and who, rather amazed than stunned by his fall, had keptsilence on rising, and was now ominously interchanging muttered wordswith two of his comrades, who were also on their legs. Jasper turnedfrom him contemptuously;--with increasing contempt in his hard fiercesneer, noted the lowering frowns on either side the Pandemonium; and itwas only with an angry flash from his eyes that he marked, on closing hissurvey, the bar dropped across the door, and two forms, knife in hand, stationed at the threshold. 

"Aha! my jolly companions, " said he then, "you do right to bar the door. Prudent families can't settle their quarrels too snugly amongstthemselves. I am come here on purpose to give you all a proper scolding, and if some of you don't hang your heads for shame before I have done, you'll die more game than I think for, whenever you come to the lastDrop. "

He rose as he thus spoke, folding his sinewy arms across his wide chest. Most of the men had risen too--some, however, remained seated; theremight be eighteen or twenty in all. Every eye was fixed on him, and manya hand was on a deadly weapon. 

"Scum of the earth!" burst forth Jasper, with voice like a roll ofthunder, "I stooped to come amongst you--I shared amongst you my money. Was any one of you too poor to pay up his club fee--to buy a draught ofForgetfulness--I said, 'Brother, take!' Did brawl break out in yourjollities--were knives drawn--a throat in danger--this right band struckdown the uproar, crushed back the coward murder. If I did not join inyour rogueries, it was because they were sneaking and pitiful. I came asyour Patron, not as your Pal; I did not meddle with your secrets--did nottouch your plunder. I owed you nothing. Offal that you are! to me youowed drink, and meat, and good fellowship. I gave you mirth, and I gaveyou Law; and in return ye laid a plot amongst you to get rid of me;--how, ye white-livered scoundrels? Oho! not by those fists, and knives, andbludgeons. All your pigeon breasts clubbed together had not manhood forthat. But to palm off upon me some dastardly deed of your own; by snaresand scraps of false evidence--false oaths, too, no doubt--to smuggle meoff to the hangman. That was your precious contrivance. Once again I amhere; but this once only. What for?--why, to laugh at, and spit at, andspurn you. And if one man amongst you has in him an ounce of man'sblood, let him show me the traitors who planned that pitiful project, andbe they a dozen, they shall carry the mark of this hand till theircarcasses go to the surgeon's scalpel. "

He ceased. Though each was now hustling the other towards him, and thewhole pack of miscreants was closing up, like hounds round a wild boar atbay, the only one who gave audible tongue was that thin splinter of lifecalled Cutts!

"Look you, General Jas. , it was all a mistake your ever coining here. You were a fine fellow once, particularly in the French way of doingbusiness--large prizes and lots of row. That don't suit us; we are quietEnglishmen. You brag of beating and bullying the gentlemen who admit youamongst them, and of not sharing their plans or risks; but that sort ofthing is quite out of order--no precedent for it. How do we know thatyou are not a spy, or could not be made one, since you say you owe usnothing, and hold us in such scorn? Truth is, we are all sick of you. You say you only come this once: very well, you have spun your yarn--nowgo. That's all we want; go in peace, and never trouble us again. Gentlemen, I move that General Jas. Be expelled this club, and requestedto withdraw. "

"I second it, " said the man whom Jasper had flung on the table. 

"Those who are in favour of the resolution, hold up their hands;--all--carried unanimously. General Jas. Is expelled. "

"Expel me!" said Jasper, who in the mean while, swaying to and fro hisbrawny bulk, had cleared the space round him, and stood resting his handson the heavy armchair from which he had risen. 

A hostile and simultaneous movement of the group brought four or five ofthe foremost on him. Up rose the chair on which Jasper had leaued--up itrose in his right hand, and two of the assailants fell as falls an ox tothe butcher's blow. With his left hand he wrenched a knife from a thirdof the foes, and thus armed with blade and buckler, he sprang on thetable, towering over all. Before him was the man with the revolver, agenteeler outlaw than the restticket-of-leave man, who had beentransported for forgery. "Shall I shoot him?" whispered this knave toCutts. Cutts drew back the hesitating arm. "No; the noise! bludgeonssafer. " Pounce, as Cutts whispered--pounce as a hawk on its quarry, darted Jasper's swoop on the Forger, and the next moment, flinging thechair in the faces of those who were now swarming up the table, Jasperwas armed with the revolver, which he had clutched from its startledowner, and its six barrels threatened death, right and left, beside andbefore and around him, as he turned from face to face. Instantly therefell a hush--instantly the assault paused. Every one felt that there nofaltering would make the hand tremble or the ball swerve. WhereeverJasper turned the foes recoiled. He laughed with audacious mockery as hesurveyed the recreants. 

"Down with your arms, each of you--down that knife, down that bludgeon. That's well. Down yours--there; yours--yours. What, all down! Pilethem here on the table at my feet. Dogs, what do you fear?-death. Thefirst who refuses dies. "

Mute and servile as a repentant Legion to a Caesar's order, the knavespiled their weapons. 

"Unbar the door, you two. You, orator Cutts, go in front; light acandle--open the street-door. So-so-so. Who will treat me with aparting cup--to your healths? Thank you, sir. Fall back there; standback--along the wall--each of you. Line my way. Ho, ho!--you harmme--you daunt me--you--you! Stop--I have a resolution to propose. Hearit, and cheer. 'That this meeting rescinds the resolution for theexpulsion of General Jasper, and entreats him humbly to remain, the prideand ornament of the club!' Those who are for that resolution, hold uptheir hands--as many as are against it, theirs. Carried unanimously. Gentlemen, I thank you--proudest day of my life--but I'll see you hangedfirst; and till that sight diverts me, --gentlemen, your health. "

Descending from his eminence, he passed slowly down the room unscathed, unmenaced, and, with a low mocking bow at the threshold, strode along thepassage to the streetdoor. There, seeing Cutts with the light in hishand, he uncocked the pistol, striking off the caps, and giving it to hisquondam associate, said: "Return that to its owner, with my compliments. One word-speak truth, and fear nothing. Did you send help to Darrell?""No; I swear it. "

"I am sorry for it. I should like to have owed so trusty a friend thatone favour. Go back to your pals. Understand now why I scorned to workwith such rotten tools. "

"A wonderful fellow, indeed!" muttered Cutts, as his eye followed thereceding form of the triumphant bravo. "All London might look to itself, if he had more solid brains, and less liquid fire in them. "

CHAPTER VIII. 

 JASPER LOSELY SLEEPS UNDER THE PORTICO FROM WHICH FALSEHOOD WAS BORNE BY BLACK HORSES. HE FORGETS A PROMISE, REWEAVES A SCHEME, VISITS A RIVER-SIDE, AND A DOOR CLOSES ON THE STRONG MAN AND THE GRIM WOMAN. 

Jasper, had satisfied the wild yearnings of his wounded vanity. He hadvindicated his claim to hardihood and address, which it seemed to him hehad forfeited in his interview with Darrell. With crest erect and apositive sense of elation, of animal joy that predominated over hunger, fatigue, remorse, he strided on--he knew not whither. He would not goback to his former lodgings; they were too familiarly known to the setwhich he had just flung from him, with a vague resolve to abjurehenceforth all accomplices, and trust to himself alone. The hour was nowlate--the streets deserted--the air bitingly cold. Must he at lastresign himself to the loathed dictation of Arabella Cram? Well, he nowpreferred even that to humbling himself to Darrell, after what hadpassed. Darrell's parting words had certainly implied that be would notbe as obdurate to entreaty as he had shown himself to threats. ButJasper was in no humour to entreat. Mechanically he continued to strideon towards the solitary district in which Arabella held her home; but thenight was now so far advanced that he shrunk from disturbing the grimwoman at that hour--almost as respectfully afraid of her dark eye andstern voice as the outlaws he had quitted were of his own crushinghand and levelled pistol. So finding himself in one of the large squaresof Bloomsbury, he gathered himself up under the sheltering porch of aspacious mansion, unconscious that it was the very residence whichDarrell had once occupied, and that from that portico the Black Horseshad borne away the mother of his wife. In a few minutes he was fastasleep--sleeping with such heavy deathlike soundness, that the policemanpassing him on his beat, after one or two vain attempts to rouse him, wasseized with a rare compassion, and suffered the weary outcast to slumberon. 

When Jasper woke at last in the grey dawn, he felt a strange numbness inhis limbs; it was even with difficulty that he could lift himself up. This sensation gradually wearing off, was followed by a quick tinglingdown the arms to the tips of the fingers. A gloomy noise rang in hisears, like the boom of funeral church-bells; and the pavement seemed tobe sliding from under him. Little heeding these symptoms, which heascribed to cold and want of food, and rather agreeably surprised not tofeel the gnaw of his accustomed pains, Jasper now betook himself toPodden Place. The house was still unclosed; and it was not till Jasper'sknock had been pretty often repeated, that the bolts were withdrawn fromthe door, and Bridgett Greggs appeared. "Oh, it is you, Mr. Losely, " shesaid, with much sullenness, but with no apparent surprise. "Mistressthought you would come while she was away, and I'm to get you the bedroomyou had, over the stationer's, six years ago, if you like it. You are totake your meals here, and have the best of everything; that's mistress'sorders. "

"Oh, Mrs. Crane is out of town, " said Jasper, much relieved; "where hasshe gone?"

"I don't know. "

"When will she be back?"

"In a few days; so she told me. Will you walk in, and have breakfast?Mistress said there was to be always plenty in the house--you might comeany moment. Please scrape your feet. "

Jasper heavily mounted into the drawing-room, and impatiently awaited thesubstantial refreshments, which were soon placed before him. The roomlooked unaltered, as if he had left it but the day before--the prim book-shelves--the empty birdcage--the broken lute--the patent easy-chair--thefootstool--the sofa, which had been added to the original furniture forhis express comfort, in the days when he was first adopted as a son-nay, on the hearth-rug the very slippers, on the back of the chair the verydressing-gown, graciously worn by him while yet the fairness of his formjustified his fond respect for it. 

For that day he was contented with the negative luxury of completerepose; the more so as, in every attempt to move, he felt the samenumbness of limb as that with which he had woke, accompanied by a kind ofpainful weight at the back of the head, and at the junction which thegreat seat of intelligence forms at the spine with the great mainspringof force; and, withal, a reluctance to stir, and a more than usualinclination to doze. But the next day, though these unpleasantsensations continued, his impatience of thought and hate of solitude madehim anxious to go forth and seek some distraction. No distraction leftto him but the gaming-table--no companions but fellow-victims in thatsucking whirlpool. Well, he knew a low gaming-house, open all day as allnight. Wishing to add somewhat to the miserable remains of the L1borrowed on the horse, that made all his capital, he asked Bridgett, indifferently, to oblige him with two or three sovereigns; if she hadthem not, she might borrow them in the neighbourhood till her mistressreturned. Bridgett answered, with ill-simulated glee, that her mistresshad given positive orders that Mr. Losely was to have everything hecalled for, except--money. Jasper coloured with wrath and shame; but hesaid no more--whistled--took his hat--went out--repaired to the gaming-house--lost his last shilling, and returned moodily to dine in PoddenPlace. The austerity of the room, the loneliness of the evening, begannow to inspire him with unmitigated disgust, which was added in freshaccount to his old score of repugnance for the absent Arabella. Theaffront put upon him in the orders which Bridgett had so faithfullyrepeated made him yet more distastefully contemplate the dire necessityof falling under the rigid despotism of this determined guardian: it waslike going back to a preparatory school, to be mulcted of pocket-money, and set in a dark corner! But what other resource? None but appeal toDarrell--still more intolerable; except--he paused in his cogitation, shook his head, muttered "No, no. " But that "except" would return!--except to forget his father's prayer and his own promise--except to huntout Sophy, and extract from the generosity, compassion, or fear of herprotectress, some such conditions as he would have wrung from Darrell. He had no doubt now that the girl was with Lady Montfort; he felt that, if she really loved Sophy, and were sheltering her in tenderrecollection, whether of Matilda or of Darrell himself, he might muchmore easily work on the delicate nerves of a woman, shrinking from allnoise and scandal, than he could on the stubborn pride of his resolutefather-in-law. Perhaps it was on account of Sophy--perhaps to plead forher--that Lady Montfort had gone to Fawley; perhaps the grief visible onthat lady's countenance, as he caught so hasty a glimpse of it, might beoccasioned by the failure of her mission. If so, there might be now somebreach or dissension between her and Darrell, which might render theMarchioness still more accessible to his demands. As for his father--ifJasper played his cards well and luckily, his father might never know ofhis disobedience; he might coax or frighten Lady Montfort into secresy. It might be quite unnecessary for him even to see Sophy; if she caughtsight of him, she would surely no more recognise his altered featuresthan Rugge had done. These thoughts gathered on him stronger andstronger all the evening, and grew into resolves with the next morning. He sallied out after breakfast--the same numbness; but he walked it off. Easy enough to find the address of the Marchioness of Montfort. He askedit boldly of the porter at the well-known house of the present Lord, and, on learning it, proceeded at once to Richmond--on foot, and thence to thesmall, scattered hamlet immediately contiguous to Lady Montfort's villa. Here he found two or three idle boatmen lounging near the river-side; andentering into conversation with them about their craft, which wassufficiently familiar to him, for he had plied the strongest oar on thattide in the holidays of his youth, he proceeded to inquiries, which werereadily and unsuspectingly answered. "Yes, there was a young lady withLady Montfort; they did not know her name. They had seen her often inthe lawn--seen her too, at church. She was very pretty; yes, she hadblue eyes and fair hair. " Of his father he only heard that "there hadbeen an old gentleman such as he described--lame, and with one eye--whohad lived some months ago in a cottage on Lady Montfort's grounds. Theyheard he had gone away. He had made baskets--they did not know if forsale; if so, perhaps for a charity. They supposed he was a gentleuian, for they heard he was some relation to the young lady. But LadyMontfort's head coachman lived in the village, and could, no doubt, givehim all the information he required. " Jasper was too wary to call on thecoachman; he had learned enough for the present. Had he prosecuted hisresearches farther, he might only have exposed himself to questions, andto the chance of his inquiries being repeated to Lady Montfort by one ofher servants, and thus setting her on her guard; for no doubt his fatherhad cautioned her against him. It never occurred to him that the old mancould already have returned; and those to whom he confined hisinterrogatories were quite ignorant of the fact. Jasper had no intentionto intrude himself that day on Lady Montfort. His self-love shrank frompresenting himself to a lady of such rank, and to whom he had been oncepresented on equal terms, as the bridegroom of her friend and theconfidential visitor to her mother, in habiliments that bespoke so uttera fall. Better, too, on all accounts, to appear something of agentleman; more likely to excite pity for suffering--less likely tosuggest excuse for rebutting his claims, and showing him to the door. Nay, indeed, so dressed, in that villanous pea-jacket, and with all otherhabiliments to match, would any servant admit him?--could he get intoLady Montfort's presence? He must go back--wait for Mrs. Crane's return. Doubtless she would hail his wish--half a reform in itself--to castoffthe outward signs of an accepted degradation. 

Accordingly he went back to town in much better spirits, and so absorbedin his hopes, that, when he arrived at Podden Place, he did not observethat, from some obliquity of vision, or want of the normal correspondencebetween will and muscle, his hand twice missed the knocker-wanderingfirst above, then below it; and that, when actually in his clasp, he didnot feel the solid iron: the sense of touch seemed suspended. Bridgettappeared. "Mistress is come back, and will see you. "

Jasper did not look charmed; he winced, but screwed up his courage, andmounted the stairs--slowly-heavily. Form the landing-place above glareddown the dark shining eyes that had almost quailed his bold spirit nearlysix years before; and almost in the same words as then, a voice asexulting, but less stern, said: "So you come at last to me, JasperLosely--you are come. " Rapidly-flittingly, with a step noiseless as aspectre's, Arabella Crane descended the stairs; but she did not, as whenhe first sought that house in the years before, grasp his hand or gazeinto his face. Rather, it was with a shrinking avoidance of his touch--with something like a shudder-that she glided by him into the opendrawing-room, beckoning him to follow. He halted a moment; he felt alonging to retreat--to fly the house; his superstitious awe of her verybenefits came back to him more strongly than ever. But her help at themoment was necessary to his very hope to escape all future need of her, and, though with a vague foreboding of unconjecturable evil, he steppedinto the room, and the door closed on both.